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!

Friday, January 31, 2020 – 9pm
Kahil El’Zabar’s Ethnic Heritage Ensemble
returns to Bird & Beckett!

Get the jump on Black History Month!

Every February, the brilliant Chicago percussionist Kahil El’Zabar, a renowned leader in avant garde African-American music for five decades, takes his Ethnic Heritage Ensemble on the road, criss-crossing the continent with a brilliant program of music — “advanced frequencies” deeply rooted in America’s true classical music, the music we most frequently call “jazz,”  a music itself deeply rooted in four centuries of African-American experience, and rooted more deeply still in the cultures and histories of a range of African cultures from which hundreds of thousands of people were abducted, brought in chains and held in slavery. A devastating history from which a rich, beautiful and indomitable culture has flowered time and again.

For the last four years, Bird & Beckett has been the first stop on the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble’s Black History Month tour. From here, Kahil, with Corey Wilkes on trumpet and Alex Harding on baritone sax, first cross the Bay and then travel down the Coast to the World Stage in Los Angeles’ Leimert Park, and then roll through Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto, Michigan, Washington DC, Maryland, Georgia, New York and Wisconsin — 25 concerts in 30 days from January 31st to February 29th! Raising the Spirit with superhuman grit and spiritual elevation.

Click here to read about the tour in Splash Magazine at this link!

Improvise, Conjure, Evolve!

Click here to hear from Sir Kahil El’Zabar himself at this link.

$20 cover charge; $10 to $40 sliding scale available. Help these musicians with your cash to embark on their journey across the country, raising the spirit and spreading the joy of Black History!

 

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The Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project

Our events are put on under the umbrella of the nonprofit 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 501(c)(3) non-profit...
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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

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