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!
On March 29, local folk ‘n’ country songwriter of some small note, Misisipi Mike Wolf and his musical pals will perform live and in person, for all those who wish to be entertained, the classic 1975 Willie (Hugh) Nelson concept album “Red Headed Stranger.” Considered one of the best albums all time, “Red Headed Stranger” was truly an anomaly in the indulgent 1970s. By 1975, Willie Nelson was a middle aged, long-haired, pot-smoking fish out of water in the staid and conservative Nashville country scene. Having retreated to Austin, Texas after a career that had rewarded him with very little success, Willie Nelson took his career and music into his own hands. What he created was a concept album built around pop, folk and cowboy songs dating back to the early 20th century as well as original songs, all recorded in the sparsest of manners with sometimes as little as…
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Come on out to our 2nd Sunday Surf-a-billy Swing Time Dance Party! This month, it’s The Pleasure Palace, featuring the guitarero of North Beach, Ned Boynton; organ grinder Lorenzo Farrell and drummer/raconteur Rolf Wilkinson! Â You’re going to love this little band and their swinging little repertoire. They’re beyond category, so we won’t assay to pigeonhole them here! Â Come and out and enjoy yourself. We’ll ply you with Bloody Marys & Irish Coffees if that’s to your liking… Â orange juice if that’s more your style..
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Walker Talks! Â A monthly series of ruminations by Walker Brents on diverse subjects — from individual writers and philosophers, to bits of mythology, epic tales and cultural turning points. Today, Walker will plumb the subject of the Greek mystery religions- cults that persisted for centuries and even millennia, each with its own secret rituals, celebrations and belief systems, each centered variously on the likes of Dionysus, Orpheus, Demeter, Persephone, each open only to initiates… …religions that arose as the history of the gods became the history of the soul.
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Erik Jekabson, trumpet Keith Saunders, piano Adam Gay, bass Vinnie Rodriguez, drums Vinnie Rodriguez’ quartet will focus on the writings of the late, great jazz pianist Horace Silver. The pianist on today’s date, Keith Saunders, is among the most sought after local piano players for hard bop dates, with a sure feel for the complexity of the changes and the propulsive drive that makes this music so irresistible. Â Trumpeter Erik Jekabson likewise is a superbly skilled musician who’s name is always on the tip of the tongue of dedicated jazz fans hereabouts when discussing the local players who are in the league of the best New York players. Â As for bassist Adam Gay and the leader, drummer Vinnie Rodriguez, both are absolutely reliable as creative, hard driving rhythm section players that can take a session exactly where it wants to go. These four will do Horace Silver’s memory proud. Â Don’t…
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Join Loren Bell and Tinker Green to Celebrate the Lyfe of Poet and Trickster, Anselm Hollo. Share favorite poems and stories.    blankets, & wooden beams, & crackling radios &    chatter    it was better than heaven, it was    being safe surrounded by many    all of whom really felt like living        “helsinki, 1940                                       from heavy jars
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Part elegy, part memoir, part early-stage movie script, Naked takes the reader into a specific time and place from Donnelle McGee’s life and connects us to his origins. McGee is a confessional poet for today, unflinching but not distant, self-aware but not self-absorbed. He doesn’t shy away from hard terrain; instead, he forces the reader to see what he’s seen, feel what he’s felt, and mourn what he’s lost. Along the way, we all experience the singular exhilaration that stems from beating the odds. McGee’s voice is distinctive, his poems are engaging, his story is riveting. Donnelle McGee’s previous work includes the novel, Shine.  He earned his MFA at Goddard College and is now on faculty at Mission College in Santa Clara.  This is his second Bird & Beckett reading.
