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!
Who knew surf guitarists might have an axe to grind! Lee says plenty with his guitar, and Jamie Lease and Ed Ivey have no problem surfing his wake! We dig ’em unconditionally! But Lee’s also got this to say! SOMETIMES WORDS JUST GET IN THE WAY. THEY CAN OBSCURE AS OPPOSED TO CLARIFY. THIS CAN BE THE CASE WITH MUSIC & LYRICS. WORDS MAY GET IN THE WAY OF WHAT ‘S REALLY TRYING TO BE SAID. I DON’T LIKE WORDS IN MUSIC ANY MORE THAN I LIKE A STRANGER TELLING ME THEIR MEDICAL HISTORY WHILE WAITING FOR THE BUS. WORDS CAN BE HURTFUL. THEY CAN CUT LIKE A KNIFE AND BURN LIKE A FLAME. I’VE HEARD ENOUGH WORDS. MY FAVORITE SONGS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN INSTRUMENTALS, ESPECIALLY WHEN ACCOMPANIED BY IMAGES, FILM SCORES IN PARTICULAR….MUSIC THAT EVOKES A SCENE, SOUND AS A PRELUDE TO ACTION AND MOVEMENT. I WANTED TO ASSEMBLE…
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Elsa Marley will be reading from her new book of poetry, Never Forget, which brings together 27 years of poems about the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 in China.  Elsa is a painter who also writes poetry.  The Tiananmen poems derive from her presence in China at the time of the massacre, after being resident in China for three years. Elsa will be joined by Bill Glassley, who is coming in from New Mexico and whose new book on Greenland will be published soon. Elsa and Bill Glassley have a long-running collaboration in which they look at Greenland for evidence of the effects of climate change demonstrated in Bill’s scientific data and Elsa’s paintings and poems. Also sharing the stage at Bird & Beckett for this occasion will be poet and painter Sherrie Lovler. Sherrie’s paintings are inspired by her poetry, and the core influence on her art has been calligraphy. Her recent…
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The Smith Dobson Trio explores the music of Bill Evans Adam Shulman, piano Eric Markowitz, bass Smith Dobson, drums
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The first Friday of the month is the province of one of our elder statesmen of bop and west coast jazz, Mr. Don Prell, bassist. He learned his trade in L.A. in the 50s and has stories to tell, and bebop lines to play! Â Jerry Logas on reeds and Vinnie Rodriguez on drums lend able support!
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Join us Thursday, June 2nd from 7–9pm for the opening reception of Life After Death: Hand Lettering and Book Arts in the Digital Age featuring work by students from City College of San Francisco. The show will run through mid July, open daily from 11–7.
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They’re fierce, they’re funny, and they’ll make your head spin while your toe’s tappin’. Plus, the Moby Dick album is deep. The rest is beyond category. Two sets, so you’ll get a generous helping of both. Â No cover charge per se: $10-20 donation suggested and appreciated. After you’ve supped, you’ll want to feast on the leftovers, so put El Rio’s Shit-Kickin’ Memorial Day show on your calendar for Monday.
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Trumpet player George Spencer pianist Grant Levin and drummer Mark Lee join bassist Charles Thomas for two sets of jazz Sunday afternoon, 4:30-6:30 pm, at Bird & Beckett Books That’s Charles and Grant in the photo, with drummer Omar Aran, at a previous Bird & Beckett date. Â This one? Expect a transcendent afternoon. Things won’t be quite the same after this one.
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Walker Brents III never fails to spin a fascinating account of some aspect of philosophy, history, mythology, some poet, a cultural moment… This afternoon, Walker’s subject is novelist and essayist Aldous Huxley, the author of Brave New World, The Doors of Perception, The Art of Seeing and more.
