Live Streaming every show!
Refresh your browser to catch a show in progress!
Visit our Facebook page or YouTube channel!
But nothing beats being in the room with the music & the musicians!
Help us pay the band!
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]
Panthéa Flutes brings you an evening of quintets, quartets, trios, duos, and solos. Enjoy classic repertoire, from Bach, Bernstein, Debussy, and Muczynski, as well as contemporary pieces from Amano, Beeftink, Green, Sakai, and more. Tessa Moore – C flute + alto Josie Clements – C flute + piccolo flute Sha Jin – C flute – piccolo flute Lucy Kaye – C flute – piccolo flute Gabby Benuto – C flute & bass flute $25 cover charge; cash at the door, please. byob. Student $10; kids free
Read More
Henry Hung, trumpet. Scott Foster, guitar. Charles Thomas, bass. Mark Lee, drums. byob, and a twenty for the band! A note from Scott, as we approach this date –– the last in his long-running 6pm Third-Fridays happy hour shows! (Though not the end of Scott’s Third-Fridays residency at Bird & Beckett, which will continue in May et seq., with a 7:30pm start time.) Says Scott, “For close to 25 years, happy hour Fridays at Bird and Beckett has been part of our lives. In fact it has changed my life in so many ways by giving me the opportunity to grow as a musician — from the very earliest days, as the youngster amidst the masters learning repertoire and details about the music, to more recent opportunities to challenge myself by putting together bands that have stretched me into new musical landscapes. In the end, it has always been about the…
Read More
Macy Blackman, piano and vocals. Bing Nathan, bass. Larry Vann, drums and vocals. $20 cover charge / byob. Students $10. For a reservation, call the bookshop at 415-586-3733. Tonight, piano professor Macy Blackman and the Groove Merchant, Larry Vann inject a goodly dose of vocals into two sets of Motown, R&B, soul and blues, with Bing Nathan holding down the bass line. Born in 1948 about 30 miles downriver from Philadelphia, in Wilmington, Delaware, Macy’s grandfather started him on piano in 1951. Growing up, he spent his summers five hours south of Wilmington at the foot of the Chesapeake Bay in Newport News, Virginia, so he ingested both southern R&B and country music and the early rock & roll and R&B of Philly. The first thing he remembers trying to play was Philadelphia’s nascent rocker Bill Haley’s “Crazy Man Crazy.” In 1959, Macy met other precocious Delaware pre-teens also starting…
Read More
Tim Price, alto sax Tod Dickow, tenor sax Bob Brumbeloe, guitar Jim Kerwin, bass Curt Moore, drums $25 cover charge / byob Students $10 For a reservation, call the bookshop at 415-586-3733 An all-star band of jazz players renders a batch of compositions from the unique musical mind of pianist Lenny Tristano, with arrangements by the leader, alto player Tim Price. Lennie Tristano studied for bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music in Chicago before moving to New York City in 1946. He played with leading bebop musicians and formed his own small bands, which soon displayed some of his early interests – contrapuntal interaction of instruments, harmonic flexibility and rhythmic complexity. His quintet in 1949 recorded the first free group improvisations. Tristano’s innovations continued in 1951, with the first overdubbed, improvised jazz recordings, and two years later, when he recorded an atonal improvised solo piano piece that was based on…
Read More
Tay naja nitajtaketzki achtu tik Nawat / Mis primeras palabras en nahuat / My First Words in Nahuat is San Francisco Mission District poet and childrens’ book writer Jorge Argueta’s latest and very personal book, adding to nearly two dozen earlier works for children and readers of poetry. Jorge grew up in Santo Domingo de Guzmán El Salvador, where his grandmother, an indigenous healer, told him stories from his indigenous heritage and their belief in a human-nature connection, instilling in him great respect for the environment and appreciation for oral tradition. He spent time in the city helping his parents run a small restaurant as well as in the countryside, helping his grandparents tend to their farm, but left El Salvador when he was 19 years old due to the ongoing Salvadoran Civil War, and arrived in San Francisco in the 1980s. His work reflects the Latino experience and heritage;…
Read More
Ben Stolorow, piano. Peter Barshay, bass. Vince Lateano, drums. $20 per person donation encouraged; byob. Students, $5-$10. Kids free. Vince Lateano is one of the great jazz treasures keeping San Francisco culture rich in spirit and tradition. He’s a Sacramento kid who rousted out of the Army in 1965 and settled into the City by the Bay in 1966. He’s been a key player in the San Francisco jazz scene ever since, with indomitable good cheer and an easy going facility on the drum kit that never fails to provide the swing that propels this music. Vince has known and played extensively with all the great talents that have made San Francisco renowned as a major hub of jazz culture worldwide. When Vince took up residence in the City, the drummer John Markham, a legendary figure in these parts, took him under his wing, subbing out dates to Vince whenever…
Read More
It’s been way too long since Hamir has made the Bird & Beckett scene! And Andrew? Well, we never! But we’re looking forward to hearing him. And Ben Goldberg! You remember Ben from that first wave of Klezmer bands moderne… and you remember him from all the quirky wonderful iterations of groups with strange names and delightful music that he’s brought through the shop, making Bird & Beckett as famous as any jazz venue on the planet not named Blue Note or Keystone or Village Vanguard! Come have a good time! Bring a twenty for the musicians. That’s not much when you stop to think about it. Think of what creativity you’re enabling to be born! And bring something to sip if you like. We have Hetch Hetchy water, cups and a corkscrew. What more could a body ask? Call us if you want to reserve a seat. 415-586-3733. Just…
