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!
Ben Stolorow, piano Peter Barshay, bass Vince Lateano, drums with guest vocalist Ernest East $20 suggested donation per adult, byob Kids free Teens & students $5-$10 Vince Lateano has been an integral part of the San Francisco jazz community since he arrived in 1965, fresh out of the Vietnam-era military, born and raised in Sacramento. He leads this trio every 3rd Sunday, and the trio hosts a jam session on the last Sunday of each month. Bassist Peter Barshay has worked with Milt Jackson, Freddie Hubbard, Woody Shaw, Joe Henderson and Joe Lovano, and has played everything from salsa and straight ahead to funk-fusion, avant garde and music derived from the Afro-Cuban and Brazilian traditions — he brings a wealth of experiences to every date. Pianist Ben Stolorow, since moving to the Bay Area from Los Angeles to attend UC Berkeley in 1994, has become one of the most in-demand…
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Charlie McCarthy, reeds David Udolf, piano Curtis Aikens, bass Akira Tana, drums $20 cover charge / byob Reservations: 415-586-3733 Charlie McCarthy is in a class by himself. The quartet will play several old standards and several originals, many of them quite new; and most of the old standards have been dressed up a bit for the occasion. Charlie, among the very greatest voices on reeds on the coast and renowned for decades, will front a terrific rhythm section — David Udolf on piano, Curtis Aikens on bass and Akira Tana on drums. “You won’t be disappointed,” says Charlie, signing off, “Keep swingin’, CMcC”. Jazz thrives at Bird & Beckett, a quarter century into 21st!
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Amos Hoffman, guitar & oud Noam Lemish, piano Miles Wick, bass Alex Aspinall drums $20 cover charge at the door (cash or venmo) byob reservations – 415-586-3733 The Amos Hoffman & Noam Lemish Quartet offers an inspired blend of jazz and Jewish folk melodies. Amos Hoffman is an internationally renowned oud virtuoso and innovator; Noam Lemish is a multi-faceted, world-class pianist-composer and professor at York University’s Department of Music in Toronto, Canada. For years, Amos and Noam have been collecting Jewish melodies from different parts of the world including Kurdish, Yemenite, Moroccan, Ladino, Russian and Israeli songs. The quartet’s lyrical and vibrant reimaginings of beloved Jewish melodies have been captivating audiences all across North America. In their work together, Hoffman and Lemish create a refreshing and compelling sound, filled with vibrant sonorities, unique instrument combinations and compelling arrangements. The renditions are simultaneously faithful to the songs’ origins and rooted in…
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The Saxophone Congress — three baritone sax players — Danny Bittker, Larry De La Cruz and Jim Peterson — with guitarist Scott Foster and drummer Dan Foltz perform music by Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman and Carla Bley! Jazz in the bookshop every Friday, 6-8pm. A weekly tradition since 2002. Scott Foster Ensemble residency every third Friday! $25 suggested donation for quintets, but pay what you can and byob. Kids under 12, free; teens and music students, $5-$10 sliding scale. Your cover charge at the show helps us guarantee a fair wage to the musicians that work here. Individual donations from a great many generous members of the Bird & Beckett community are also required to meet that commitment, and for those we are very grateful. If you can and haven’t, please join our supporters. Bird & Beckett will always be a work in progress… Thanks for being part of the…
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Hindustani Classical Music Mallar Bhattacharya, sarod Ferhan Najeeb Qureshi, tabla $20/byob Reservations: 415-586-3733 Live stream found on our YouTube channel and Facebook page / donations appreciated Mallar Bhattacharya is a sarodist of the Acharya Baba Allauddin Seni Gharana of Maihar, India. Mallar began his musical training at the age of three, learning both Western and Hindustani violin from his father Dr. Jahar Bhattacharya, a student of Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. Mallar became a disciple of Ustad Aashish Khan at age 15 and has also studied the music of the Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael, California for over 35 years, having learned directly from Ustad Ali Akbar Khan and his archival material over that time. Mallar recently released a single of the raga Bhimpalasi, which is available on most streaming platforms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM-ybSLfMPs&list=OLAK5uy_mRKN1uCZmznjvmUZ0wCIpIf7mS3eMCo9o. Ferhan Najeeb Qureshi is a senior disciple of the legendary tabla master Ustad Tari Khan. Prior to…
