BIRD & BECKETT CULTURAL LEGACY PROJECT
All welcome! Meet your neighbors! Get involved in your neighborhood! Join the GPA if you’re not already a member. Annual dues still just $10. Sign up for the GPA newsletter here: https://www.glenparkassociation.org/
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Since the McCarthy era theatre text have consistently expunged any mention of important contributions from the Left to the American Theatre. Professor Joel Eis, author of five previous books on theater and politics and a radical theatre practitioner in the 1960s, has unearthed and compiled the story of this sixty-year movement. From the first use of agitprop in the Yiddish theatre in 1887 to the first true theatre-in-the-round in Harlem in 1938, this movement produced the most important plays, playwrights and theater styles for the first half of the twentieth century. Free event, presented in person and live streamed. (A caveat for those viewing in the stream: the visuals presented with the talk in the shop will not necessarily be well served by the live stream. Come to the show if you possibly can!) Visit the Laborfest website for more information on the month’s schedule of events.
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Freddie Bryant – guitar/voice. Sylvia Cuenca – drums. Doug Miller – bass. Cover charge – $20; byob. Students – $10. For a reservation, call the bookshop at 415-586-3733. Freddie’s Kaleidoscope West Trio presents Poems, Groove and Song: a special program curated for Bird and Beckett’s intimate space. The music is based on a kaleidoscope of influences from straight-ahead to blues, New Orleans grooves to Brazilian, Latin and world rhythms with songs from his recent album SOLO BOSSA, his acclaimed song cycle UPPER WEST SIDE LOVE STORY and LIVE GROOVES…EPIC TALES. Freddie received a master’s degree in classical guitar from Yale School of Music and is in demand in the New York jazz and Brazilian scenes where he has worked with Eliane Elias, Tom Harrell and many others. He was a member of Ben Riley’s Monk Legacy Septet and has played with the Mingus Orchestra for two decades. His impressive array…
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Sundays at 5pm is our happy hour slot every week. Stay for a tune, stay for two sets. Come when you like and leave when you like, and pay what makes sense to you. Bring something to sip if you like — but we have Hetch Hetchy’s finest reservoir tapped, if it’s water you’re craving. That’s on us! If you want to bring comestibles to share with your fellow revelers, we’ll set up a table to accommodate that! The second Sunday of every month at 5pm, it’s our “Americana” slot, and today we’re pleased to present honky tonk, twang, classic and outlaw country music from showman, singer and guitar virtuoso Mitch Polzak with the duo he calls his Royal Deuces. You can catch Mitch & the Royal Deuces in rowdy bars throughout the American West and abroad as well. He’s big in Spain, we can tell you that! He’s recorded…
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Takezo Takeda, guitar and vocals. Chris Burns, piano. Karl Severeid, bass. Paul Revelli, drums. $20 cover charge / byob — cash at the door, please! Students $10. Reservations welcome. For a reservation, call the shop at 415-586-3733. From Shinjuku to San Francisco, it’s an electric blues bonanza!
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Eric Shifrin, piano and vocals. Raul Ramirez, drumset & percussion. Heath Proskin, bass. $20 cover charge (cash at the doors, please). Students, $10. Kids free. For a reservation, call the bookshop at 415-586-3733. Eric Shifrin has been wowing the swells and the swindlers in San Francisco for decades, from the commonest saloon to the most pretentious salon, in the bars and the ballrooms, anywhere folks gather to remind themselves what it is to be in with the in crowd! Tonight, Eric’s In Crowd comprises the great percussionist Raul Ramirez, from the Peruvian port city of Callao, and the unflappable bassist Heath Proskin, assaying a batch of tunes with a tropical lilt. Eric himself hails from Malibu, spent memorable years in Hawaii while still an alto player, and honed his chops on piano in Japan. The trade winds brought him here with his wife Kotomi some years ago, and we’re…
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YIPPEE! I think I saw it move! Did you see it move!?!? Nancy Kurshan, a founding member of the Yippies and lifelong activist, is coming to Bird & Beckett with her new book. “EQUAL PARTS REVEALING MEMOIR, VALUABLE HISTORICAL DOCUMENT, AND GALVANIZING GUIDE TO FOLLOWING ONE’S BELIEFS.” – Publishers Weekly The Oakland author and lifelong activist shares her bold, candid memoir of a life on the front lines of American protest. Climate activist China Brotsky will join her in conversation. Nancy participated in the civil rights and peace movements from her high school years in the early 1960s. While a student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, she joined Friends of SNCC (the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and Core (the Congress of Racial Equality) and participated in the April 17, 1965 Washington, D.C. demonstration against the Vietnam War organized by the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) which kicked…
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The After the End of the World Coretet formed in San Francisco in the summer of 1989. All four member of the group are composers, long-time practitioners, and devotees of music to the core. This iteration of the group is the same as on the recording called ’13’, and features Annelise Zamula on saxophones and flute, Bill Noertker on bass, Dave Mihaly on drums and Jon Birdsong on trumpet. Some singing may occur, who’s to say? The set will be a mix of their original music and some choice covers. Jon Birdsong is visiting from his home in the EU, so this is an extraordinarily rare opportunity to experience the AEWC live and in person. The chemistry of these four together is singular and choice. Come hear this group, buy a book, talk to the musicians between sets. Soul and allure guaranteed. The Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project, a…
