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!
Randy Lee Odell and Bing Nathan will be here! Â You should be, too. Randy will play drums and Bing will play bass, alongside Easifingers Eric Shifrin on the piano… You just need to bring your ears, your enthusiasm and some cash for the performers! The In Crowd ain’t nothin’ without you! With you, it’s the happenin’ thing… every last Thursday of the month to ease the pain of what’s gone by and set the stage for the pleasures to come.
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Clifford Brown III – trumpet Charles Hamilton – trombone, Hal Richards – tenor sax and bass clarinet, Jerry Logas – bari sax, Brad Bivens – guitar, Dave Parker – bass, Greg German – drums.
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Cool little duo – Macy Blackman on piano and Bing Nathan on bass – doing some massively wonderful music by the King & Queen of New Orleans Soul. Macy and his full band just put out a new cd of this material. You’re in for a guided tour of what you’ll hear if you buy the cd — “Shoorah Shoorah” — to take home.
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Walker Brents III gives a talk at Bird & Beckett on the last Sunday of each month… always a fascinating excursion through topics literary, philosophical and otherwise.
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Smith Dobson Quintet plays the music of Charlie Parker, surely the most influential musician in modern jazz history– and the “Bird” in Bird & Beckett. Smith Dobson, sax Erik Jekabson, trumpet Keith Saunders, piano John Wiitala, bass Evan Hughes, drums
Read MorePianist Levin and bassist Cetto have been developing a rich collaboration over the past several months, growing deeper with each outing. Grant’s twice-monthly duo dates — every second and fourth Saturday afternoon — offer the pianist an opportunity for intimate conversation with colleagues on the bandstand that never fails to lavishly reward the attention of the Bird & Beckett audience.
Read MoreTalk 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 — professional musicians whose history on the local jazz scene dates back 60 years, to the very early 1950s. Ray Loeckle and Jerry Logas on saxes Glen Deardorff on guitar Dean Reilly on bass Tony Johnson on drums
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Judith Ayn Bernhard and Aung Taik read from their work, followed by an open mic. Jerry Ferraz carries the day as m.c., as he has since the beginning– which may have been in 12th century Provence.
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In tribute to some of the giants of the saxophone, Michael Zilber performs all original music from his new cd, “Originals for the ORIGINALS,” written in homage to John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, Dave Liebman, Michael Brecker, Sonny Rollins, Paul Desmond and Joe Henderson. Hailed by jazz critics including Andrew Gilbert and Bill Milkowski as superb, Zilber’s 11th release as a leader features New York jazz greats Dave Kikoski on piano, James Genus on bass, and Clarence Penn on drums, and has been widely described as his best and most personal recording.. For this Bird & Beckett performance, Michael is joined by Matt Clark on piano; Peter Barshay on bass and Jason Lewis on drums. You couldn’t ask for better!
Read More70 years on… Having met Neal Cassady in December 1946 in NYC, Jack Kerouac says so long to Neal on March 4, 1947, and Neal returns in a tear to Denver. By March 7, Neal has written a letter to Jack from Denver, the “Great Sex Letter,” astonishing and thrilling Jack with its energy & drive… It is also in March 1947, in Denver, that Neal meets Carolyn Robinson, who would be the enduring love of his life, and the linchpin in the relationship between Neal and Jack, and in a very real sense the anchor between Neal’s desire for constant movement and for deep connection and stability. It is Carolyn who becomes the motive for Neal’s move to San Francisco where she has gone. They take up residence on Russian Hill, where Jack joins them, and then move down to San Jose, his base from that point on, raising…
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Poet Arturo Mantecón presents a reading from the work of three late 20th century Spanish language poets/writers — Francisco Ferrer LerÃn, Leopoldo MarÃa Panero and Mario Santiago Papasquiaro.  Mantecón is joined on the program by Gilberto Rodriguez, who will declaim poems of Panero, and by musicians Dylan Morgan and Arturo Balderrama. Mantecón’s translations include poems of Ferrer LerÃn as well as poetry and prose of the mad Spanish poeta maldito, Leopoldo MarÃa Panero (Like an Eye in the Hand of a Beggar, Editions Michel Eyquem, 2013). He is currently translating work of the Mexican infrarrealista poet Mario Santiago Papasquiaro. Mantecón was born in Laredo, Texas and raised in Detroit, Michigan. His poetry has appeared in La Ventana Abierta, Poetry Now and various anthologies. A collection of his short stories, Memories, Cuentos VerÃdicos, y Otras Outright Lies, was published by En Casa in 2014.  Mantecón’s notes with regard to today’s program follow:…
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Cuban style son with timba and folkloric strains cooked up by percussionist Sandor Moss y su mecanica… From Pinar del Rio Province, Cuba — Fito Reinoso, tres & vocals “El Niche” Romero, trumpet & vocals From Havana, Cuba – Vladimir Cepeda, congas From Bolivia — Gabriel Navia, bass From Nicaragua — Sandor Moss, drumset A proud Mariel, Fito Reinoso has been in the states since 1980 and in San Francisco for thirty years or more.  With a voice reminiscent of Beny Moré, Fito handles timba, son and the latest Havana grooves with equal mastery.  He has worked with top players through a long professional career that began at age 12 in Candekaria, Pinar Del Rio, which has seen him playing with such legends as Francisco Aguabella, Armando Peraza, Carlos “Patato” Valdez and Israel Lopez “Cachao”, Mayquel Gonvalez and Jose Luis Gomez, among many others. Dileivys “El Niche” Romero — like Fito, coming from…
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Time to revisit some music released in that fabled year, 1967! Lincoln Adler, sax Scott Foster, guitar Mike Bordelon, bass Dan Foltz, drums Unbelievably wonderful jazz guaranteed
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ARCANA BOIL! – Concert and Reading in celebration of the Shuffle Boil Special Issue of AMERARCANA – featuring Hafez Modirzadeh, David Boyce, Marshall Trammell. The latest issue of AMERARCANA is guest edited by poets Steve Dickison and the late, great David Meltzer, erstwhile editors of SHUFFLE BOIL: A Magazine of Poets and Music, and consists of 160 pages of writing by Bill Berkson, David Boyce, Brandon Brown, Gerald Bryant (interviewed by Julie Rogers), Garrett Caples, Ornette Coleman (interviewed by Howard Shore and Zan Stewart), Justin Desmangles, Steve Dickison, Patrick James Dunagan, Howard Eiland, Stephen Emerson, Owen Hill, Ted Joans, Alastair Johnston, Andrew Joron, Ava Koohbor, Oliver Lake, Marina Lazzara, Brian Lucas, Francois Luong, Nathaniel Mackey, Jake Marmer, David Meltzer, Hafez Modirzadeh, Jason Morris, Joseph Noble, Linda Norton, Maryam Ivette Parhizkar, Julien Poirier, Rod Roland, Chris Stroffolino, and Marshall R. Trammell; with artwork by Alex Cruz, George Herms, and Julie Ezelle…
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Classic, Outlaw & Honky Tonk Music by legends of the Bay Area country scene  Joe Goldmark, pedal steel guitar Mitch Polzak, lead guitar and vocal Hank Maninger, bass guitar and vocal Kenny Owen, 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." 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
