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!
Saturday night, you’ll want to unwind from Giants mania with the Terrance Tony Quartet – Eugene Pliner, piano; Aaron Cohn, bass and Vinnie Rodriguez, drums. Alto player Tony was Houston based until just a couple of years ago.  He was influenced by–and played alongside–legendary Houston tenor players Illinois Jacquet, Arnett Cobb, Don Wilkerson and Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson and Dallas titans James Clay and Marchel Ivery.  In 1989 he toured with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers in the band that included Benny Green, Frank Lacy, Javon Jackson and Donald Harrison.
Read MoreSure, Pugsley Buzzard has flat out delighted Bird & Beckett audiences several  years running, as he’s made the store’s stage a regular stop on his mostly annual U.S. tours since 2011.  As we noted then, “he boasts an unlikely name and a voice like gravel on a treacherous road…and he plays a mean piano!” But right now, Pugs is going to have to build up a few more dates to make a U.S. tour practical for his new CD, CHASIN` ACES  (available now at Bird & Beckett!), recorded in New Orleans, Melbourne and the Blue Mountains — with ten new originals and featuring some of New Orleans’ top jazz, blues and funk players including Jimmy Carpenter, Antonio Gambrell, Craig Klein, Charles Brewer, Nathan Lambert, John Fohl and Irene Sage who have performed with artists Dr John, Allen Toussaint, Bonerama, Walter Wolfman Washington, Eric Lindell and the Mardi Gras Indian Funk Ensemble…
Read More
Ben Goldberg, clarinet. Michael Coleman, piano. Rob Adkins, bass. Hamir Atwal, drums. These musicians have been playing together for years in a bunch of incredible groups. As a quartet they are in strict pursuit of beautiful melody. Hamir Atwal says: “I think for each of us, melody comes first. Then there is the importance of breath, and personal expression.†The quartet will be focusing on the music of Annette Peacock. Joining the group from New York is special guest Rob Adkins on bass. Hamir Atwal, a Bay Area native, began playing the drums at the age of 10 and started playing professionally at the age of 18. He studied at the Berklee College of Music on scholarship studying improvisation with saxophone great Joe Lovano and trombonist/composer Hal Crook.  “Studying with composers and people who don’t play your instrument really opened the way I approached music and improvising.” After graduating from Berklee, Hamir moved back to the…
Read More
Diane di Prima, San Francisco Poet Laureate Emeritus, launches her new collection The Poetry Deal (San Francisco Poet Laureate Series No. 5, City Lights Publishers, 2014) in the company of the legendary QR Hand. Both are treasured, original voices with decades of influential work to their credit including four or five decades here in the Bay Area. Joining Diane and QR is the very wonderful piano improviser and composer Walter Earl.
Read MoreJoin us for a community forum on two controversial propositions on the November ballot with State Assembly Candidate and SF Supervisor David Campos and experts from both sides of the Prop G (real estate speculation tax) and Prop E (soda tax) issues.
Read More
Jay Sanders is a fiery and lyrical trumpet player who will play any tune, any time, any tempo, any key…. that’s why they call him Jay Standards!  Get down to Bird & Beckett this Saturday night to hear Jay’s quartet at our cozy little weekly 8-11 pm “jazz club”.  Members get in for $7, everybody else – $10 cover. Jay Sanders, trumpet Grant Levin, piano Charles Thomas, bass Vinnie Rodriguez, drums join jazz club for $75 per year.  you’re investing in live jazz music — just the thing that makes San Francisco the envy of the world.  donate big money to become a jazz philanthropist, to make sure this scene just keeps getting stronger!  Bird & Beckett has a 501(c)3, so you can take a tax deduction for your largesse!  The culture thanks you. You’ll thank the musicians for their incredible talent and dedication to a great American art form.
Read More
San Francisco’s longest running neighborhood jazz party continues to pack the place, and every third Friday our favorite guitarist takes the helm. No cover charge, but your kind donations at the shows help us pay the musicians! Â And your annual tax-deductible contributions to the Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project 501(c)3 nonprofit organization make it all possible.
