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!
Duncan James, guitar Ned Boynton, guitar Jeff Saxton, bass Greg Gotelli, drums with special guest, guitarist Jordan Samuels $20 cover charge; byob. Reservations, 415-586-3733. Guitarist Duncan James has asked guitarist Ned Boynton to join him in a quartet date in the spirit of swing guitarist George Barnes, and guitarist Jordan Samuels is coming along! Born in 1921, at age 10 Barnes was likely the first person to play an electrically amplified guitar — a Sears Roebuck Silvertone fitted with a pickup by his brother and fed through an amplifier. Barnes joined the Musicians Union in 1932 at age 12, and launched a 45-year career. Between 1935 and 1937, he toured throughout the Midwest gigged around Chicago with his own bands, and by the time he was 14 he was accompanying blues vocalists such as Big Bill Broonzy and Blind John Davis. In 1937, he was discovered by Tommy Dorsey’s clarinetist…
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Denise Sullivan, author of Shadow Dream Chaser of Rainbows: In Memory of a Movement Hero, hosts a remembrance of the March on Washington sixty-one years ago today, focused on the story of folk/protest singer Len Chandler. Len Chandler, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez were among the performers at the historic March on Washington on August 28, 1963, but Chandler is not always remembered for his contribution that day, or for the work he did in the years before and after the march in the name of voting rights and racial justice. “You have to take the lead from somewhere and there were only a few performers around who wrote songs, and of them, my favorite was Len Chandler,” wrote Bob Dylan in his memoir, Chronicles. Shadow Dream Chaser of Rainbows, Sullivan’s book, is Chandler’s story, from his youth in Akron, Ohio to his life-changing trip to New York where he…
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Funkified soul from a legendary young singer, composer and band leader whose quintet will knock you out. Rojai, vocals and small percussion Chris Carter, guitar Eli Goldlink, piano Bil Hagar, bass Jeff Mince, drums $20 cover charge, byob Reservations: 415-586-3733
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Remembering Dorothy Lefkovits and Chuck Peterson, drummer Tony Johnson fronts the 230 Jones Street, Local 6, Literary Jazz Band on Friday the 23rd at 6pm. Charlie McCarthy, saxophone; Glen Deardorff, guitar; Sam Cady, piano; Chuck Bennett, bass.
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Patrick James Dunagan, Tammy Fortin, Ava Koohbor and Nicholas James Whittington read from works published by host Marina Lazzara’s Two-Way Mirror Books. Warm Spell –Marina, Tammy, Jay Lee, Kevin Yserloo and guest Richard Beard — improvises following the reading.
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Walker Brents III addresses the enigma of Rimbaud after he’s forsworn the poet’s life in Paris. Becoming someone else was Arthur Rimbaud’s task again and again. On the page it turned into unforgettable poetry. On the actual globe it became strange adventures in frontier borderlands. The poetry runs on in symbolic suggestion. The journeys in time and space are recollected in fragments that betoken strange frequencies. Our heart-strings vibrate collectively. We don’t know what it means, but he speaks to us even if he never meant to. He couldn’t help it. He was born to create an interesting story of himself, a universal one despite his best intentions…
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Music of John Coltrane and the Beatles, jazz standards & more! Drummer Brian Melvin, a San Francisco native son of the 1960s, is traveling out of his home in Estonia with Danish guitarist Soren Lee and joining forces with the great bassist John Wiitala, who came up in the days of Keystone Korner and remains to a kornerstone of the San Francisco jazz scene! Brian & Soren, with drummer Mads Sondergaard, put out a cd of the Coltrane material recently. Sample it here
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From 8:30-10pm, Friday, August 16th, catch local prodigies, now NYC-based rising jazz stars Eytan & Gabriel Schillinger-Hyman with their quartet featuring Langston Hughes II on sax and Michael Mitchell on drums. $20 cover charge (cash or venmo at the door); byob; reservations, call 415-202-4870. Friday the 16th from 6-8pm Scott Foster kicked off this third weekend in August with his Happy Hour Combo. He mixes up a fresh jazz cocktail for Bird & Beckett regulars every third Friday of the month. Scott’s trio this time out featured drummer Omar Aran and bassist Ollie Dudek, indulging us with jazz classics, standards, bebop, blues and beyond. As a rule of thumb, you’ll never go far wrong if you BYOB and a twenty for the band. Can’t squeeze out a twenty at this moment in time? Pay what you can. Kids free, teens and music students under age 22 get in for five…
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The elegant & masterful jazz pianist Art Khu will join two terrific young players — drummer Zev Vestel and bassist Sedge Green — before the two embark to music programs in the Great Eastern Universities that continue to bring so many fine musicians into full throttle jazz careers. Help us celebrate with two sets of music at Bird & Beckett this Wednesday. 7:30 start, BYOB! $20 cover for adults; $10 for students under age 22; kids free.
