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!
Times Three — Paul Mindrup, piano; Scott Chapek, bass; Tom Hassett, drums — present their new album, “Off the Grid”. Â You can read their notes on the tracks by clicking here. Three journeyman jazz musicians enamored of interesting time signatures, underappreciated tunes and sly originals. Â Each of the three has put in productive work with great masters on their instruments, and have enjoyed their collaboration and the process of working out their own jazz sensibilities. Â Their bios can be read by clicking here. That all sounds a little dry. Â But we love this trio! Â Dry, they ain’t. Dig it!
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Born Eva Amalia Stricker in Budapest, Hungary in 1906, Eva Zeisel was a uniquely accomplished ceramicist and designer, who by her early 20s had already become an accomplished artist in the field.  She worked first in Budapest, then for Schramberger Majolikafabrik in Germany, and by 1932 was in the Soviet Union, soon to be appointed Artistic Director of the China and Glass Industry in 1935 at the age of 29. In 1936, it all came crashing down when she was falsely imprisoned for a plot to assassinate Stalin, serving 18 months in prison, with 14 of those months in solitary confinement.  Without explanation, she was released in 1937 and expelled from the USSR.  Her experience is at the core of Arthur Koestler’s famous novel, Darkness at Noon. Zeisel rejoined family in Vienna, but soon fled to England in the wake of the Anschluss, the occupation and annexation of Austria by the Nazis.…
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Our only Saturday date in June happens on the 7th, when bassist Walter Savage, on a Bay Area swing from his home in Fayetteville, Arkansas, plays with two of the Bay Area’s finest musicians. Walter was a key player on the local jazz scene for decades before retiring from the music business a few years ago and moving out to Arkansas to escape the high cost of living in these parts. Â So we still count him as one of our own! Walter grew up in Watts, where his father was a preacher and where he couldn’t imagine not singing– which he still does plenty, though it’s his work on bass for which he’s best regarded. Â He picked up the bass while serving in the military in the 1960s, and never really looked back. Â Once back in Los Angeles, he took lessons from legendary bass players of two generations, Al McKibbon…
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 A rich reading with two poets of extraordinary experience.  Paul Fericano has a compulsively fascinating history as a poet and satirist with roots in the 1970s San Francisco cultural and political scene.  He has run Poor Souls Press since 1974, launched the “Stoogism” movement in 1976, and caused a ruckus in 1978 by offending the Republicans with his poem “The Three Stooges at a Hollywood Party” which they found somehow insulting to John Wayne and which they used as an excuse to deny Jane Fonda an appointment to the California Arts Council.  In response to Reagan’s election to the presidency in 1980, Fericano co-founded with Elio Ligi YU News — the Yossarian Universal News Service — a “parody news and disinformation syndicate.” Linda King grew  up in Utah and arrived in Los Angeles in the early 1970s where she soon encountered the late poet Charles Bukowski, whom she first sculpted and…
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“The Sax Man” Dwaine Spurlin was schooled at SFSU and was an understudy for saxophone titan Joe Henderson… he brings a dynamic group into Bird & Beckett featuring Spencer Allen on piano, Attila Medvedsky on bass and Stephen La Porta on drums, plus vocalist Nina Causey! This group can handle a wide range of styles from bebop to R&B, raging funk to sultry ballads.  Read more on the band — click here!
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Continuing where he left off in mid-May, Latif Harris reads more work from the span of his career, and relates stories of what has happened along the way. Latif is one of the survivors of the late 50’s North Beach poetry scene. He lived on Columbus above the Stella Pastry as the 50’s rolled into the 60’s and the Beat scene evolved into the “Flower Children” hippie movement followed by the Gay revolution and the Independence of Women, and ultimately the internet explosion all of which changed the world for good. He has been an important writer of poetry as these years evolved and you can find elements of all of these historic events in his work. He hung out with a group of poets and artists who for the most part were older than him.  He notes that “Robert LaVigne was a great artist I met in 1960 and…
Read MoreLive recording session tonight! Reed players Jerry Logas (bari sax) and Smith Dobson V (tenor sax) co-lead this quintet that delves into the 1950s West Coast sound that brought beautifully wrought harmonic and rhythmic qualities to the forefront of jazz. Â “Bernie’s Tune,” Â “Line for Lyons” and much more… Â And then they range further afield… The date includes veteran drummer Tony Johnson, as well as Adam Shulman on piano and Adam Gay on bass.
