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653 Chenery Street in San Francisco's Glen Park neighborhood
Open to walk-in trade and browsing Tuesday to Sunday noon to six
phone: 1-415-586-3733 email: [email protected]
Jazz – Jazz – Jazz y más! _____ Friday, January 2, 7:30pm: Andrew Higgins Trio {$20} _____ Saturday, January 3, 7:30pm: Noel Jewkes Quintet {$25} _____ Sunday, January 4, 5pm: Avotcja & Modúpue {$25-$40 sliding scale} _____ Reserve a seat by calling the bookshop at (415) 586-3733. We’ll hold your reservation until the music starts. No advance ticket sales; plan to pay with cash at the door, and byob. _____ Friday, 1/2/26, 7:30-9:30pm – $20 The Andrew Higgins Trio Colin Hogan, piano Andrew Higgins, bass Bryan Fishler, drums Ring in the New Year with new music! Andrew, Bryan and Colin will mix new and old to explore philosophical, sonic, and mathematical boundaries of music. What better way to start the year than with something that you definitely didn’t hear in 2025. A good hangover cure, physically and spiritually. ________ Saturday, 1/3/26, 7:30-9:30pm – $25 The Noel Jewkes Quintet Noel Jewkes,…
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Poetry – Jazz – Jazz – Jazz – Country _____ Thursday, January 8, 7:00 – 8:30pm: Sixteen Rivers Press poetry reading {free} _____ Friday, January 9, 6:00 – 8:00pm: Eric & the In Crowd [Songs that start with “C”] {$20} _____ Friday, January 9, 8:30 – 10:00pm: Chris Aschman & Skyy Daddy {$20} _____ Saturday, January 10, 7:30 – 9:30pm: Triology [Dickow / Kerwin / Moore] {$20} _____ Sunday, January 11, 5:00 – 7:00pm: Nashville Honeymoon {$25} _____ Reserve a seat by calling the bookshop at (415) 586-3733. We’ll hold your reservation until the music starts. No advance ticket sales; plan to pay with cash at the door, and byob. _____ Thursday, January 8, 7:00 – 8:30pm Sixteen Rivers Press poetry reading Patrick Cahill, Terry Ehret, Moira Magnussen, and translator Nancy Morales _____ Friday, January 9, 6:00 – 8:00pm Eric & the In Crowd play sngs that start with “C” Eric…
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The posts that follow show you what’s come and gone. Search the videos on our youtube channel or facebook page to find evidence of what you remember, or what you missed! Then, make sure you catch the next thing that catches your fancy. The live streams are great, but live music in a room with folks you know or ought to get to know, that’s irreplaceable…
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Tuesday, December 30, 7:30pm {$25} Levit/Behrman Collective Joel Behrman, trumpet; Jesse Levit, saxophone; Matt Clark, piano; Joshua Thurston-Milgrom, bass; Jeff Marrs, drums. Hard bop and contemporary sounds; originals and jazz classics. Nothing beats a trumpet/saxophone front line with a solid rhythm section, and these players are among the very best of the local scene. Here’s video from the quintet’s 4/17/25 Bird & Beckett performance (click on the image to go to the recording): ***** Reserve a seat by calling the bookshop at (415) 586-3733. We’ll hold your reservation until the music starts. No advance ticket sales; plan to pay with cash at the door, and byob. ***** Bird & Beckett invites you to enjoy live jazz in the bookshop every weekend, a long tradition that dates back to 2002 in Glen Park. Shows every Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and other events sprinkled through the week — author events, poetry…
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Friday 12/19, 6-8pm: Scott Foster / David Boyce Duo {$20}…Friday 12/19, 8:30-10pm: Tommy Noble Trio {$20}…Saturday, 12/20, 7:30-9:30pm: Steve Carter Quartet {$25}. Sunday, 12/21, 5-7pm: Vince Lateano Trio with guest Erik Jekabson on trumpet {$20}. Sunday, 12/21, 7:30-9:30pm: Tim Lin Quartet “Heartfelt” Album release concert, with Charles Chen, piano; Nick Panoutsos, bass; Jason Tiemann, drums {$20}. ***** Make seat reservations by calling the bookshop at 415-586-3733. We’ll hold your reservation until the music starts. No advance ticket sales; plan to pay with cash at the door, and byob. Thanks for supporting live jazz in San Francisco. We’ve been presenting four to five shows a week for several years, with the tradition here dating back to 2002, nearly a quarter of a century! Poetry and other literary and community events as well. ***** Sunday 12/21, 5pm: The Vince Lateano Trio with guest Erik Jekabson, trumpet. Drummer Vince…
