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, May 26th – 7-9 pm
Book Release Celebration
A World Less Away, a collection of poems by José Luis Gutiérrez

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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mark your calendar! Monday, May 23rd – 7:00 pm
LOAN live at bird & beckett

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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Sunday, May 22nd – 7:30-10 pm
A guided tour from a master of New Orleans piano styles
Macy Blackman at the keys, with Bing Nathan on bass!

“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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Sunday, May 22nd – 4:30-6:30 pm
The Bob Kenmotsu Quartet

Tenor sax player Bob Kenmotsu leads the band, with Parker Grant on piano, Doug Miller on bass and Ron Marabuto on drums.  Come on out and hear what they’ve got to offer.  This is jazz as it’s played in San Francisco in 2016!  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.  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.  Drummer Ron Marabuto grew up in the business, son of a key San Francisco pianist of the 50s and 60s, John Marabuto.  He put in serious time in New York, where he gigged extensively with…

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mark your calendar! Sunday, May 22nd – 2-4 pm
Gold, Serra, Beyl: Three North Beach Denizens of Great Repute
together on stage at Bird & Beckett!

  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: Sketches from a North Beach Journal Novelist Herb Gold: When A Psychopath Falls in Love Radical defense attorney Tony Serra: The Scaffold  

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Saturday, May 21st – 7:30-10 pm
Heshima’s Mo’ Better Jazz Birthday Bash

jazz club! when lights are low… every Saturday night!

Heshima Mark Williams marks another year, and what better way to do it than to celebrate his birthday, just a little belatedly, with colleagues and friends on the bandstand at Bird & Beckett!  He’ll have Art Khu on piano and Alcide Marshall on drums, with horn players Gary Bean (trumpet) and David Ferrazares (tenor sax). Collectively, this is the Ways & Means Committee! Come out and join the party!

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Saturday, May 21st – Rent Party Off Site for Bird & Beckett!

April is the cruelest month, and so… Jerry Ferraz is hosting a rent party for Bird & Beckett! It’s in his backyard out on Mission Street, a few blocks south of Cortland Call the bookshop at 415-586-3733 to RSVP & get the address   Saturday, May 21st – 1 pm to 7 pm It’s a benefit, so bring your checkbook! ~~Off site! Not at the bookshop! (see above)~~ Help the bookshop meet the bills! “No-host” bar, with proceeds to the bookshop, AND the bucket will be passed!   On the house… live jazz! plus Jerry’s famous chili, salad and garlic bread! Vince Lateano Trio    2:00-4:30pm with Jordan Samuels, guitar and Frank Tusa, bass   Jazz Jam Session   4:45-7:00 pm with The Vinnie Rodriguez Rhythm Section Neil Kelly, guitar – Adam Thompson, bass musicians bring your axes! POETS! BRING YOUR VOICES!

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Friday, May 20th – 5:30-8:00 pm
The Scott Foster Quartet: The Art of the Pick Up Band

Bob Kenmotsu, tenor sax Scott Foster, guitar Adam Gay, bass Omar Aran, drums Guitarist Scott Foster, who leads a date at Bird & Beckett on the third Friday of each month, has assembled a quartet the way quartets are generally assembled: get a date booked and start calling around to see who’s available. Come the date, convene on the bandstand, find a quick consensus on the first tune, the tempo, maybe a few details about how to handle it, and let it rip.  Then spend the rest of the first set getting progressively more comfortable with each other, take a break, take it on through to the end. Maybe each has played with each, maybe not, it’s ok, you’re all used to it and find it pretty natural to be stimulated by it the process. Time telescopes, contracts; comfort zones are found and stepped in and out of; mistakes are…

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Monday, May 16th – 7-9 pm
Featured poets Rosemary Manno & Roderick Iverson
open mic follows

Rosemary Manno has lived in San Francisco since 1983.   She grew up in Buffalo, New York and has lived in Paris whenever possible. She is a published poet, artist, world traveler, lover of foreign tongues, the natural world and revolutionary struggle and is a member of the Revolutionary Poets Brigade. Her work has also appeared in numerous chapbooks, magazines and anthologies. Her forthcoming collection is entitled Marseille. Roderick Iverson is a poet, novelist and translator.  He speaks French German and Polish fluently and a number of other languages as well. He is one of the first writers to translate and publish the work of Georg Trakl in the United States. Recently he has toured France reading selections of his work with a group of other poets influenced by Beat poetry.  He presently lives and works in San Francisco. An open mic follows. Hosted by Jerry Ferraz

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Sunday, May 15th – 7:30-10 pm
Jinx Jones All Star Jazz-A-Billy Trio
canyon moonlight series… Sunday nights at Bird & Beckett
until the Riptide returns!