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Saturday nights, the vibe shifts at Bird & Beckett as we put the lights down low and welcome to the stage an array of great jazz players from the Bay Area’s deep talent pool. Drummer Vinnie Rodriguez’s quartet this Saturday night features trumpeter Jay Sanders (aka Jay Standards, ’cause he’s ready to play any tune, in any key, at any tempo, any time!), Keith Saunders on piano and Mike Bordelon on bass. Â Jay has helped Vinnie assemble a set list heavy on music associated with trumpet greats Kenny Dorham and Donald Byrd, with a generous sprinkling of other favorites. Â Promises to be a great show, as usual! Next month (June 25th), Vinnie’s bringing in two great Scotts– Larson (trombone) and Barnhill (sax). Â It’ll be swinging for sure! Â Vinnie leads the band on the fourth Sunday of each month. As for next week in our Saturday night jazz club series (June…
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Twice a month, on the 2nd and 4th Saturday afternoons, 2 pm to 4 pm, pianist Grant Levin invites another fine Bay Area jazz musician to the stage for two sets of jazz. Always a fascinating and rewarding experience for the Bird & Beckett audience. Â This week Charles Thomas plays the date. And keep in mind, Charles returns Sunday afternoon at 4:30 pm leading a quartet with Grant on piano.
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Poet Tracey Knapp will join José Luis Gutiérrez in a reading to celebrate the release of Jose’s new collection, A World Less Away.  Tracey’s book, “Mouth,” was published in 2015. Guitarist David McFarland contributes his music to the occasion. José Luis Gutiérrez was born in Miami and grew up in Panama. He is a San Francisco-based poet, interpreter and translator. His work has appeared in Eratio, Scythe, Margie, DMQ and the anthologies Mutanabbi Street Starts Here and 99 Poems for the 99 Percent, among others. His first full-length poetry collection A World Less Away has recently been published by Pariah Dog Press. Poet Dean Radar says of the book, “A World Less Away is a masterful mapping, an aesthetic atlas of ideas, war, creation, economic decline, tenderness, and the journeys we make among them… Meditative and inquisitive, these poems migrate between the personal and the political in modes both smart…
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Tongo Eisen-Martin  •  Chris Peck  •  Miles Wick  •  Jon Rogers no cover charge — but we’ll need your donations to help us pay the band. give what you can – $5 to $10 suggested and appreciated – no one turned away
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“Macy is as comfortable rockin’ Ellington and Gershwin as he is swingin’ Joe Turner and Eddie “Cleanhead†Vinson,” quoth an article by Andrew Gilbert in Berkeleyside. But it’s New Orleans’ music that’s at the heart of so much of Macy Blackman’s music, ever since the mid 70’s when he began to specialize in New Orleans R&B after forming a tight bond of friendship with one of its masters, drummer Charles “Hungry” Williams. Come down to Bird & Beckett Sunday, May 22nd and take a stroll with Macy and bassist Bing Nathan through the piano styles of Jelly Roll Morton, Fats Domino, Professor Longhair, Allen Toussaint, James Booker and other giants of New Orleans jazz and R&B. Read up on Macy by clicking here!
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Tenor sax player Bob Kenmotsu leads the band, with Parker Grant on piano, Doug Miller on bass and Ron Marabuto on drums. Â Come on out and hear what they’ve got to offer. Â This is jazz as it’s played in San Francisco in 2016! Â Best jazz on the planet at any given moment, and you can hear it at Bird & Beckett! Read up on bassist Doug Miller by clicking here. Â His track record is long and solid. The young pianist Parker Grant can be heard on Saturdays at the Burritt Room in a trio with guitarist Kai Lyon and drummer Brandon Etzler, where’s he’s been building a solid reputation as an inventive and swinging player. Â Drummer Ron Marabuto grew up in the business, son of a key San Francisco pianist of the 50s and 60s, John Marabuto. Â He put in serious time in New York, where he gigged extensively with…
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Join us at Bird & Beckett for a freewheeling discussion of North Beach in its current and historical glory by three major writers, each a long-time denizen of San Francisco’s favorite neighborhood, each with a new book: Journalist Ernie Beyl:Â Sketches from a North Beach Journal Novelist Herb Gold:Â When A Psychopath Falls in Love Radical defense attorney Tony Serra:Â The Scaffold Â
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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.
Due to lapses in tax filings during and post-pandemic, the BBCLP's status as a registered nonprofit was suspended at the beginning of April 2024 while we reapply, which is expected to take about six months. Donations made after April 1st will not be tax-deductible until nonprofit status is restored.
However, we continue to present a full slate of programming live music and poetry, and producing literary chapbooks, and we seek and welcome your continued financial support in the interim. If a tax-deduction is not a major reason for your support to date, we hope you'll continue to ride with us while we navigate these next several months.
Click on "donate" in the navigation bar above, drop off a check at the bookshop, or drop one in the mail 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.
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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