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Novelist Bart Schneider with poet Genine Lentine Thursday at 7pm Eric & the In Crowd Friday at 6pm $20 Russian Telegraph, a sextet, Friday at 8:30pm $30 The Michael Mitchell Quartet Saturday at 7:30pm $20 Deep Thicket Dwellers live album recording Sunday at 7pm $20 Saturday, noon to 3pm, while Santa bounces the kiddies on his knee down the street and internalizes their consumerist dreams (that’s Christmas, baby!), Art Walk SF sponsors a pop-up with artist Angelia Lim in the shop. To expand on all that high hilarity: Thursday at 7, writer Bart Schneider brings us Giacometti’s Last Ride, following the Swiss sculptor and painter Alberto Giacometti in Paris during his last years. Once Giacometti meets Caroline, the “working girl” who…
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Michael Mitchell is a fabulous drummer who came to the Bay Area from NYC several years ago, to our great good fortune. The quartet comprises Raffi Garabedian, sax; Michael Potter, piano; Nico Martinez, bass; and Mike on drums. $20 cover charge (cash at the door, please); byob. students, $10. For a reservation, as true for all of our shows, you can, and should, call the shop at 415-586-3733.
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Join us Wednesday, December 10th at 7pm for a benefit concert of chamber music by the Lowell Ensemble, led by Janet Popesco Archibald on oboe and English horn, with Karen Hutchinson on piano, Vicky Ehrlich on cello,Paul Ehrlich on viola and Zachariah Spellman on tuba. Call the store at 415-586-3733 to reserve a seat! Donate any amount, from $5 to $500! And don’t worry, $5 is fine, $20 is nice. More is nice, too! We’re grateful for your long-time, generous support! Come and enjoy beautiful classical compositions and holiday favorites by veteran players from the San Francisco Ballet and Opera Orchestras.
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Eight years ago, in 2017, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s “Roots, Jazz & American Music” B.Mus. program welcomed its first crop of young, supremely talented aspiring jazz musicians. After 100 years as an august bastion of western classical music, the Conservatory had finally given due recognition to America’s own true classical music, the music developed over four centuries from the musical traditions of West Africa, forged in the tragedies of slavery and the joys of creative oral expression. The RJAM program has served its students well. Many of the young players you hear coming through Bird & Beckett are current students and alumni of the program, developing into amazing professional players before our very eyes and ears. This evening on the Bird & Beckett bandstand you’ll hear a combo comprising current RJAM students, including some finishing their senior year, as the program prepares to graduate its second full cycle…
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Joel Behrman, trumpet. Karl Dray, trombone. Tod Dickow, saxophone. Matt Clark, piano. Jeff Saxton, bass. Greg Gotelli, drums. $25 cover charge; byob. Students $10. For a reservation, call the shop at 415-586-3733. The San Francisco Sextet features first-call musicians always on full display with talents equal to the best jazz players on the planet and an ever expanding book of tunes that catches the hard bop spirit of the Blue Note and Prestige years. You’ll always be pleased and floored by this band and the consummate skill and momentum of the practitioners on stage. Trumpeter Joel Behrman grew up in Belleville, Illinois, a St. Louis suburb. At age 9 he started on trombone, his first instrument, a horn he still plays frequently today. He went on to earn his music degree at the University of Miami, studying with world-class improvisers like Ira Sullivan, Barry Ries, John Bailey, Jason Carder and…
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Two shows on Friday, December 5th! John Calloway’s Fall to Winter Musings at 6pm followed by The Lost Trio at 8:30pm. 6-8pm – Dr. John Calloway brings a quartet featuring Greg Jacobs on piano, Sam Bevan on bass and Scott Amendola on drums, with John leading the combo on an array of flutes. John had a long career as an educator in the SFUSD and at San Francisco State University, but has pursued an even longer career as one of the top West Coast jazz players whose work has carried him to Cuba, the Philippines and throughout the world. This “Fall to Winter Musings” at Bird & Beckett has been an annual occasion for a fresh assessment of where he’s at musically and personally, and always features top players from the jazz and Latin music scene. The marvelous vocalist Angie Doctor will join the date for a few tunes on…