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Come out for our monthly “student-centric” jazz jam session! If you’re game to play, bring your instrument(s) and be ready to call a tune. The session will start after a short jazz set by this month’s session hosts, an octet from San Francisco’s Community Music Center. Just want to come out and experience the fun? Bring your ears and a little cash to help us pay the CMC combo. Jazz in the Neighborhood is underwriting part of the festivities to lighten the load, but we’ll need your help as well. Whether you’re coming to play or just to listen, you’re an integral part of the afternoon. The Community Music Center, with campuses in the Mission District on Capp Street and in the Richmond District on 30th Avenue, has been teaching students of all ages and income strata the pleasures, rudiments and intricacies of music across the genres for over a…
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Politics and class war aside, the culture wends its way forward! Spend the evening in our cozy bookshop and enjoy this dual guitar quartet in the spirit of a legendary musician, the master guitarist George Barnes. When Barnes moved out to the Bay Area in 1975, he hired 30-year old guitar hotshot Duncan James along with two of Duncan’s senior colleagues, bassist Dean Reilly and drummer Benny Barth, to form what was to be Barnes’ last quartet. Duncan learned volumes from intertwining his guitar with that of Barnes, and in that vein the guitar virtuoso Ned Boynton has taken the lessons he’s learned from Duncan to carry the music on into a new century. Ned and Duncan will satisfy your hunger for something real and beautiful tonight, with consummate musicians Simon Planting and Bob Blankenship adding the necessary on bass and drums. $20 cover charge / byob. Students $10; kids…
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Keith Felton and Jessica Loos read new and recent work as the featured poets in our first Thursday of the month poetry series, a Bird & Beckett tradition dating back a quarter century. The reading and the following open mic are hosted and moderated by Jerry Ferraz and Michael Koch. Jessica, who cut her teeth with the Living Theater on the Manhattan’s Lower East Side, has been a central presence on the North Beach poetry scene for decades, well known as an organizer of events including the readings at North Beach First Fridays and the annual North Beach Festival. Bring 3 minutes of your own poems to read in the open mic segment. No charge, though donations are appreciated.
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Wednesday, June 24th — 7pm. no charge. buy a book! San Francisco Poets Ava Koohbor, Of Flesh and Frequency: A Poetics of Sound Making. Jessica Loos, Tambourine. Marina Lazzara, The House Begins an Alphabet. Music by Blind Van de Monk. _____ Thursday, June 25th – 7:30pm $20/byob Students $10. Tango No. 9 Catharine Clune, violin. Greg Stephens, trombone. J Raoul Brody piano & accordion. Zoltan diBartolo, tenor. _____ Friday, June 26th – 7:30pm, $20. Byrds of a Feather: Vampire President & Garden of Delights jazzreggae resistance & solution. David Byrd, sax & vocals. Toho Saunders, bass & vocals. Carlos Caminos, guitar. Eli Goldlink, keys. Jordan “J Bird” Davis, drums. _____ Saturday, June 27th – 7:30pm, $20. B3B4 – organ jazz classics and originals. Kevin Gerzevitz, organ. Tom Griesser, saxophone. Scott Foster, guitar. Dan Foltz, drums. _____ Sunday, June 28th – 5pm. donate! Jam…
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Tom Griesser, saxophone. Kevin Gersevitz, organ. Scott Foster, guitar. Dan Foltz, drums. $20 cover charge at the door. Cash, please! BYOB. Students $10. Kids free. For a reservation, call the bookshop at 415-586-3733. Reservations honored until show time. Doors open at 7:15pm. “For the sound of today’s organ combo, look no further than B3B4.” -Pete Fallico, KCSM Radio Host and CEO of Jazz Organ Fellowship. Four of our favorite players on the local scene have been thrilling audiences for years with their funky little combo called B3B4, offering a rich dive into the diverse and divine jazz organ repertoire built up in the 1950s & 1960s by the greats of the Hammond B3, including Jimmy Smith, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Jack McDuff, and, pictured below, Jimmy McGriff & Richard “Groove” Holmes, and mixing in tunes that seem tailor-made for the purpose — including some of their own. It’s a high standard,…
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David Byrd, sax & vocals. Toho Saunders, bass & vocals. Eli Goldlink, keys. Jordan “J Bird” Davis, drums. $20 cover charge, byob. Students $10. For a reservation, call 415-586-3733. Byrds of a Feather introduce their two fresh recordings, now in release: Vampire President and Garden of Delight. Vampire President aims to encourage resistance and a solution for the pollution of the current administration. David Byrd is unique in his penchant for infusing a heavy reggae vibe into his bebop and modal jazz, though just as often he stays right there in solid jazz territory, always with massive respect paid to the influences of Charlie Parker & John Coltrane, Eddie Jefferson, Gene Ammons, Sonny Stitt and the whole body of Chicago and Detroit players… He was born and raised on the musical mecca of 47th street in Chicago, where his uncle, Red Saunders was the drummer and bandleader at the famous…
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Once there was a bandoneon player named Isabel, all the emotional yearning of tango can be summed up in that memory, and yet the stirring of the spirit is strong and will not be quashed. There came along the dandy Zoltan. He gave heart and fortitude to the others, to Catharine whose sturdy palimpsest could again hold and quill inscribe anew an expansive melody of desire, hope, regret, exultation, to Greg, plosives opened by the svarabhakti vowel, the drop of water that opens the whiskey, to Joshua, an ocean of orchestration at his expressive command. Come back, Kamikaze. Come back to the living. Come to Bird & Beckett and live some more. Catharine Clune, violin Greg Stephens, trombone Joshua, J Raoul, Brody, piano Zoltan diBartolo, voice $20 cover charge at the door, cash please / byob Students, $10. For a reservation, call the bookshop at 415-586-3733.
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