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!
Read more (and hear them) by clicking here! Jazz lives!
Read More
Songs that bear a message… The Scott Foster Trio Scott Foster, guitar Richard Hall, piano Andrew Higgins, bass
Read More
Poetry! Stephanie Baker Jess Rowland Ava Koober / Marina Lazzara / Patrick James Dunagan collaboration Music! J & Kevin BYO Bottle, Ears, Minds, HeartÂ
Read More
El Guajiro plays the gamut of popular music from Latin America, including cha cha, boleros, Latin jazz, as well as different varieties of Cuban music. El Guajiro is el guajiro Johnny Escobedo’s group, with a number of associates that include Norman Downing, the Razons Bo and Richie, Mario Vega and others. For this concert, he’s joined by Norman and Mario, who also make up the trio on his just-released (2017) cd entitled… El Guajiro. We’re pleased to welcome El Guajiro back to Bird & Beckett on February 11th.
Read More
Don Alberts, known to Bird & Beckett audiences as a fine jazz pianist, is also a prolific writer, and reads this afternoon from his autobiographical novel, The Rushing and his short story collection, The God Fire Mantras — just a sliver of the poetry and prose he’s produced over the course of a rich career. He’ll have a major assist from fellow writer, and marvelously stentorian reader, Jeff Kaliss. Visit Don’s website, here, for a snapshot of some of the books and music he’s published. Read his bio here. He’s a local hero, and then some. They’ll start anywhere from 1:30 to 1:45, so come early if you can. Don’t worry, though. At 2, we’ll make sure they make a fresh start for those who haven’t gotten the word. But shortly after, Jeff will have to fly and Don will take it from there. He’ll have the piano handy if he…
Read More
The George Cotsirilos Quartet celebrates its new CD on OA2/Origin Records featuring George on guitar, Keith Saunders on piano, Robb Fisher on bass and Ron Marabuto on drums. Read the San Jose Mercury piece on this recording at this link. Originally from Chicago, George Cotsirilos has been a member of the San Francisco Bay Area jazz community for many years. He has performed with a wide variety of artists, from San Francisco jazz fixtures like Eddie Marshall, Mel Martin, Pharaoh Sanders and Mark Levine to internationally recognized blues singer Etta James, Bill Evans bassist Chuck Israels, and the jazz/soul vocal group, The Whispers. In addition to working as an accompanist, he was co-leader of the San Francisco Nighthawks which included legendary drummer Eddie Marshall, Bobby McFerrin pianist Paul Nagel, and former Cal Tjader bassist Robb Fisher and played the Monterey Jazz Festival. Cotsirilos graduated from the University of California at…
Read More
Denise Perrier has been called “The Voice with a Heart” and is known internationally for her warm, swinging contralto. She’s joined tonight by tenor sax player Joe Cohen, pianist Grant Levin, bassist Joe McKinley and drummer Jim Zimmerman for two sets of songs from Cole Porter to Billy Strayhorn to Blare & Martin…
Read More
Justin Rock, guitar Owen Clapp, bass Mike Quigg, drums
Read More
Come out to celebrate the new long-playing album — an actual lp! — by the Paul Sanwald Quartet! No cds on this one, just vinyl! Don’t own a turntable? All the more reason to come hear the music live!! Wataru Uchida, tenor sax Spencer Caton, piano Paul Sanwald, bass Dan Foltz, drums
Read MoreJoin us in promoting a living wage for performing artists in this wealthy and sophisticated city! Think it through, and express your opinions to your district supervisor! Get behind Jazz in the Neighborhood’s Guaranteed Fair Wage Fund! At Bird & Beckett, we generally ask you to put up $10 to $15 to $20 when you come to a show, and that goes a long way. And when you and your neighbors donate to our nonprofit, that supplements the money you put in at the shows and also underpins our overhead costs — so that we can stay in business as a venue and as a bookshop. Is $10 or $20 a lot of money to hear talented performers play live music? Not really. How much did you pay for your last burrito? How much did you tip the wait staff in that nice restaurant down the street for visiting your table several…
Read More
Raising the Voices of Women of Color! Deborah Santana – activist, author, and editor of All the Women in My Family Sing – hosts contributors to the anthology: Samina Ali, La Rhonda Crosby-Johnson, Denise Diaab and Camille Hayes.  A new collection of essays by America Ferrera, Belva Davis, Marian Wright Edelman, Natalie Baszile, Porochista Khakpour, Samina Ali, Nayomi Munaweera, and many more, All the Women in My Family Sing gives voice to a new era, a vital anthology of prose and poetry. It  captures the aspirations and wisdom of women of color as they exercise autonomy, creativity, and dignity and build bridges to heal the brokenness in today’s turbulent world. Sixty-nine authors ― African American, Asian American, Chicana, Native American, Cameroonian, South African, Korean, LGBTQI ― lend their voices to broaden cross-cultural understanding and to build bridges to each other’s histories and daily experiences of life. Editor Deborah Santana is an author, seeker and activist for…
Read More
Listen to the interview with Fanny Renoir you’ll find at this link (scroll down to “The Road to Enlightenment,” Episode 6 of the Passport Podcast). San Francisco has an incredibly rich recent present, whether you date it from 1946 or 1961 or 1968 or 1971 or… 1899… name your year. So much of it revolves around poetry and music, and around the North Beach and Mission District cafes, and around individuals who have held tenaciously and at the same time effortlessly to long tendrils of culture that grow here. They may live here and now, but Paris and Rome and Calcutta are part of it too. So come make contact with some of your own past and some of the City’s and the world’s eternal now. We’re lucky to be here now, wherever and whenever that might be. Oh, and feel free to read in the open. Jerry Ferraz will…
Read More
The Alcatraz Islanders perform swing era Hawaiian music that blends traditional island melodies with mainland jazz. The band is led by steel guitarist, Mikiya Matsuda, with Nick Rossi on guitar, Dan Neville on vibes and Vic Wong on bass. You can catch them in San Francisco every Tuesday at Pagan Idol and every first Wednesday at Club Deluxe, as well as the occasional Sunday brunch at Trader Vic’s in Emeryville. Hear a bit of their music at this link: http://www.alcatrazislanders.com/sounds/
Read More
Sign Up for Our Weekly Emails!
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." 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.
TAKE OUR SURVEY
To take our SURVEY, click here, and help the BBCLP get to know you better! As Duke Ellington always said, we love you madly...
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