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$15 cover charge; students $10; kids free Reservations, call the shop at 415-586-3733. Jennifer Cleary is a singer and actress with a background in pop, jazz, musical theater and vocal improvisation. She cut her teeth performing with rock bands in New York City and has recorded and toured nationally. Know in the Bay Area from her work leading the doo-wop and soul cover band Jenni and the Jerks, she has also appeased locally in musical theater productions, including leading roles in The Speakeasy, Chicago, and Anything Goes. By day she is a speech-language pathologist, with a specialization in voice rehabilitation, and offers private singing lessons through her studio, ExploreVoice Studios (www.explorevoice.com). David is a long time Glen Park resident, and Bird and Beckett shopper. He’s been acting in local theatre productions for years and was most recently seen as Sir Andrew Aguecheek in a production of Twelfth Night at The…
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Karina Denike, vocals. Tom Griesser, clarinet and sax. Michael MacIntosh, piano. Joe Kyle, Jr., bass. Randy Lee Odell, drums. $30 for adults, cash please! Students $15. Kids free. Jump jazz, rhythm & blues, fresh as a daisy with deep roots in the ’40s & ’50s! A Thanksgiving tradition at Bird & Beckett. Do come! BYOB and those desserts you just couldn’t finish! Sorry, but the seats have all been reserved by now. $20 standing room only! Queue up at the door before the show starting at 4:30pm. Thanks, Cottontails for building a fantastic audience!!!
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Just one show Friday the 28th instead of our typical Friday double header, but you’ll get two swinging sets of jazz starting at 7:30pm. A twenty dollar bill gets you the evening when The 230 Jones Street, Local 6 Literary Jazz Band takes the stage. Long a staple of Bird & Beckett’s bookings, this quartet has its roots in the earliest days of our steady weekly jazz programming. We’ve never missed a Friday (save two during the pandemic) in 22 years. 230 Jones Street was the address of the Musicians Union Local 6 headquarters back in the late 1950s and early 1960s when these musicians were getting their start as professional jazz musicians and enjoying the rabble rousing of agitating for fair pay while living the gigging life. The four musicians in this band — Tony Johnson leading the charge from the drum kit, Charlie McCarthy on sax and flute,…
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SUPPORT BIRD & BECKETT - DONATE TODAY!
Your donation to the Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project helps us pay for a multitude of operating expenses necessary to present, promote and preserve local music, poetry, and more.
Help us keep the arts alive and thriving!
The Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project was created in 2007 "to present, document and archive the creative work of significant living writers and musicians in the San Francisco Bay Area, for a neighborhood audience and future generations," continuing the work we began when the store was established in 1999.
We continue to present a full slate of programming of live music and poetry readings, and produce a literary journal and poetry chapbooks, and we seek and welcome your continued financial support by way of donations.
Click on "donate" in the navigation bar above. Better yet, make a check out to the “Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project” and drop it off or mail it to:
Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project
653 Chenery Street
San Francisco, CA 94131
Call us at (415) 586-3733 to find out how else you might lend your support.
TAKE OUR SURVEY
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The Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project
Our events are put on under the umbrella of the Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project (the "BBCLP"). That's how we fund our ambitious schedule of 300 or so concerts and literary events every year.
The BBCLP is a [Read More ]
The Independent Musicians Alliance
Gigging musicians! You have nothing to lose but your lack of a collective voice to achieve fair wages for your work!
The IMA can be a conduit for you, if you join in to make it work.
https://www.independentmusiciansalliance.org/
Read more here - Andy Gilbert's Feb 25 article about the IMA from KQED's site
