653 Chenery Street
in San Francisco's Glen Park neighborhood
1-415-586-3733
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The long overdue SIXTH issue of AMERARCANA: A Bird & Beckett Review is now available, featuring art by Will Yackulic and writing by Garrett Caples, Tongo Eisen-Martin, Derek Fenner, Jackqueline Frost, Evan Kennedy, Frank Lima, Jason Morris, Rod Roland, Aaron Shurin, Cedar Sigo, Syd Staiti, Richard Tagett, Tara Thomas, and the editor, Nicholas James Whittington, along with translations of Hafez by Patrick James Dunagan and Ava Koohbor. Order now. And/or show your face and flash some cash on Wednesday, December 9th at 7:00 pm when we’ll hold a celebration of the publication with readings by contributors, libations, and general near-year-end levity. Please help spread the word!
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Joshua Raoul Brody Christopher Gray Joe Cunningham are The Potrero Hillbillies! Joshua Raoul Brody writes:  Everybody loves the Kinks. Not everybody loves their widely overlooked album Muswell Hillbillies, and that is a shame: it’s one of those albums (like, in this writer’s opinion, Revolver, Loaded (what an interesting juxtaposition!), the Band’s 2nd album,Smiley Smile, Loudon Wainwright’s High Wide & Handsome, and Little Village) where every track is exquisite PLUS they all hang together to make a lovely whole PLUS it sounds like everybody had a lot of fun making it (whether or not that’s actually true) AND it’s a lot of fun to listen to. Underrated genius Ray Davies joined alternately witty and heartbreaking lyrics to his brother’s gift for irresistibly catchy guitar hooks and the result should have been even more successful than the previous year’s “Lolaâ€, but somehow it didn’t take off – maybe switching record labels had something to…
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Denise Perrier, vocals Jerry Logas, saxophone Keith Saunders, piano Adam Gay, bass Tony Johnson, drums “Denise has this wonderfully warm voice….Listening to her is like sipping the best glass of wine you ever had in your life. You savor every note that comes out of her mouth.†– Dee Spencer, pianist and professor of music. “Denise has everything a singer should: sound, soul, swing and feeling. And she’s a party!” — Houston Person, tenor saxophonist “Denise Perrier is more than a good singer. She is a complete entertainer, who is able to take a song and make it her own.” –Clifford Brown, Jr. radio host, KCSM “She’s the real deal, right in there with Ella Fitzgerald and Dinah Washington.” – Bryan Gould, founder of big band Swing Fever “Perrier’s work is big, rich, melodic, and hits home with a remarkable punch. She has that swirling, dancing, ingratiating intimacy usually associated…
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Smith Dobson, alto saxophone, leads a quartet that includes trumpeter Henry Hung, bassist Miles Wick and drummer Evan Hughes in an exploration of Ornette Coleman’s music. Coleman had a remarkable influence on the shape of jazz to come for so many generations of musicians that followed. Says Smith, “Ornette’s music started to liberate me from the confines of straight ahead jazz when I was still a teenager playing drums in a band in Santa Cruz days called Guts (with Robert Overbury, Jay Sanders and Scott Larson). We had a weekly gig at a long-defunct club and even a small but loyal following. “What I love about Ornette is that although he freed up the concept of jazz improvisation, his roots are still deeply rooted in the tradition of bebop. I am a big fan of all eras of Ornette and plan to play some music spanning his whole life.”
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We’ve been doing it since late 2002 — never missed a Friday — and on it goes! Bassist Don Prell’s Seabop Ensemble plays the first Friday of each month in our “jazz in the bookshop” series. This evening: Guitarist Ray Scott joins SeaBop regulars Jerry Logas, reeds; Don Prell, bass; Vinnie Rodriguez, drums. A veteran of the 1950s LA-based Bud Shank Quartet and 30 years with the San Francisco Symphony, Don is a fiercely dedicated jazzman, willing to play anywhere and any time, and he’s been a key to keeping our weekly jazz series going these many years.
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Jazz violinist and vocalist Tom Solinger has assembled a quartet featuring Sue Crosman, piano; John Clark, bass; and Mark Lee, drums. Tom’s time on the San Francisco jazz scene dates back to the 1970s; he’s known John, a first class bassist, since those days. Mark has been a key drummer on the local scene for years, and Sue’s known to be queen of the solo jazz pianists in the Nob Hill hotels. Â Together, the four players will make some fine and fun music this afternoon. Tom has been a piano tuner by trade for decades now — keeping the Club Fugazi’s much used instrument in shape for the demands of Beach Blanket Babylon with bi-weekly visits as well as babying along countless grands gracing the parlors of Nob Hill swells — but his heart is in small combo work like you’ll hear today. This date, like so many you can…
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Drummer Vinnie Rodriguez leads the date on an excursion through the music of Sonny Rollins, putting his worthy constituents Jay Sanders (piano), Mike Irwin Johnson (guitar) and Noah Schencker (bass) through their paces. Nary a reed player among them, much less a wind instrument…. Jay’s well known as a trumpeter, but here he navigates the keys. Ok, so it turns out he brought his trumpet. Our gain, there. The other players? Solidly in the pocket. Â It’s Mike who will provide the charts and advise on the wealth of Sonny Rollins material for the choosing. Are you ready? Drop! Go Dodgers!
