BIRD & BECKETT CULTURAL LEGACY PROJECT
The Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project presents twenty-odd events every month in the bookshop, including at least 3 live concerts each week, plus poetry readings, talks, and all manner of cultural happenings.
See below for info on our next several events, or click here to view our extended calendar for details on events a bit further out.
Seating is limited! For a reservation, call the shop at 415-586-3733. BYOB.
August 13th, 7:30pm: São Paulo Choro Quartet featuring Alessandro Penezzi & Alexandre Ribeiro — Brazilian choro by São Paulo Allstars! Alessandro Penezzi, guitar; Alexandre Ribeiro, clarinet; Roberta Valente, pandeiro; Jane Lenoir, flute. $25-$35 sliding scale cover. _____ August 14th, 7:30pm: Mose Def : The Music of Mose Allison — Dean Mermell, vocals; Tom Griesser, tenor sax; Kymry Esainko, piano; Joe Kyle, Jr., bass; Eric Garland, drums. $25 cover. Students $10. _____ August 15th, 7:30pm: Nathan Tokunaga Quartet — Nathan Tokunaga, reeds; Charles Chen, piano; Mikiya Matsuda, bass; Benny Amon, drums. $20 cover. Students $10. _____ August 16th, 5pm (the happy hour show): The 230 Jones Street Band — Charlie McCarthy, saxophone; Sam Cady, piano; Chuck Bennett, bass; Tony Johnson, drums.It’s Happy Hour. Stay for a tune, stay for a set; pay what you can, pay what you will! $20 works best, but do what you want. Students $10, or less. _____ August 16th,…
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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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Kay Kostopoulos celebrates her new album, “All This is Possible,” in the company of the marvelous saxophonist Noel Jewkes, arranger/pianist John DiMartino, bassist Carla Kaufman and drummer Mark Lee. She caresses a set of jazz standards from the album with her own exotic flair, and augments those numbers with spoken excerpts from Homer’s Odyssey and jazz songs featuring heroines including Calypso, Circe, and Penelope, incorporating Mediterranean rhythms accented with Turkish finger cymbals. Lash yourself to the mast; Kay’s siren song is bewitching. $25 cover charge (cash at the door, please) /byob. For a reservation, call the bookshop at 415-586-3733. Seating is limited.
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Maurice Tani, guitar and vocals. Pam Brandon, vocals. Henry Salvia, piano. Greg Kehret, bass. Kenny Owen, drums. $25 suggested; pay what you will! It’s Happy Hour at Bird & Beckett! BYOB. Born and raised in San Francisco, Maurice Tani has spent five decades on the California alt-country/Americana scene. Fronting his own bands including 77 El Deora and Calamity & Main, he’s produced numerous albums for himself and others. As a singer songwriter guitar slinger, he’s built a deep repertoire of wryly humorous, darkly romantic songs occupying a genre he’s referred to by many names–Oblique Americana, Twang-Noir… Tani calls it all “Supercalifornographic.” Maurice was a shade too young for the Summer of Love, but the California culture that gave the world surf guitar, country rock and psychedelia was a profound influence on him. Barely into his twenties and hungry for experience, he moved to central Texas to work the hardcore country,…
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A new trio, UFO Pilots is made up of Vincent Maclauchlan on guitar, Aidan McCarthy on bass and Nadav Beary on drums. All three were born and raised in the East Bay and all three now reside in New York. “We all live within a five minute walk from each other in Brooklyn, so we started jamming, blending our love for East Bay funk with some jazz, blues, and pop music. The trio formed truly from the love of friendship and music, creating and inspiring to find new sounds while keeping the groove alive.” $20 cover charge / byob. Students, $10.