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Bassist Amina Scott has been touring in California in support of her new album “Where the Wild Seed Grows,” and has just wrapped up a sequence of quintet dates. We’re pleased to present this intimate trio engagement at Bird & Beckett before she returns to New Orleans. Born and raised in Oakland, Amina arrived in New Orleans in 2012 to pursue an undergraduate degree in music at Loyola, and proceeded to Florida State University where she received her masters degree. She then returned to Loyola, where she now teaches. Along the way, she has performed with artists including Steve Turre, Wess “Warm Daddy” Anderson, Nicholas Payton, David Murray, Jamison Ross, Nnenna Freelon, Christian Scott Atunde Adjuah, and more. She has also performed with the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra (Tallahassee, FL) and the Albany Symphony Orchestra (Albany, GA). In 2017, Amina was a fellow in the Steans Institute of Music Jazz Program…
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Curious about Glen Park and wanting an extra excuse to visit the neighborhood? Or perhaps you’re a lucky resident looking for a a good excuse to stay local! Poetry with cello Wednesday evening, extemporaneous musings on Walt Whitman and democracy Thursday, two varieties of jazz on Friday and jazz of another stripe altogether on Saturday… and a sweet little jazz trio on Sunday. Poetry and jazz are centerpieces of the Bird & Beckett cultural offerings. You’re on to something good! ________________ Wednesday, 7:30 pm: Poets Diane Frank and Stewart Florsheim. Thursday, 7:30pm: Walker Brents on Walt Whitman’s Democratic Vistas. Friday, 6:00pm: The Scott Foster Quartet with Danny Brown, saxophone. Friday, 8:30pm: Filipina Jazz: The Raquel Berlind Quintet. Saturday, 7:30pm: Lewis Jordan Music at Large. Sunday: 5:00pm: The Vince Lateano Trio. __________________ Poets Diane Frank (While Listening to the Enigma Variations) and Stewart Florsheim (Amusing the Angels) read new and recent work…
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Kazemde George, saxophone. Kai Lyons, guitar. Giulio Xavier, bass. Elé Salif Howell, drums. $20 cover charge; by0b. Reservations, call 415-586-3733. Elé Salif Howell, a formidably talented young drummer and Oakland native son, returns to the Bay for some dates with the region’s most vital young lions — saxophonist Kazemde George, who’s now based in Brooklyn and who came up side by side with Elé under the tutelage of master Oakland jazz & African music veterans; San Francisco’s own Kai Lyons, a guitarist of vast talent and a gifted scholar’s deep and broad knowledge of world music; and bassist Giulio Xavier Cetto, born and raised in California’s central valley and a giant of the local jazz scene. Elé tours internationally with both Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah (formerly known as Christian Scott) and Ravi Coltrane, with whom he appeared this past spring at SFJazz. Elé is booked to play the Monterey Jazz…
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Maurice Tani, guitar and vocals. Henry Salvia, piano. Mike Anderson, bass. $20 cover charge; byob. Reservations, call 415-586-3733. Maurice Tani is a San Francisco born and based singer-songslinger, known for his wry/rye-to-romantic writing, agile guitar style and expressive singing. With his band, Maurice Tani & 77 El Deora he’s been the source of untold, but exquisite suffering on the west coast Americana scene for over twenty years. Tani now has ten albums to his credit. The latest is “All In!” (Little Village – LVF1052), a broad-spectrum tincture folk, soul, Americana and gospel featuring a wide array of guests from the Little Village roster. “I was actually blown away. Maurice Tani writes songs that sound at once familiar, ethereal and beautiful.” -Robert Sproul, No Depression Magazine Born and raised in San Francisco, Maurice Tani was too young for the Summer of Love, but was still profoundly influenced by the California…
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Brad Buethe, guitar. Ben Stolorow, piano. Jeff Saxton, bass. Ron Vincent, drums. $20 cover charge, byob. reservations: 415-586-3733. In the course of his career in jazz, Ron Vincent has played with such luminaries as Bob Brookmeyer, Phil Woods, Lee Konitz, Art Farmer, Bill Charlap and Randy Brecker, to name a few. In 1989, Ron joined the Gerry Mulligan Quartet — touring and recording five CDs with Mulligan’s quartet as well as re-recording the historic 1949-51 “Birth Of The Cool” music. He fronts trios and quartets on both coasts, with New York City his home base since 1982. Facilitating his west coast work, Ron and his wife recently established a second home on the coast just south of San Francisco. Out of New York City, he tours nationally and internationally with the Bill Mays Trio. Catch Ron tonight with top San Francisco jazz players well known to Bird & Beckett audiences…
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This weekend’s dates will include “Shifrin does Gershwin” on Friday the 9th at 6pm– it’s another happy hour night out with pianist Eric Shifrin’s ongoing 2nd Fridays residency. All year long, Eric & the In Crowd are celebrating the composers and songwriters whose tunes have come to be known as the “American Song Book,” gifting the jazz world with so many of the tunes that have become bandstand standards and jazz classics. In this month’s iteration of the In Crowd, Eric is joined by Bird & Beckett favorites Ari Munkres on bass and Mark Lee on drums. Fascinatin’ rhythm guaranteed! That’s followed on Saturday the 10th by drummer Ron Vincent’s quartet, with Brad Buethe on guitar, Ben Stolorow on piano and Jeff Saxton on bass. And on Sunday, the 15th at 5pm, Maurice Tani’s “country noir” outing dubbed “Angels & Lillies” with Henry Silva & the American bassist Mike Anderson.…
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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." We've been doing that very thing for more than a decade and a half, 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 through our fiscal sponsor, Jazz in the Neighborhood.
Click on "donate" in the navigation bar above. Better yet, send or drop off a check made out to our fiscal sponsor, Jazz in the Neighborhood, with BBCLP in the memo line. Our mailing address is:
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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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
