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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]
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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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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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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Jim Peterson, saxophone Scott Foster, guitar Joe Kyle, Jr., bass Larry Vann, drums $20 cash cover charge at the door, byob. A Thanksgiving weekend tradition at Bird & Beckett! New Squatoolas are ready to take you on a joyous romp in a New Orleans mode, playing the music of NOLA jazz, funk and soul pioneers – The Meters, Smokey Johnson, Fats Domino, The Nevilles, The Wild Tchoupitoulas, ‘Fess – as well as original compositions in the style and with the vibe of those and other greats of that bayou metropolis. Just the tonic you want and need in these times! Bounce back from your Thanksgiving indulgence! Shake it down & rave it up in the company of good friends and companions!
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Touring out of Minneapolis, Cody Steinmann is a prolific jazz guitarist/composer showcasing material from his new album, “Stray Bullet Blues,” with pianist Adam Hersh and drummer Benjamin Ring, both up from Los Angeles, and local hero Giulio Xavier Cetto on bass. (Note, please, that Adam Hersh is subbing in for Javier Santiago tonight on piano.) $20 cover charge / byob. Students $10. For a reservation, call the shop at 415-586-3733. Sample Cody’s wares here– https://codysteinmann.bandcamp.com/ Renowned as an outstanding composer and improviser, Cody Steinmann has worked with Ben Williams, JD Allen, Javier Santiago, Russ Johnson, Nic Cacioppo, Solomon Parham, Anthony Fung, Max Gerl, and Fode Bangoura. Cody’s genre-defying style, technical prowess, and deep emotional expression resonates deeply in the receptive ear.
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It’s been pointed out that singer-songwriter Maurice Tani has a tendency toward long titles… This evening, he and pianist Henry Salvia will be joined by bassist Greg Kehret and drummist Ken “KO” Owen at Bird & Beckett in old King Cisco for a set Tani has given the sprawlingly verbose title “Sangoire: Dark Songs of Romance. Rumination on matters of organized crime, the fashion industry and unrequited love.” A sample here: Take Me With You When You Go Too Far A rye-to-wry guitarslingin’ songwriter, Frisco native Maurice Tani’s supercaliofornigraphic worldview comes from the KYA signal of his childhood, the ’68 Haight Street vibe of his youth, workingman’s Texas roadhouses for 5 sets a night, 7 days a week, top 40, soul, hard rock and country music depending on the venue, his return to the potato patch fog bank, Divisadero, Roy Loney’s Phantom Movers, fifty more years of amazing songwriting,…
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Friday, November 21st – 6pm to 8pm – its the Scott Foster/Ron Vincent Guitar Duo! A twenty dollar bill works wonders to support the Jazz Happy Hour that’s been continuous since the fall of 2002, 23 years and counting… byob… bring the kids… kids and student musicians get in free this evening. If your biological clock is set a bit later, come out at 8:30pm for the Joel Behrman Quartet with Dahveed Behroozi, Marcus Shelby and Sylvia Cuenca. A twenty works for that one as well! Students pay $10 for the late show. The kids should be in bed by then! On Saturday, the 22nd, our 7:30pm show features the quintet of multi-reed genius Hal Richards, with Henry Hung on trumpet, Rumi Abe on piano, Ron Belcher on bass and Dan Foltz on drums. The Sunday 5pm show features country noir guitarslinger/songwriter Maurice Tani and his band! Click through to…
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Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring, published in 1962, helped spark the environmental movement, offering us a comprehensive understanding of the intricate and fragile relationships between living beings and the oceanic environment. Her previous three books, now called the Sea Trilogy, convey truly unfathomable mysteries, both scientifically accurate and poetically charged. Her childhood in the Alleghanies, her career at the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries in the years of the great depression, her heroic support of her family, her intrepid warrior-spirit as an educator with a bully pulpit, facing down the established scientific consensus at the time, even as she battled ill health, are a few of the things that make her story so inspiring. Walker Brents III addresses topics literary, mythological and mystical once a month save the summer months when he travels the western states for family and intellectual sustenance.
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Bird & Beckett, a privately owned bookshop, weighs in: The contemporary suffering and persecution in Gaza, and in the West Bank, has been extreme and continues, though you’d hardly know it from the newspapers lately. What Hamas did on 10/7/23 is unforgivable and indefensible from where we stand. However, it is obvious to us that the actions of the right wing extremists in government in Israel over a period of two years are vastly disproportionate and overshadow the crimes Hamas committed. We hope you’ll come out to show solidarity for the Palestinian people and that you’ll donate to support individual families in Gaza as winter approaches. Donations can be made anytime, not just at the event. What the individuals and families that will be beneficiaries of this fundraiser think about Hamas is nothing we can know or weigh in on. We believe that their humanity is unquestionable and that their…
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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