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Grant Levin, piano. Chris Amberger, bass. Jon Frank, drums. $20 cover charge (cash at the door, please) / byob. Students $10. Kids free. For a reservation, call the bookshop at 415-586-3733. The Jon Frank Trio plays standards and jazz versions of Jewish songs. The trio has built a solid rapport over the past several years, and features one of the hidden gems of San Francisco jazz, the pianist Grant Levin, and a veteran bassist who cut his teeth with Art Blakey. Bassist Chris Amberger came of age in Oakland in the late ’60s, picking up the instrument in high school and penetrating the East Bay folk and blues scene alongside his sister, a singer and guitarist. He reached a high level on the bass in jazz while a student under the tutelage of George Duke at Oakland’s Merritt College from 1967 to 1969. He first recorded in 1968, as…
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Andrew Paul Nelson is a poet living in North Beach where he owns and operates Golden Sardine with his wife Caitlyn. His book of poems How to Draw A Guillotine was released by Living Poets in 2024. Mukethe Kawinzi is a transsexual goatherder and land steward working at the intersection of the pastoral, modern Black agrarianism, queer identity, and contemporary rural life. He has farmed in sustainable and organic agriculture for six years, with a focus on artisanal cheesemaking, non-violent livestock handling, and regenerative grazing. He is the author of ‘touching grass’ (Porkbelly Press), ‘Koans to a Young Cowboi’ (Bottlecap Press), ‘rut’ (Ghost City Press Summer Series), and ‘saanens, nubians, one lamancha’ (Winner, Quarterly West Chapbook Contest), as well as the winner of the inaugural ALOCASIA Grant for Queer Nature Writers. He currently traverses the open range with a herd of 300 Spanish cashmere range goats to restore coastal prairie, rehabilitate degraded soils, and mitigate the effects of climate change on…
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Joel Behrman, trumpet. Rico Jones, saxophone. Matt Clark, piano Essiet Okon Essiet, bass. Sylvia Cuenca, drums. $25 cover charge / byob. Students $10. For a reservation, call the bookshop at 415-586-3733. Sylvia Cuenca, born and raised in San Jose, was called while still in her teenage years for her first professional gig by the late, great guitarist Eddie Duran at the original iteration of Jazz at Pearl’s, when it was an afterhours club in the basement of the Great Eastern Restaurant in Chinatown. Pearl’s moved up and over onto Broadway where it had a 13-year long run as San Francisco’s most important jazz club from 1990 to its closure in 2003. Sylvia headed for NYC in the late 1980s and established a stellar career that included a four-year stint as saxophone legend Joe Henderson’s drummer, and a seventeen-year run as the drummer for trumpeter Clark Terry’s band. She’s bi-coastal…
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Sunday, August 2nd – 5pm Jam Session! The Sai Ray Quartet — Sai Ray, trumpet; Armaan Mishra, piano; Yoav Konig, bass; Nicholas DiMaria; drums– plays a set and hosts the August edition of our First Sundays Student-Centric Jam Session. It’s Happy Hour. Pay what you will! Donate to the BBCLP to underwrite our emerging musicians programming and support the future of jazz in San Francisco! _____
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Flavia Cerviño-Wood, violin Andrew Voigt, woodwinds Derek Coombs, piano Harold Carr, bass and compositions Susanna Goldenstein, percussion. Album release concert celebrating A Bird Is Whiter Than The Moon. Everyone who attends will receive a free copy of the album! $25 cover charge / byob for adults — cash at the door, please! Students $10. For a reservation, call the bookshop at 415-586-3733. Harold Carr has performed and recorded with numerous artists such as Bobby McFerrin, Crystal Gayle, Lightnin’ Hopkins, John McCuen, Steve Lacy, Catie Curtis, Matt Flinner, Alan Braufman, Gino Robair and Andrew Voigt. Harold has been a musician/poet-in-residence at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada, guest soloist at the Frutillar Music Festival in Chile, composer/soloist with the Guangdong Modern Dance Company in Guang Zhou, China, invited poet for the Utah State Governor at the Governor’s Mansion, commissioned composer/performer at New Music America and artist-in-residence at Zion Canyon Mesa. He has worked with the Windolls Theatre of…
