653 Chenery Street
in San Francisco's Glen Park neighborhood
1-415-586-3733
[email protected]
Open to walk-in trade and browsing
Tuesday to Sunday
noon to six
Live Streams every weekend!
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!
It’s all jazz at Bird & Beckett– except when it’s lit’rature, poetry, philosophy, belles lettres– or… ROCKABILLY RAVE-UPS & COUNTRY CROONING! CLASSIC BALLADS OF WINE, WOMEN, SONG AND LONG-HAUL TRUCKING! TODAY FROM 5-7PM!! Mitch Polzac & the Royal Deuces featuring pedal steel master Joe Goldmark! Bring a twenty for the band and your own durned beverage. You won’t be sorry you do, only if you don’t!
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This concert will feature a Jugalbandi (duet) presentation of traditional North Indian classical stringed instruments. Bruce Hamm (sarod) is a disciple of the revered maestro Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. He has pursued a serious and continuous study of classical instrumental and vocal music over nearly 4 decades. Bruce accompanied his Guru Ali Akbar Khan onstage on multiple occasions and has performed numerous solo concerts throughout the US and India. Joanna Mack (sitar) initially studied under the guidance of the Pandit Deepak Choudhury in Kolkata. She then attended classes at the Ali Akbar Khan College of Music with Ustad Ali Akbar Khan and now continues her musical studies with sitarist Pandit Partha Chatterjee and her husband Bruce Hamm. They will be accompanied on tabla by Ferhan Qureshi, a disciple of the legendary tabla maestro Ustad Tari Khan. $20 cover charge; byob To reserve seats, call the bookshop at 415-586-3733 during business hours,…
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For decades, Eric Shifrin has been wowing the swells and the swindlers, the singers and the swingers, the rowdy and the restless and the resolute barflies in dives, penthouses, lounges and lobbies and swank supper clubs — wherever he plays, that’s where you’ll find the in crowd. Standards, chestnuts, curios. He’s a gruff stylist with superb technique. And Bird & Beckett is his second home. Join us on the second Friday of every month for two sets of piano trio pleasure, tonight with Kurt Ribak on bass and Mark Lee on drums. Staying for a full set or the whole show? $20 per adult is the nice price; byob. $10 for teens and students; kids free. Reservations not necessary, but if you’re coming from a distance, it’s not a bad idea. Call us at 415-586-3733 during business hours, Tuesday to Sunday, noon to six. Or email us at [email protected]
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Out of Pittsburgh, Ahmad Jamal made the most exquisite piano trio jazz that’s ever been heard. On piano, Charles Chen evokes that music and adds his own sensibilities in unity with drummer Benny Amón and bassist Mikiya Matsuda. Here’s video of the trio’s last Bird & Beckett outing…
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The Deep End started out as a rehearsal band of five long-time Bay Area musicians who hoped to make the best of the pandemic, to explore lesser known music that would be more fun, interesting, and challenging than what we often played at the usual gigs. Drawn to innovative composers—classic giants such as Shorter, Dameron, Monk, and Ellington as well as contemporary artists many folks may not know — their repertoire and the arrangements that evolved over weekly sessions have let them dive into the deep end of this music. Hence, The Deep End: Gerald Beckett (flute), Ari Caprow (guitar), Michael Gold (sax), Ken Lenga (bass), Evan Williams (drums). $25 cover charge; byob. Teens and students, $10. Kids welcome, and free. For reservations, call the shop at 415-586-3733 during store hours, Tuesday to Sunday, noon to six.
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Make it a habit!
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The Lotus Sutra is an operatic religious script, a poetic text. Epically visionary, yet utterly concrete. The poetry is only one element upon the palette of enlightened consciousness, and the Lotus Sutra teaches that enlightened consciousness is a possibility for all. It may be surprising to think of this as an ancient truth, but the Lotus Sutra is an ancient text. It is the source of many creative connections that can be made with contemporary concerns. Walker Brents III has been musing at Bird & Beckett on diverse topics in poetry, philosophy, mythology and culture on a near monthly basis for two decades. He shows no sign of flagging. These days, post-pandemic, it’s primarily a live stream, found on our facebook page and youtube channel, but you can slip into the shop to listen in person if you like. Just give us a call the afternoon of the “show” –…
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The Cornelius Cardew Choir, Thingamajigs Performance Group and Pet the Tiger Instrument Inventors Collective celebrate the life and work of composer Pauline Oliveros and the release of the new book of text scores inspired by her “deep listening”. Several of the artists have scores published in this volume which will be performed alongside works by Oliveros. Audience participation in the “sonic meditations” is encouraged. $25 suggested donation; byob. No reservations, except for those with mobility issues. 415-586-3733. The performers: The Cardew Choir, founded in Berkeley on May Day 2001, sings at the intersection of inclusive community and experimental music, strongly influenced by Cornelius Cardew and his circle in the 1960’s and ‘70’s in England. We draw inspiration from the experimental music tradition and musicians such as Pauline Oliveros and John Cage. We recognize our music-making as enacting healthy political economy, with respect for individual contributions and high regard for the…
