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!

Thursday, February 8th – 7:30-9:30 pm
Paul Sanwald Quartet – LP release celebration!

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  

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Thanks for supporting live music and poetry! How can you do more?

Join 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…

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Wednesday, February 7th – 7:00 pm
All the Women in My Family Sing:
Women Write the World – Essays on Equality, Justice, and Freedom

Contributors read!

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…

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POETS! every 1st & 3rd Monday
Monday, February 5th – 7-9 pm
Fanny Renoir & Ronald Sauer
An open mic follows
Jerry Ferraz, m.c.

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…

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Sunday, February 4th – 4:30-6:30 pm
The Alcatraz Islanders — Swing Era Hawaiian Music
which way west? Sunday concert series
$10 suggested donation

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/

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Sunday, February 4th – 2-4 pm
Nasty Women Poets read at Bird & Beckett
 

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Saturday, February 3rd– 7:30-10:00 pm
Five Spot Jazz Quintet
jazz club! when lights are low…
$20 cover charge

With a financial assist from Jazz in the Neighborhood’s Guaranteed Fair Wage Fund, the Jazz Philanthropists Union presents… The Five Spot Jazz Quintet Five musicians beyond description, together propelling a sweet little juggernaut of jazz feeling! Hailing from Dursley, England, pianist Mike Greensill might be best known in the Bay Area as resident piano player on Sedge Thomson’s weekly Public Radio show, “West Coast Live,” as well as his role as musical director to vocalist Wesla Whitfield, with whom he’s recorded more then twenty albums. Not just a superlative pianist, he’s also a gifted composer. The band showcases Mike’s compositions and some tasty vocals too. Saxophonist Charlie McCarthy comes from a musical family — his father was an accomplished trombone player in the Bay Area. His playing experience includes many of the greats in jazz including Ella Fitzgerald, Joe Henderson, Bobby Hutcherson, George Shearing, Stan Getz, Joe Williams, and many others.…

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Friday, February 2nd – 9:00pm
Kahil El’Zabar and the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble
45th Anniversary “Improvised Soul” Tour!
$20 cover charge
 

Kahil El’Zabar – traps, percussion, vocals Corey Wilkes – trumpet Alex Harding – reeds

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Friday, February 2nd – 5:30-8:00 pm
Justin Rock Trio
jazz in the bookshop
every Friday since October 2002
$10 suggested donation
 

This  may or may not be the Bastet! Either way, it’s Justin Rock, a firecracker of a jazz guitarist with a lot on his mind, most of it private! With collaborators Owen Clapp on bass and Mike Quigg on drums, he’ll rock the joint this Friday and Friday next. Jazz in the bookshop just got a whole new twist. Come on out!

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Thursday, February 1st – 7:30-9:30 pm
Guitarist Howard Alden & Violinist Kit Eakle:
A duo exploration of some music by Monk & Django!
$20 cover charge

Howard Alden is a formidable guitarist with an international reputation, visiting California this winter for a number of dates with violinist Kit Eakle, well known as an historian of the violin in jazz. Alden and Eakle are embarking on a run of quartet dates around the Bay Area exploring the music of Thelonious Monk and Django Reinhardt. Here, they’ll strip it down to duo and solo work. Alden notes, “the chance to play this music in a duo format is very special to me and will create an entirely different vibe from the quartet shows. I love the duo format, it creates an intimate and unique atmosphere with every different personality, whether with another guitarist or one horn like my meetings with Warren Vaché, Anat Cohen, Ken Peplowski and others over the years.” We’re delighted that Howard Alden has developed an affinity for the Bird & Beckett audience and that he’ll…

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February 1st to 4th: More!

 . Guitarist Howard Alden on Thursday, the 1st;   The Justin Rock Trio (Bastet) on Friday, the 2nd (early show);   Kahil El’Zabar Ethnic Heritage Ensemble 45th Anniversary Show on Friday, the 2nd (late show);   The Five Spot Jazz Quintet on Saturday, the 3rd;   Nasty Women Poets on Sunday, the 4th (2pm);   The Alcatraz Islanders on Sunday, the 4th (4:30pm)!  

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Sunday, January 28th – 4:30-6:30 pm
The Grant Levin Trio
$10 suggested donation

Two favorite collaborators join one of San Francisco’s most astonishingly talented pianists for two sets of standards, bop, little known gems and originals. Grant Levin, piano Charles Thomas, bass Pepe Jacobo, drums

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Sunday, January 28th – 2:30-4 pm
Walker Talks!

Novalis, arch Romantic poet of the 18th century, precursor to Goethe, perceptive of the ancient wisdom embodied in Heraclitus’ observation, “Wisdom is a dry light.”

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 Saturday, January 27th– 7:30-10:00 pm
Lost Shapes
jazz club! when lights are low…
 

The Jazz Philanthropists Union presents…   The Lost Shapes   Darren Johnston, trumpet Kasey Knudsen, alto sax Mark Clifford, vibraphone Safa Shokrai, bass Jason Levis, drum set   All five members contribute compositions to the band’s book.

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Friday, January 26th – 5:30-8:00 pm
230 Jones Street Jazz Band
jazz in the bookshop
every Friday since October 2002
$10 suggested donation

Talk about your San Francisco jazz… On the fourth Friday of each month, our weekly jazz in the bookshop series features The 230 Jones Street, Local 6 Literary Jazz Band — once the province of the estimable Chuck Peterson — five musicians whose history on the local jazz scene dates back 60 years, to the very early 1950s. Ray Loeckle and Jerry Logas, reeds Duncan James, guitar Dean Reilly, bass Tony Johnson, drums

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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," 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.

Click on "donate" in the navigation bar above. Better yet, make a check out to the “Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project” and drop it off or mail it to:

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.

____________

We're immensely appreciative of Jazz in the Neighborhood for having stepped in as our temporary fiscal sponsor for a few months, while we straightened out some paperwork to get nonprofit status restored to the BBCLP. We're happy to say that's been done, and all past, present, and future donations made directly to the BBCLP are fully tax-deductible!

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

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