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Jinx Jones is among the top guitar wizards in the Bay Area, known far and wide for his killer rockabilly virtuosity, but no stranger to the jazz tradition.  His Jazzabilly All-Stars set the standard for cool and straight ahead jazz with an Americana inflection. You can count on hearing Jinx with his rockabilly aggregation, the Kingtones, at the Glen Park Festival each year (coming up on the last Sunday in April) — and with close to the same regularity, Bird & Beckett invites him in with his Jazzabilly All-Stars. Don’t miss a Bay Area musical treasure… “There are very few guitarists on the scene today who have a resume like San Francisco picker Jinx Jones. After having played with both Chuck Berry and Roy Buchanan, Jones has established himself as one of the top rockabilly guitarists on the scene today.†– Dr. Matt Warnock; Guitar International Magazine “Jinx Jones and his…
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Guitarist Calvin Keys has been featured on many acclaimed recordings since the early 1970s, both as a leader and a sideman, with such artists as Ahmad Jamal, Ray Charles, and Bobby Hutcherson.  He’s also long been a mainstay of the Oakland jazz scene.  We are more than pleased to welcome him for his second appearance on the Bird & Beckett stage, hot on the heels of a booking earlier this month by New York City’s Jazz at Lincoln Center in a celebration of Wes Montgomery’s groundbreaking guitar work.  Like Wes Montgomery, Calvin possesses an unmistakable personal style that sets him apart from his peers. Bassist Heshima Mark Williams is a world-traveled musician who holds down our third-Saturday-of-the-month date, playing when he’s free and booking the date whenever he can’t be on hand.  For this date, he’ll be here to lead a superlative trio with Calvin Keys at its heart.  We’re proud and…
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Three poets out to make you laugh, or at least be awed by… we do  believe! Open mic follows. Jerry Ferraz has been hosting this shindig for as long as we can remember. Do come! Per Kopel & Always:  “you’ll find poetic adventures (mysterious, joyous, even wondrous)featuring zesty language, robust verse and a moustache!”
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Devreaux Baker and Doren Robbins will converge on Bird & Beckett for what promises to be a rich and rewarding reading, she from Mendocino and he from Santa Cruz.  Though they haven’t met, they’ve known and admired each other’s poetry and are anxious for this chance to share the stage. “One enters Devreaux Baker’s [work] as one would sacred terrain. These poems are spare, tactile and textured, but they hover between worlds.” — Cynthia Hogue Doren Robbins came to poetry and literature in the late 1960s as a result of a cascading chain of influential encounters with writers through their books, from Henry Miller to Kenneth Rexroth to Arthur Rimbaud and far beyond.  His lifelong activism was similarly spurred by the ferment he found around himself in those days. open mic follows, Jerry Ferraz, mc
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Jim Grantham – reeds & flute Eric Swinderman – guitar Jeff Neighbor – bass Jack Dorsey – drums Veteran jazz players unite under the leadership of Jim Grantham, who plays from deep within the tradition of melodic lyricism—Lester Young, Dexter Gordon, Stan Getz, Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter. Jim has performed with the likes of Bobby McFerrin, George Cables, Eddie Moore, Mark Isham, Ed Kelly, Gaylord Birch, Frank Tusa and Calvin Keys, and has recorded with Jessica Williams and Eddie Henderson. He is also a well-known jazz educator (including a series of workshops in jazz theory and improvisation that he started at San Francisco’s legendary Keystone Korner in the late 1970s).  Jim is also the author of a much used, in-depth text on jazz improvisation.
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David Schooley has been minding the mountain for 25 years or more, working hard to keep it in the minds of those who might help him protect it from encroaching development. Â He regularly leads hikes over its rolling terrain, and spends many hundreds of times as many hours exploring and nurturing it on his own. Ravines of the Heart is a new book that holds some of his writings and art spawned by his dedication to the open spaces on its flanks and in its folds. Â David will read a few pieces and talk about the mountain to the assembled audience at Bird & Beckett, sharing his conviction that the mountain and its flora and fauna are precious, irreplaceable and simply good to know for the benefit of your soul and peace of mind. http://www.mountainwatch.org/schooleys-history-story/Â bears an essay by David that will give you a pretty good grasp of what’s been…
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Jonathan Bautista, sax Grant Levin, piano Joe McKinley, bass Jon Arkin, drums More fantastic jazz from Grant Levin and a hardy band of co-conspirators. Jazz club at Bird & Beckett is the thing for sure! Â Come and dig it.
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Guitarist Scott Foster leads a quartet through tunes associated with the great tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon. We’re talkin’ the great David Boyce on sax (think Broun Fellinis, but then think Dexter!), plus Noah Schenker on bass and Omar Aran on drums. Â Oh, and Scott, of course, on guitar! Â This will be be a blast!
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Pam Brandon has her hand in a lot of bands in a lot of genres around these parts — from the Luxomatics to Belle Monroe & Her Brewglass Boys… from 77 El Deora to the Chazz Cats — but the hottest of them all might just be her tight little jazz group, The Monroe Trio. Whether you flock to Bird & Beckett to cock an ear and snap your fingers or to satisfy that itch to dance, The Monroe Trio — with Pam on vocals and stand-up bass, Mark Holzinger on guitar and Noam Eisen on piano — effortlessly delivers the goods. Don’t miss one of the Bay Area’s most stunning musical treasures! Â You’ll be smitten but good!
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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.
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