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Tim Berne, saxophone Tom Rainey, drums Gregg Belisle-Chi, guitar $20 cover charge (cash or venmo) at the door, byob Tonight, the seats have all been spoken for, but some limited standing room audience will be accommodated. (NB: Reservations for our shows are taken by phone starting three weeks before the performance date, and are cut off once 30 seats have been reserved.) For four and a half decades, Tim Berne has recorded prolifically under his own name and alongside creative innovators of the jazz avant garde including his idol and mentor Julius Hemphill as well as Nels Cline, Vinny Golia, Paul Motian, Bill Frisell, Olu Dara, Herb Robertson, Hank Roberts, Mark Dresser, Ray Anderson, Michael Formanek, John Zorn and dozens more. He operates the Empire and Screwgun record labels and has recorded for Soul Note, Black Saint, JMT, ECM, Enja, Intakt and many others. His first recording on lp with…
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Raving it up on numbers by the masters of outlaw and classic country music, the Seducers entertain the regulars with tales of heartache, loneliness and wry self-aggrandizement, with the occasional trucking song thrown in for good measure. Joe Goldmark, pedal steel guitar Mitch Polzak, lead guitar and vocals Hank Maninger, bass guitar and vocals Kenny Owen, the Zen Cowboy Poet, drums BYOB and a twenty for the band.
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Tonight, Kim Shuck (San Francisco Poet Laureate, 2017-2020) presents featured poets Garrett Caples and Julian Blackmon and conducts the open mic that follows. The Poets!Zoom series 2nd Mondays sessions always features two poets reading at length followed by an open mic. The 4th Mondays are all open mic. This evening at 7pm, join by Google Meet at this link: meet.google.com/njx-navd-vmp Or join by Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84350265713?pwd=eE84V3BYdWxiSFBHNHhmdUt1WTUzdz09 Meeting ID: 843 5026 5713 Passcode: 244211 Featured Poets Tonight: Garrett Caples is a poet living in San Francisco. He’s an editor at City Lights Books. His latest book Proses: Incomparable Parables! Fabulous Fables! Cruel Tales! will appear in May from Wave Books. Julian Blackmon, also known as Protected Poet, was born in Marion, Indiana, but found his poetic voice amidst the bustling streets of San Francisco. With his forthcoming poetry book, “PEACE OF ME,” set to release in May, he continues to captivate audiences across California…
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Ray Skjelbred is in town for a string of dates on the Peninsula and in San Francisco before heading back up to Seattle, which he calls home these days. Ray is a unique pianist with a great feel for the piano masters of Chicago, the town where he was born and raised before moving with his family to Seattle. Early on he developed a great ear for the individualistic styles of Earl Hines, Jess Stacy, Joe Sullivan, Jimmy Yancey and Art Hodes as well as Mary Lou Williams, Thelonious Monk and Bill Evans and dozens of others. In the late ’50s, he gravitated to the Bay Area, where Burt Bales had set a standard beginning in the 1940s, when a trad jazz revival got underway with Lu Watters, Bob Scobey and Turk Murphy dominating the public perception. Ray wrote, “I was 18 the first time I saw Burt Bales playing…
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Tony Peebles – sax Luke Schwartz – guitar Andrew Higgins – bass Evan Williams – drums $20 / byob Influenced by contemporary and old-school players such as Jim Hall, Joe Pass, Jesse Van Ruller & Peter Bernstein, Luke Schwartz’s compositional style is inspired by that of post-bop icon Steve Swallow. Luke returned to the Bay Area to make his mark on the local scene after stints in New Orleans and New York. He can be found performing regularly at cafes, clubs, bars & restaurants throughout the Bay Area under his own name, The Luke Schwartz Trio & Quartet, as well as with a variety of other jazz, rock & eclectic musicians.