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The Jazz Therapy Trio brings together three seasoned Bay Area musicians for an evening of introspective, lyrical jazz. Pianist Ben Stolorow leads the ensemble, drawing on classical influences and modern jazz sensibilities shaped by studies with Fred Hersch, Stanley Cowell, and David Hazeltine. A UC Berkeley graduate and Jazzschool faculty member, Stolorow has performed at Yoshi’s, Kuumbwa Jazz Center, and festivals throughout the Bay Area and Japan. The SF Chronicle describes him as “a pianist with a gift for crafting alluring melodies that cry out for lyrics” who “interprets every piece with poise and purpose.” On bass is Heshima Mark Williams, a native San Franciscan and a neighbor of the store when we first opened in 1999, living in Berkeley now. As a youth, he studied under the first classical bassist in the Boston Symphony, Dr. Ortiz Walton, and through the five decades since, he’s played with countless top musicians from Taj…
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Jam sessions in San Francisco have a history as long as jazz has been played here. From the Barbary Coast to the present day, the session is one of the key ways the music has refreshed itself and brought old hands and young pups together. Vince Lateano has led a lot of them in his time and has been leading ours for years, a practice he’s carried from Pier 23 to the Dog Patch Saloon to the Seven Mile House to Sweetie’s Art Bar. Come enjoy the hearing the tradition unfold. No charge to play. Audience donations appreciated to help us pay the trio for its work!
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A preview of a work in progress with Linda Champagne, Carla Diamond, Trudy Fisher, Lori Gates, Patty Haze, David Katznelson, Harry Levy, Linda Ryan, Sue Sponge and special guests. Memwah is Howie Klein’s printed and photographed recollections of his life well-lived. Tasked with finishing a book upon his death in December 2025, award-winning columnist Denise Sullivan has gathered a cast of friends from his San Francisco years at KSAN, KUSF and 415 Records, to read the ’70s and ’80s portions of Klein’s memoir aloud, speak to the causes he cared about, and spin the records he loved. From the tenements of New York and its downtown psychedelic scene, on the hippie trail through Afghanistan and India, to a vegan kitchen in Amsterdam, by the mid-’70s, Klein found himself at Harvey Milk’s camera store on Castro Street, and at the center of San Francisco’s mid-’70s social, political and musical scenes. Working…
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Join us in celebrating Avotcja’s 85th birthday! Poet, Musicologist, Disc Jockey, Small Percussionist, Prose Writer in Many Genres, Culture Hero! Avotcja’s award-winning group Modúpue (Gratitude) is an ensemble that stretches to as many players as well fit a venue Tonight, Modúpue is: Avotcja, poetry and small multi-percussion. Sandi Poindexter, violin. Jon Jang, piano. Francis Wong, saxophone and flute. Heshima Mark Williams, bass. Raul Ramirez, multi-percussion. The cover charge for the sextet tonight is $25-35 sliding scale, cash or venmo, payable at the door / byob. College and high school students – $10. Grade school and younger, free. No one turned away for lack of funds. Wheelchair accessible. Avotcja was named “Jazz Hero” by the West Coast Chapter of the Jazz Journalists Association in 2015 and was in the same year awarded the JaZzline Institute BAJABA Lifetime Achievement Award and the PEN Oakland Lifetime Achievement Award. She has also been the…
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Kasey Knudsen, saxophone. Harvey Wainapel, saxophone. John Wiitala, bass. Jon Arkin, drums. $20 cover charge (cash at the door, please); byob. Students $10; kids free. For reservation, call the bookshop at 415-586-3733 Kasey Knudsen and Harvey Wainapel, highly accomplished saxophonists acclaimed for their work in diverse genres and their mastery of the full range of wind instruments, join forces across generations in this new quartet setting with equally talented and experienced colleagues, bassist John Wiitala and drummer Jon Arkin, to perform a thoughtfully selected repertoire that works well in a “chordless” setting, without piano or guitar — music that’s at once accessible and fascinating in its complexity. These four jazz musicians have long been mutual admirers and frequent collaborators while traveling individual paths in their careers. They’ve developed a unique quartet that they’re excited to bring to Bird & Beckett in its public debut. Harvey Wainapel, the senior partner in…
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