Read Moreper the Press: The Gorillla Press is excited to release our first full-length book, a collection of poems by Oakland poet and SF State grad Justin, Etc. Featuring cover art by SF artist and poet Truong Tran, this little paperback is a beaut and a pleasure to read. Bird and Beckett Books has graciously given us their stage to hear Justin perform from the book. Â You can pick up your very own copy there! Amy K Bell, Jill Tomasetti, and a special guest will also be joining the stage in short readings to celebrate Justin’s new book! About the Book:Â Oakland poet Justin, Etc. has brought together a first collection of poems that explores and breaks open the poetic range of motion. Through redaction, intimate curations of objects, and the radioactive dispersal of lines and their breaks, Self-Portrait of the Poet Suicided by the MFA Degree carries in its wreckage a…
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Grant Levin, piano Glenn Richman, bass Mark Lee, drums Enjoy a group that epitomizes the joy of the piano jazz trio tradition. Â Grant Levin is one of the key young pianists on the local scene. Â Beginning in July, you’ll find him directing our 2nd Saturday “jazz club” sessions. Â Now, catch him in the comfort of his own trio.
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The conflict between the intellectual search for meaning in life when no inherent meaning is to be found there spawned the 1950s philosophy of the absurd explored trenchantly by French Algerian writer Albert Camus in his many books — including centrally, The Myth of Sisyphus (1942). Each month, save the summer months, Walker Brents III explores a piece of literature, a myth, a body of intellectual, artistic or spiritual work, or whatever strikes his fancy, and each month we find ourselves taken a little deeper into something we either knew nothing about or thought we knew well…
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It’s the new thing at Bird & Beckett! Â May is the trial run, then we lay low in June and start in earnest in July… Â Catch dinner some Saturday at one of the neighborhood’s great restaurants, then come on up to Jazz Club for a couple sets of fantastic jazz ’til 11 p.m The second Saturday night of each month Grant Levin will be bringing in the finest jazz players working the Bay Area scene, and Michael Parsons will follow suit on the fourth Saturday night. Â Grant and Michael both have quickly gained respect as among the very top echelon of players around town. Our series aims to shine a bright light on the many fine musicians who are taking the Bay Area jazz scene to new heights. Want to find out what it’s about? Â May 10th, we’ll feature saxophonist Noel Jewkes — a San Francisco jazz legend, with pianist…
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Chuck Peterson and Howard Dudune, reeds; Glen Deardorff, guitar; Dean Reilly, bass and Tony Johnson, drums, make up the regular fourth Friday band at Bird & Beckett, carrying on a long tradition of weekly jazz parties in Glen Park. Â No cover charge, but do bring some money for the musicians anyway! Â Supporting live jazz in San Francisco is money well spent!
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Author John Goodman will speak at Bird & Beckett the evening of May 21st on the man, Charles Mingus, and the book, Mingus Speaks: Interviews with Charles Mingus, 1972-1974 (John Goodman, author; Sy Johnson, photographer; University of California Press, 2013). From John Goodman’s website, www.mingusspeaks.com:  What is this thing called Mingus? Some have heard the name, a few know his music and maybe a story or two. But most people don’t know who he really was or how he came to be one of the master players and composers in jazz. MINGUS SPEAKS is a book of extended interviews which allowed the man to explain himself. He was assisted by me, the interviewer, and by a number of close associates who commented on aspects of his life, behavior and music. We sat in bars and restaurants in Philadelphia and New York, in his apartment and Sue’s {Sue Mingus]. I did over 20…
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Live recording:  Sterling Bunnell will read his long-form poem, “Chaucer’s Squire’s Tale Completed.”  Bunnell retired from a long career in psychiatry some time ago, during which he was particularly known for his 1960s exploration of the use of hallucinogenic drugs in treatment regimens; he’s credited with introducing the first living strain of Salvia divinorum, Diviner’s Sage, to the United States, on his return from a 1962 trip in the company of Michael McClure to Sierra Mazateca.  Bunnell is highly regarded as well for his investigations of ecological history and prospects and for his wide ranging philosophical thought. His recent series of talks at the Humanist Hall in Oakland have been providing grist for the mill and food for thought to many, just a current manifestation of his continuing consideration of the continuum. An open mic, conducted by Sterling’s long-time friend, student and colleague, Jerry Ferraz, follows.  All welcome.
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Trombonist Charles Hamilton directed the Berkeley High jazz program for three decades, training the likes of Joshua Redman, Benny Green, Josh Jones and Peter Apfelbaum — all players who have gone on to world renown. Â Born in San Francisco in the 1940s, Charles grew up in Louisiana, touring the region on trumpet with an R&B band while still in high school. Â In 1965, he came back to study music at SFSU, switching to trombone, and taking teaching jobs in the Berkeley schools upon graduation. Â In 1981, he hired on as band director at Berkeley High, and the rest is history. Â Charles has often played at Bird & Beckett in the past, and we’re looking forward to him bringing in a trio that includes two top players with long, stellar track records on the local and national scene. Guitarist Calvin Keys has a dozen records to his credit as leader, and…
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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