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Join us at our weekly Friday evening Jazz Happy Hour, 6-8pm! BYOB and a twenty for the trio. Kids are free. Students & teens, how about $10? The second Friday of each month in 2024, you’ll be regaled by Eric & the In Crowd, celebrating the tunesmiths who wrote the standards that jazz musicians have taught us to know and love. Pianist Eric Shifrin, bassist Ari Munkres and drummer Mark Lee will regale you this time around with compositions from the pens of Mal Waldron and Jimmy Van Heusen. Mal Waldron, born in 1925, spent the 1950s leading his own small combos while playing in the bands of Charles Mingus, Jackie McLean, John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy and composing for all of them, most famously the tune “Soul Eyes” that Coltrane played so memorably. Waldron was Billie Holiday’s accompanist from the spring of 1957 until her death in 1959,…
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Two veterans of the San Francisco poetry scene open the reading, and an open mic closes it out. Come to Bird & Beckett on the first Thursday of each month to take it in and lend your voice. Judith Ayn Bernhard is a founding member and past chair of Marin Poetry Center. She is the author of a book of poems, Prisoners of Culture. Her most recent work is Marriages, a collection of short prose pieces. She lives with her husband, Byron Spooner, in San Francisco. Byron Spooner is the author of Rounding Up a Bison: Stories (Andover Street Archives Press, 2021). He is retired as the Literary Director of the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library after 21 years. His writing has been published widely on a variety of platforms and won Honorable Mention in the 2021 Dillydoun International Fiction Prize competition for his story “The Acrobat Rides…
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An event organized by writer Joan Gelfand. International Women’s Day is celebrated every March 8th around the globe, though its profile in the United States has generally been pretty low through the decades — we’d guess partly because of the patriarchy and partly because of the taint associated with that damned socialist impulse behind its first observance back in the spring of 1909, when the Socialist Party of America organized “Women’s Day” in New York City, that dual bastion of capitalism & revolution! Getting out ahead of the celebration by a couple of days — to get you ready to take to the streets on Friday — we’ll open the doors of Bird & Beckett to four writers and a moderator (herself a novelist, as well) to discuss the state of things for women and feminism in the here and now… discovering new narratives, as it were… Participating in this…
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Two jazz combos from the Community Music Center — one coached by Scott Foster and one coached by Charlie Gurke — will perform short sets starting at 5pm, with a 2-hour jam session open to all student jazz musicians following at 6:30pm. Celebrate CMC and celebrate jazz and the talented youth drawn to it! Come hear the music and consider the brilliance of these students, and think about what it takes to pursue jazz performance as a career! The Independent Musicians Alliance has ideas and schemes to make that more realistic in the Bay Area. We’ll clue you in if you come. And if you do come, bring a twenty to help us pay the musicians!
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Each year, Betty Wong calls in the talents from San Francisco’s Community Music Center to celebrate the breadth of music that catches her ear and keeps her creative juices flowing. Marking the Year of the Dragon, she’ll bring a cavalcade of musicians – students, faculty and friends — to play music from a variety of cultures and traditions around the globe, capping the afternoon as always with a trio of jazz players that are long-time colleagues and friends — saxophonist Ken Rosen, pianist Randy Craig and bassist Richard Saunders. Following the trio, pianist/flutist Steve Shapiro, director of the CMC for 30 years until his retirement several years ago, will join his wife, the bassist Ellen Rosenthal, for a short set. Betty Wong is a bona fide treasure. Read this article to get a bit of a sense of what a power she is! And here are the Wikipedia facts. And…
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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.
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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
