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!
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But nothing beats being in the room with the music & the musicians!
A voice in poetry like Ayo’s does not come along often.  Attend to it and see what you find there.  Ayo’s father, Ra-Ta, will ride along on saxophone.  “some kind of poetic musical endeavor…” says Ayo… “or musical poetic endeavor…whatever. Me reading, my dad playing etc. Come on down, invite a friend, have a drink (there’s usual wine at these things).” An open mic follows, kicked off by our long-time host Jerry Ferraz… always an interesting, often a brilliant, time…
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Aggressively whimsical and charmingly incoherent. Reconnaissance Fly deliriously mixes Spam poetry, found texts and original lyrics with jazz, progressive rock, funk, samba, free improvisation, a small Chinese gong, and an arsenal of wind instruments all deployed against the forces of tedium! Amanda Chaudhary with keyboard and electronics; Rich Lesnik playing clarinet, bass clarinet, and soprano and tenor saxophones; Polly Moller with voice, flutes and guitar; Larry the O on the drums, and Tim Walters on bass guitar and electronics. On January 17, 2014, Edgetone Records opened a small cat carrier and released Reconnaissance Fly’s debut album, Flower Futures, into the wild. Live shows in support of this CD will be many and varied, including this one at Bird & Beckett.  In the fall you can run down to the Mojave Desert for some kinda seriously out of pocket experience, or wait ’til November and catch them here in town in the midst of a major Sun Ra extravaganza.  Dig the drummer today,…
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which way west? Sunday afternoon concert series. Never a cover charge, but your donations help us pay the musicians! $10 to $15 suggested for this date, but it’s totally your call. Sunday, August 17th from 4:30-6:30 pm: Vocalist and harmonium player Sukhawat Ali Khan brings in an ensemble with a second vocalist plus flute and tabla to perform music rooted in his family’s 500-year old Sham Chorasi tradition, shaped by his travels in today’s international, transcultural club and concert world. Sukhawat’s father and uncle, Ustad Salamat Ali Khan and Nazakat Ali Khan, were the preeminent classical vocal artists in Pakistan throughout the 40s and 50s, extending the Sham Chorasi gharana tradition that had been passed down through many generations within the Ali Khan family — a tradition that continues in the work of Sukhawat, his sister Riffat Sultana, and several of their brothers who remain in Pakistan. Sukhawat and Riffat…
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A new documentary film on Sangeeta Michael Berardi, avant garde jazz guitarist. Sangeeta will be on hand, along with director Burrill Crohn. Sangeeta Michael Berardi, from the 60s through the late 1990s, was a fantastic guitarist playing with the top musicians on the “out” side of jazz — Archie Shepp, Roswell Rudd, Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Rashied Ali, Eddie Gomez among them — and made memorable recordings that sound fresh to this day In 2000, Sangeeta contracted Parkinson’s disease and a film on Sangeeta — “Playing with Parkinson’s” by director Burrill Crohn — is now nearing release. The film delves deeply to show us a musician whose intellect, talent, creativity and engagement have not dimmed an iota, regardless of the physical effect on his body. Sangeeta lives in Pacifica now, and his daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren live close by Bird & Beckett. It’s been very much a pleasure knowing…
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Scott Foster guitar, leads a stellar quartet, with Charlie McCarthy, sax; John Clark, bass and Omar Aran, drums, in a program of Bird, Monk and more.
Read MoreTry ours!  Anywhere from a half dozen to a dozen people show up once a month (two of them have been coming for more than 15 years! while others come and go) to discuss a wide range of books — from lightweight confections to serious fiction, issue oriented stuff, historical tomes, popular culture, the gamut… The group now meets on the second Thursday of each month. August 14th, the book is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s much acclaimed Americanah, a novel riding high on the best seller lists. For the September 11th meeting, the group will discuss British author Rose Macaulay’s classic romp, The Towers of Trebizond, published in 1956. Much deference is given to new members in selecting something for the group to read.  Usually, the group has two months’ reading lined up at any given time.  At each meeting, they kick around what they might be interested in discussing a couple of…
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Author Sandra Hunter presents her debut novel, Losing Touch.  Joined by three colleagues:  poets Garrett Groenveld and Gary Turchin and essayist Barbara Yoder. After Indian Independence Arjun brings his family to London, but hopes of a better life rapidly dissipate. His wife Sunila spends all day longing for a nice tea service, his son suddenly hates anything Indian, and his daughter, well, that’s a whole other problem. As he struggles to enforce the values he grew up with, his family eagerly embraces the new. But when Arjun’s right leg suddenly fails him, his sense of imbalance is more than external. Diagnosed with muscular dystrophy, he is forced to question his youthful impatience and careless cruelty to his family, until he learns, ultimately, to love them despite — or because of — their flaws. In a series of tender and touching glimpses into the shared life of a married couple, Sandra Hunter…
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This week, saxophone legend Noel Jewkes joins –Grant Levin, piano –Mark Lee, drums — tba, bass for 3 sets of soulful, swinging jazz and bebop Grant Levin, jazz pianist ne plus ultra, produces our jazz club 2nd Saturday sessions.  Each outing, you can expect a group comprising some of the Bay Area’s finest jazz musicians, percolated through the sensibilities of one of its very finest young jazz pianists. $10 cover charge tonight for Noel Jewkes and the Grant Levin Trio. Besides being a jazz club, this is a jazz club — join jazz club for $75 per year, and your cover charge is just $7. Jazz Club features the Bay Area’s top jazz talent, and happens at Bird & Beckett every Saturday starting with our August 9th show.  August 16th will be film screening of a new documentary film on free jazz guitarist Sangeeta Michael Berardi.  Note: 7:30 start time.  No cover…