Read More
Tony Johnson brings the 230 Jones Street crew this week! Saxophonist Charlie McCarthy is on the front line. A finer player than Charlie, you’ll not find anywhere on the planet. He takes flight at the downbeat and never fails to swing. Insouciant Sam Cady plays the piano with hip elan and effortless dexterity; composes the occasional tune as well. On bass, Chuck Bennett, who knows his instrument intimately and provides the pulse that keeps the music flowing. And then there’s Tony, himself. Tony the Tiger, he’s affectionately called, who’s been on the San Francisco jazz scene swinging and rattling out the rhythm since 1959. This is our legacy band, harkening back to the trio that started it all in 2002 as a weekly jazz party helmed by tenor player Chuck Peterson, pictured here with Tony and bassist Dean Reilly, original members of the 230 Jones Street, Local 6, Literary Jazz…
Read More
Bay Area guitarist George Cotsirilos returns to the intimate language of solo nylon-string guitar on In the Wee Hours, due for release by OA2 Records on May 15th, performed live for you at Bird & Beckett on Friday, April 24th. Illuminating beloved standards and two original compositions with patience and depth, George recorded these tunes in unedited first takes over a period of several years. Gathered on this, his seventh recording on OA2, the album unfolds with the quiet authority and refined lyricism that have defined George’s career—from his early solo and trio recordings to his celebrated quartet release, Refuge–recordings praised for their fluidity and swing. On In the Wee Hours, classics such as “Come Sunday,” “Haunted Heart” and the title ballad are rendered with a meticulous touch and subtle dynamic shadings that reveal the hidden architecture of each melody. Alternating between exquisite instruments by José Ramirez and Alberto Morales,…
Read More
Darren Johnston, peace cannon Danny Lubin-Laden, trombone Liberty Ellman, electric guitar Mat Muntz, bass Tim Bulkley, drums $25 / byob. Students $10. For a reservation, call the bookshop at 415-586-3733. We’re more than pleased to present this all-star aggregation of fine musicians happy in the outer realms of jazz, brought together for the occasion by Darren Johnston. Darren’s curiosity, spontaneous creativity and openness to the intricacies of the abstract groove, riffing off concepts of improvisation, rhythm and structure explored by the 1980s Brooklyn M-Base Collective, has no apparent bounds. Guitarist and composer Liberty Ellman, English-born, raised in Brooklyn, found the roots of his music in the M-Base activity that roiled San Francisco’s acid jazz waters in the 1990s, as Steve Coleman, Greg Osby and others moved fluidly between those poles of exploration and performance. Tim Bulkley and Mat Muntz are naturals in their ability to ride and propel the waves…
Read More
Bring your talent and your friends! Jam session on the last Sunday of each month at 5pm! Contribute what you can to the care and feeding of the trio! Cash, please!
Read More
Eileen Myles in conversation with Nathan Kernan, author of A Day Like Any Other: The Life of James Schuyler (FSG, 2025), on the life and language of James Schuyler, with additional discussion & reading of Schuyler’s work by Tom Carey, Jason Morris, & Hannah Zeavin. * Born in Chicago in 1923, James Schuyler grew up in Washington, DC, and upstate New York before moving to New York City in 1944, where he fell into the social orbit of the poet W. H. Auden. After two years in Italy, he returned to New York in 1949 and began to publish his first poems. There he met fellow poets O’Hara, Ashbery, Guest, and Koch. For many years he lived outside the city in Southampton, Long Island, in a close relationship with the painter Fairfield Porter and his family, and spent his summers in Maine. Schuyler’s subsequent years in New York City were marked by…
Read More
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…
Read More
Here’s a little backstory, to get us to where we now stand… in re: the Fridays, anyway… Read on! And thanks for being part of the Bird & Beckett story in the present day. /s/Eric Whittington, proprietor, since 1999 Once upon a time, in the late spring of 1999, Bird & Beckett opened its doors down on Diamond Street where Manzoni now serves exquisite Northern Italian cuisine to the ravenous epicures who’ve found their way to Glen Park. We took on the nicely appointed 1,000 square foot space from the four-year-old Glen Park Books, and paid our rent to Manhal Jweinat, still to this day the crepemaster behind the counter of his kitty-corner coffee house, Higher Grounds, which he opens in the early morning before jamming across the street to handle his love child, Manzoni through the dinner hours. Amazing fella, and still a good friend, that Manhal! Within…
Read More
Ricardo Peixoto and Carlos Oliveira, Brazilian guitarists, perform in duo Saturday night at Bird & Beckett. $20 cover charge (cash at the door, please); byob. Students $10. For a reservation, call the bookshop at 415-586-3733. Reserved seats are held until the music starts. Born in Rio de Janeiro, guitarist, composer and arranger Ricardo Peixoto came to the U.S. by way of a scholarship to the Berklee College of Music, and later settled in the Bay Area. An inspired improviser with a keen compositional sense, Ricardo’s eloquent style evokes images far beyond his Brazilian territory. In addition to his most recent recording ‘Scary Beautiful’, Peixoto’s long-standing partnership with vocalist/composer Claudia Villela has produced the acclaimed CD ‘Inverse Universe’. Peixoto has recorded and performed with, among others, Flora Purim and Airto, Claudia Villela, Bud Shank, Dom Um Romão, Claudio Roditi, Toots Thielemans and Dori Caymmi. Read more here. Guitarist, composer, arranger, and…
Read More
Sign Up for Our Weekly Emails!
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
To take our SURVEY, click here, and help the BBCLP get to know you better! As Duke Ellington always said, we love you madly...
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