Read More
“Generations” – a Bird & Beckett Litquake reading!    Five San Francisco Poets, 27 to 69:                       A gathering of decades, born on the fog banks over Twin Peaks. Seth Amos, Neeli Cherkovski, Patrick James Dunagan, Marina Lazzara and Jessica Loos read their work. Born and raised in South Carolina, Seth Amos now lives and writes in San Francisco. He is the poetry editor of “Rivet: The Journal of Writing That Risks.” Neeli Cherkovski is an internationally recognized poet, memoirist and literary chronicler, recipient of a PEN Josephine Miles Award and an Acker Prize for poetry and biography. His book “Spent Shadow” is due out this fall. Patrick James Dunagan lives in San Francisco and works at Gleeson Library for the University of San Francisco. A graduate of the now defunct…
Read More
a concert of Hindustani (North Indian) Classical Music. Joanna Mack, sitar. Ferhan Qureshi, tabla. Joanna Mack began her study of Indian Classical sitar in 1997. She spent eight years in Kolkata studying under Pandit Deepak Choudhury, and returned to the U.S. where she has had the honor to study under Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, Sarodia Bruce Hamm and Sangeet Research Academy Guru Partha Chatterjee. She has been teaching and performing since 2006. Read more at JoannaMack.com Ferhan Najeeb Qureshi is a disciple of the legendary tabla maestro, Ustad Tari Khan.  Prior to the training he continues to receive from Ustad Tari Khan, Ferhan took his initial lessons in Hindustani music theory and practice with Surinder Singh Mann. Ferhan studies the Punjab gharana (musical style) of classical tabla, which both of his teachers represent, and has accompanied numerous classical artists vocalists, instrumentalists and dancers) both in the United States and in Pakistan. which way west? Bird & Beckett’s weekly Sunday concert…
Read More
Pianist Grant Levin has become appreciated as among the very finest young pianists on the local jazz scene, and his collaboration with seasoned tenor sax player Noel Jewkes has paid dividends for both of them, and for audiences all around the Bay Area.  Tonight, they’re joined by veteran bassist Chris Amberger, one of Grant’s very earliest proponents, and drummer Hamir Atwal.  Both of the latter two gentlemen lend tremendous swing and joy to the bandstand every time. “jazz club” is what we call our weekly Saturday night session… each week a different leader brings in some of the best talent the Bay Area has to offer, showcasing the musicians you want to hear– whether you know it or not!  It’s a beautiful scene, and we hope you’ll make it a habit. 8-11 pm every Saturday night!  $10 cover charge; wine and beer available — donate what you can to defray the cost of…
Read More
Drummer Jimmy Ryan leads a stellar rotating crew of musicians on the 2nd Friday of each month — usually two horns on the front line, piano, bass and drums.  This week, he’s got Stu Pilorz on trombone; Stephen Norfleet on tenor sax; Don Alberts on piano; and Bishu Chatterjee on bass.  Each time out, there’s a slight adjustment in the line-up, so the dates are always fresh and energized.  It’s a wonderful Friday-after-work neighborhood crowd with the occasional visitor keen to see what all the fuss is about.  Music ends at 8, so don’t be too late… Jimmy learned his trade as a jazz drummer in L.A. in the ’50s, and hit the San Francisco scene (by way of a short stint in Monterey) in 1960.  He’s played alongside influential musicians Putter Smith, Vince Wallace, Kent Glenn and Bishop Norman Williams, putting in significant time in the early days at legendary San Francisco clubs including Jimbo’s Bop…
Read More
Duocracy, a project of trumpeter Ian Carey and pianist Ben Stolorow, focuses on classic tunes from the rare to the familiar, ranging from Gershwin and Gordon Jenkins to Thelonious Monk and Henry Mancini, plus occasional original tunes. Within that repertoire, they aim for interplay, unpredictability, and surprise. (You can see them performing one of their favorites, Monk’s “Four in One,” here.)
Read More
Taurean Horn Press 40th Anniversary Reading — Publisher Bill Vartnaw and a roster of fine poets celebrate one of California’s key small presses.  Poets Q. R. Hand, Gail Mitchell, Jeanne Powell, Kim Shuck will be joined by other alumni of the press to be announced.
Read More
Clarinetist Ben Goldberg has been playing at the top echelon of American progressive jazz for a couple of decades and has recorded prolifically, including a recent session with tenor sax player Smith Dobson, the leader of our 1st Saturday “jazz club” sessions.  Drummer Hamir Atwell and bassist Eric Markowitz, two key and wonderfully creative players on the Bay Area jazz scene — both heard many times in the past at Bird & Beckett — will anchor the quartet.
Read More
The first Friday of every month, it’s always Don Prell’s Seabop Ensemble — a fixture in San Francisco’s longest running neighborhood jazz party! Don has had a six decade love affair with the string bass and jazz, beginning back in the 1950s. That’s when he first made his mark as a mainstay of the Bud Shank quartet, touring internationally and accompanying the likes of vocalist Peggy Lee. Don’s been indulging in public displays of his affection for the music at Bird & Beckett ever since our weekly jazz series began in October 2002… twelve years ago… In all that time, we’ve never been without live jazz at Bird & Beckett on Fridays — largely because Don has made it happen under the unlikeliest circumstances! Besides Don on bass, Seabop features three top-notch players — Jerry Logas on reeds and flute, Michael Parsons on piano and Vinnie Rodriguez on drums. jazz in the bookshop happens every Friday…
Read More
Sign Up for Our Weekly Emails!
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
To take our SURVEY, click here, and help the BBCLP get to know you better! As Duke Ellington always said, we love you madly...
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