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Emerging poet Robbie Sugg will be joined by John Landry and Marina Lazzara for a celebratory reading on the occasion of the release of Robbie’s first collection of poems. Koccha, (Days Eye Press, 2014) is titled after the Miwok word for “house” or “shelter”.  It is a stunning gathering of California-inspired poems addressing the relationships between people and the land from which they live. Robbie studied painting, printmaking, papermaking, and Japanese language at San José State University, and his artwork has appeared in galleries throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as in New Bedford, Massachusetts, New York City, and Worcester, England. He plays the guzheng, a 22-stringed ancient Chinese zither. Presently, he lives with one foot on the Big Island of Hawai‘i and the other on the shores of San Francisco Bay.  Marina Lazzara was raised in Easton, Pennsylvania where the Lehigh River falls into the Delaware. She…
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Betty Shaw, piano Bob Kenmatsu, sax Robb Fisher, bass Ron Marabuto, drums. Betty Shaw’s love & deep understanding of jazz has led her to play anywhere, anytime, with top flight collaborators – with a commitment born of nothing so much as pure joy in the music. She first learned the piano as a depression-era kid, born in Albuquerque and raised through the teen years around Denver, lucky to have a piano to play on. Eventually, the family moved to the L.A. area, and once she reached adulthood, the need to make a living took her away from the music for what seemed to her a very long stretch. But in her 30s, Betty was already gravitating back to the piano, and to jazz, in a big way– enamored of Bill Evans & taking every opportunity to hear him at Shelly’s Manne Hole and wherever she could, digging also pianist Tommy…
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Sherri Roberts sings jazz and unusual standards, backed by a superlative trio led by pianist David Udolf, with Chris Amberger on bass and Jim Zimmerman on drums. A jazz-oriented singer with a warm, inviting voice, Sherri has established herself as a “less-is-more” vocalist in the gently swinging style of Chet Baker, Helen Merrill, or Julie London.  Her favored repertoire leans heavily towards wrongfully neglected standards, which she imbues with “flourish- free readings that are pure, strong, and potent.” (Christopher Loudon, JazzTimes, 2013). She has recorded for Brownstone, starting with 1994’s Twilight World and Dreamsville in 1997.  In 2006 Sherri released The Sky Could Send You followed in 2013 by Lovely Days, both on the Blue House/Pacific Coast Jazz label. Phil Woods, Chris Potter, Lew Soloff, Mark Soskin and Danny Gottlieb are among the supporting artists represented on these recordings. She has forged a creative partnership with bassist Harvie S, who played…
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Bassist Don Prell is the epitome of West Coast jazz… learning the trade in L.A. in the early 1950s and performing for years as a core member of saxophonist Bud Shank’s quartet.  Along with pianist Claude Williamson and drummer Chuck Flores, the Quartet recorded two albums for wide commercial release by Pacific Jazz: The Bud Shank Quartet Featuring Claude Williamson from 1956, and Bud Shank Plays Tenor from 1957.  Of the first album, allaboutjazz.com notes that “‘Bag of Blues’ … has a memorable melody over a set of chord changes that provides Shank and Williamson with a platform for all sorts of appealing lines. Shank…switches to flute for a haunting rendition of “Nature Boy”—slow and melancholy. Many saxophonists doubled on flute, but none seemed as dedicated as Shank to exploring the tonal possibilities available with the extra instrument… “Walkin’” pulls a more recent tune from the East Coast and is nothing…
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Featured poets plus an open mic twice a month at Bird & Beckett — on the 1st and 3rd Monday of each month.  Jerry Ferraz hosts.  All welcome to read in the open mic.  Tonight’s featured poet, Steve Carolan, is a North Beach denizen, appreciated particularly for his way with the prose poem. (Note that the previously scheduled reading by Marc Kokinos will be rescheduled for a date near the end of the year, when  his work schedule allows.)
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Rudi Wongozi’s East Bay roots are strong, pulling him back every now and again from NYC to be with family and perform a few dates.  We’re pleased to present him in the company of poet Paula Hackett and two fine rhythm players, Ollen Erich Hunt on bass and Leon Joyce on drums. Here’s a bit from a recent post on Rudi’s facebook page:  “The first two weeks of July I will be just chilling out with my mom (helping her celebrate her 90th birthday) my kids and grand kids…Then returning to New York to play the “Smooth Sounds By The Sea” event for Black Family Day on Staten Island on July 20th…Then back to The Bay for two shows…the first as I’ve mentioned for east bay friends at The Oakland Public Conservatory Thursday July 24th (1616 Franklin St. in Oakland)…and the second for SF friends at Bird and Beckett…
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An afternoon reading of four writers experimenting in various unique ways with prose and story. Readers:  Karen Lillis  Margarita Meklina  Lauren Traetto  Olga Zilberbourg Karen Lillis writes fiction, poetry, and genres inbetween. She is the author of four short novels, most recently Watch the Doors as They Close (Spuyten Duyvil, 2012). Her writing has appeared in Evergreen Review, Everyday Genius, Free State Review, New York Nights, Occupy Wall Street Poetry Anthology, Sensitive Skin Magazine, Trip City, and many more. 2014 publications include a poetry chapbook, The Paul Simon Project (Night Ballet Press) and a selection in Wreckage of Reason Two: An Anthology of Contemporary Xxperimental Women Writers (Spuyten Duyvil). Currently based in Pittsburgh, she blogs at Karen the Small Press Librarian and runs Small Press Roulette, an indie press bookselling service. Lillis recently received an Acker Award for Avant Garde Excellence in Fiction. Margarita Meklina is…
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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