Wait!! Is Bird & Beckett a jazz venue? a rock-a-billy venue? Is it too early in the month for a jazz-a-billy date? Just what is jazz-a-billy anyway? Exploring that last timeless question, you may want to check out the article linked here and then consider this statement attributed to Jinx from a great San Jose Mercury article that ran in the paper a few days ago:   “My whole approach is similar to a jazz musician. I like when music happens at a certain moment in a song and it may never happen that way again. There’s a kind of adventure to that.” In the San Jose Merc article, Jinx goes on to say “One thing I like about rockabilly — anything you can play in a blues, jazz, swing, or country music context, you can put all of that stuff into rockabilly and it fits.” All true! And we’ve seen it get…

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Sunday, May 15th – 2-4 pm
Three on a Match: Poets Paul Fericano, Ellaraine Lockie and Art Beck

Paul Fericano founded the Stoogist movement and, besides being a terrific satirical poet, is the mind behind Yossarian Universal News Service (YU) (why not?). Ellaraine Lockie’s poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize eleven times. Art Beck’s Luxorius Opera Omnia, a Duet for Sitar and Trombone (Otis College, Seismicity Editions) was awarded the 2013 Northern California Book award for poetry in translation.

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Saturday, May 14th – 7:30-10:00 pm
jazz club! when lights are low… every Saturday night
Sylvia Cuenca-Paul Bollenback-Wil Blades Organ Trio

Catch Sylvia Cuenca leading a fabulous trio with Wil Blades on organ and Paul Bollenback on guitar, mid-way through a four date Bay Area run– Cafe Stritch in San Jose on Thursday and Friday, Bird & Beckett Saturday night, and Chez Hanny Sunday afternoon. Read E. “Doc” Smith’s BeyondChron article on the date here!     Click here to read up on Sylvia Click here to read up on Paul Bollenback Click here to read up on Wil Blades Frank Hanny always does a nice job of presenting bios of the players… you can read what he’s gathered here.  Hear the trio at Bird & Beckett Saturday night, and then hear them again Sunday afternoon at Frank’s place, Chez Hanny on Silver Avenue over in the Portola District, a hop, skip and a jump from Bird & Beckett.   www.chezhanny.com If you’re coming up from the South Bay, please do bring…

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Saturday, May 14th – 2 pm – Reading!
Cross Strokes: Poetry Between L.A. and San Francisco

Join us for the San Francisco Launch Party for the anthology Cross Strokes, Poetry between Los Angeles and San Francisco on Saturday, May 14th from 2 to 4 pm. Readings by: Neeli Cherkovski Tim Donnelly Sharon Doubiago Patrick James Dunagan Bill Mohr Paul Vangelisti Maw Shein Win Plus readings of work by Francisco X. Alarcon, Jack Hirschman, and Lenore Kandel. check the facebook event page at https://www.facebook.com/events/153599258375281/

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Friday, May 13th – 5:30-8:00
Aaron Cohn-Luke Westbrook-Gaea Schell Trio

play jazz in the bookshop
San Francisco’s longest running weekly jazz party!
and you’re invited…

                                          Aaron Cohn, bass           Gaea Schell, piano               Luke Westbrook, guitar jazz in the bookshop, every Friday night $10 per adult if you can wing it. don’t stay away for lack of funds. but if you’re good for it, the culture’s better off.

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Thursday, May 12th – 7-9 pm
Bird & Beckett Book Club

Every second Thursday, gather with a bookish batch of your neighbors to yak up the books… this month, it’s Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior… next month, God’s Hotel by Victoria Sweet… July, Some Luck by Jane Smiley. The folks love to see new faces, and to solicit their input on future books to read. So don’t be shy! Want to make yourself instantly popular? Bring a bottle of something or a snack. It’s been known to work before!

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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.

TAKE OUR SURVEY

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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

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