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Twice a month, on the 2nd and 4th Saturdays, pianist Grant Levin performs with a duo partner at Bird & Beckett. Â Grant is always amazing, and the rapport he builds with his fellow musicians is consistently deep.
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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 — aka The Chuck Peterson Quintet — five musicians whose history on the local jazz scene dates back 60 years, to the very early 1950s.. Reed & flute player Chuck Peterson initiated Bird & Beckett’s tradition of Friday jazz sessions back in October of 2002, and now finishes out the month’s schedule of Fridays in the stellar company of four long-time associates, each of whom has been at the top of the jazz scene locally and nationally for six decades. Reed player Howard Dudune plays with the easy grace of Lester Young and a swinging humor all his own, while guitarist Glen Deardorff drives the rhythm with a fierce insouciance. Bassist Dean Reilly, one of the most respected elder statesmen of the local jazz scene and…
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The crime fiction of Dashiell Hammett and Paul Auster inspired bassist Lisa Mezzacappa to cook up this project, which performed the suite recently at SFJazz.  Thanks to Marty Bigos for helping to underwrite AvantNOIR’s performance today at Bird & Beckett. And thanks to Jean Conner, whose support through the years has made our entire Sunday afternoon “which way west?” series possible. A sextet with Aaron Bennett, sax; John Finkbeiner, guitar; Vijay Anderson, drums; Lisa Mezzacappa, bass (Bait & Switch) plus William Wynant, percussion and Tim Perkis, electronics. music inspired by noir genre fiction set in New York City (LM’s hometown) and the San Francisco Bay Area (her adopted home for the past 13 years). avant-NOIR is a musical companion to Paul Auster’s abstract soft-boiled crime stories from his New York Trilogy of the 1980s, set in conversation with the West Coast classic hard-boiled 1920s-era detective fiction of Dashiell Hammett. The…
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To Defend the Revolution Is to Defend Culture revisits the circumstances which led to the arts being embraced at the heart of the Cuban Revolution. Introducing the main protagonists to the debate, this previously untold story follows the polemical twists and turns that ensued in the volatile atmosphere of the 1960s and ’70s. The picture that emerges is of a struggle for dominance between Soviet-derived approaches and a uniquely Cuban response to the arts under socialism. The latter tendency, which eventually won out, was based on the principles of Marxist humanism. As such, this book foregrounds emancipatory understandings of culture. Author Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt will present her work and engage in discussion with the audience.  Rebecca began her journey to Cuba in 2008, in search of new ways of thinking about culture. The following year, she spent five months gathering material in the libraries and archives of Havana. Entering the final…
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There’s no band quite like the bands Rhodessa Jones and Idris Ackamoor have been presenting these past several decades, and no concepts quite like their concepts. Tonight, you’ll see how that is. Rhodessa Jones — vocals Idris Ackamoor — alto and tenor sax, percussion David Molina — guitar, ableton computer, percussion Heshima Mark William — bass
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Guitarist Scott Foster is joined this evening by James Mahone, tenor sax; Sam Bevan, bass; and Brandon Etzler, drums, for an excursion through the work of a guitarist that influenced Scott profoundly early on and retains a fascination still. Scofield himself characterizes his music as falling in a continuum of post-bop, funk edged jazz, and R & B. According to the bio on his site, Scofield was born in Ohio and raised in suburban Connecticut, took up the guitar at age 11, inspired by both rock and blues players, and attended Berklee College of Music in Boston. fAter a debut recording with Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker, he joined the Billy Cobham-George Duke band for two years. In 1977 he recorded with Charles Mingus, and joined the Gary Burton quartet. He began his international career as a bandleader and recording artist in 1978. From 1982–1985, Scofield toured and recorded with Miles…
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Broomrider’s Book of the Dead purports to be “A book in no genre based on found fragments from the notebooks of Anna Albuquar a.k.a. Anna Plum.” By happenstance the first reader of this book comes upon some poems. A tourist, he would like to believe he is in Bombay for work alone. Not pleasure, he is quite sure until chance brings him to Kamala or Chamilla in the hotel lobby. Chamilla brings him to Nariman point and then to her one room chawl dwelling so he can take some interesting pictures of one room chawl dwelling with the toilet downstairs. He looks like the adventurous sort to Kamala but he refrains from drinking water she offers him from the large earthen pot which looks peculiarly green on the outside, algae green. She buys him peanuts at the corner and a bottle of mineral water, Bisleri to be very sure. “Oh thank…
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 Based on Margo Perin’s childhood, The Opposite of Hollywood is a riveting novel of a family on the run. Marked by secrecy, false identities, and her father’s criminality, Tosca goes “on vacation†through five countries and two continents as she fights to learn her true identity. Margo Perin is the contributing editor of Only the Dead Can Kill: Stories from Jail and How I Learned to Cook & Other Writings on Complex Mother-Daughter Relationships and the poet of San Francisco’s permanent memorial Spiral of Gratitude. A nominee for the Pushcart Prize, she has been featured in numerous national and international media, including Heyday/PEN’s Fightin’ Words, The San Francisco Chronicle Sunday Magazine, O, The Oprah Magazine, Mexico’s El Petit Journal, Holland’s Psycologie, KRON 4 TV, NPR’s Talk of the Nation, and KPFA, KALW, and WAMC. Her awards include two San Francisco Arts Commission Cultural Equity Grants, a Creative Work Fund…
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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