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Allan Harris is on tour out of NYC, and meets up with fellow New Yorker/acclaimed guitarist Freddie Bryant and bi-coastal drummer Sylvia Cuenca–with the estimable Doug Miller on bass–for two sets of poetry inflected jazz and jazz inflected poetry… $30 cover charge; byob. Call the shop to reserve. Harris, long acclaimed for his vocalese, is touring in advance of a fresh album with a superb band, including Sylvia on drums: “Allan Harris Live at the Blue LLama,” recorded live in Ann Arbor. Freddie Bryant was proclaimed “a brilliant young guitarist and composer” by Kenny Burrell right out the gate. Since those youthful years, he’s blazed a brilliant path, and the recording of his epic song cycle with an all-star case, “Upper West Side Love Story” was named by Downbeat as one of the “Best CDs of 2023.” Allan Harris “Poetry of Jazz” “Poetry of Jazz” is where the spoken word…
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Good news! In mid-September, we signed on with a fiscal sponsor–the 501(c)3 nonprofit Jazz in the Neighborhood–and are now offering tax-deductibility for your donations to the Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project (“BBCLP”). Write your check to Jazz in the Neighborhood and note “BBCLP deductible donation” in the memo line, then drop it off at the shop or mail it to us. We’ll forward it to Jazz in the Neighborhood. Cash is fine if you prefer. Or donate through Paypal, once or on a recurring basis. Bright moments ahead, thanks to you! The BBCLP makes it possible for Bird & Beckett to present live cultural events, paying a guaranteed fair wage to the musicians and at least a modest stipend to our featured poets, and also to pursue our publishing activities. Where it stands now: In 2024, Bird & Beckett celebrated a quarter century in business since our doors opened…
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Bird & Beckett’s events open to the publichave been back since mid-June 2021.Mask up if you’re inclined, and do come in!(Not vaxxed? Please get vaxxed and be safer!) Jazz, poetry & morelive in the shopand live streamed Come to 653 Chenery if you’re in town! Doors open at 7:20 for our 7:30 shows.$20 cover for trios and quartets$25 for quintets, $30 for sextets, etc.Cash at the door please!BYOB and BYOglass, and pack out what you pack in! Please feel free to wear a mask in the shop.We trust the science and its processes,and we trust SF’s DPH to keep us up to date on best practices! Advised best practices as of early September 2021 was to wear a mask indoors around people. If that makes you a little more comfortable being inside this winter, then do feel free. Sure you’re vaccinated and even if you contract the virus it’s unlikely…
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Hungry to hear some of Bird & Beckett’s past live streams? On the home page you can scroll down to read the individual posts for the shows we’ve mounted in the past several months, a hint of what’s gone down since the pandemic lock-down began. In more amazing times, it would take you right back to the very first show of the current period, back on March 12, 2020, but that beautiful skein is no longer quite so easily accessed. Still, the evidence is there for those who dig. The March 12, 2020 show that signaled the shift was a Thursday evening performance by New York saxophonists Jessica and Tony Jones, both alumni of the Berkeley High jazz program, with NYC bassist Stomu Takeishi and local hero Deszon X. Claiborne on drums. The quartet’s booking for the night before at the Backroom over in Berkeley had been cancelled. A few…
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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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Independent reporter Denise Sullivan brings the SF Lives series to Bird & Beckett for a Sunday morning livestream. This month’s guest is Dee Allen, launching his 10th volume of poetry, The Mansion: Liberated Zones Inside The Controlled Inner City (Gnashing Teeth Publishing).”Named in honour of his first real home in the Bay Area, The Mansion covers Allen’s first five years surviving homelessness in San Francisco by squatting numerous buildings, whether long-abandoned or new ones under construction.” Allen is an African-Italian performance poet based in Oakland, California. Active in creative writing & Spoken Word since the early 1990s, he’s the author of 10 books–Boneyard, Unwritten Law, Stormwater, Skeletal Black, Elohi Unitsi, Rusty Gallows: Passages Against Hate, Plans, Crimson Stain, Discovery and his newest, The Mansion–with 78 anthology appearances under his figurative belt so far. The SFLives Project, a series of candid conversations with San Francisco’s artists, activists and free thinkers, was conceived as a print media column…
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Francis Wong, saxophone. Erika Oba, flute, piccolo, piano, melodica. Chris Trinidad, bass, synth. Carrie Jahde, drums. Helen Palma, vocals. $25 cover charge; byob. For a reservation, call the shop at 415-586-3733. “Zen of Glenn” is a new CD recording of the works of the late composer and activist Glenn Horiuchi (1955-2000), featuring arrangements by longtime Horiuchi collaborator, saxophonist Francis Wong. The goal of the project is to excavate, preserve, and carry forth the profound artistic and cultural legacy that Horiuchi left after his much too soon passing at age 45. Horiuchi is known for embodying his political, cultural, and spiritual experiences during the emergence of Asian American Consciousness into a well documented and lauded body of musical and interdisciplinary work. Trinidad, Oba and Wong, collaborating with the support of Asian Improv aRts and Chris Trinidad Music, have integrated Horiuchi’s writings and compositions into performances several times since initiating the project,…
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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.
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We're immensely appreciative of Jazz in the Neighborhood for having stepped in as our temporary fiscal sponsor for a few months, while we straightened out some paperwork to get nonprofit status restored to the BBCLP. We're happy to say that's been done, and all past, present, and future donations made directly to the BBCLP are fully tax-deductible!
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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
