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!
Among the handful of astonishingly talented young piano players on the San Francisco jazz scene, Michael is often heard at Bird & Beckett on the first Friday of the month in bassist Don Prell’s group. This afternoon, we have the distinct pleasure of presenting Michael fronting his own trio, showcasing original compositions as well as wailing on bop chestnuts and other standards of the jazz repertoire.
Read MoreBassist Dave Parker leads this group, which features trombonist Charles Hamilton, reed player Jerry Logas and drummer Bob Marshall. Â Sizzling jazz, like you used to hear down on the corner at the Red Rock Lounge back in the early days of the 21st century!
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Moh Alileche, born in Kabylia in the mountains of Algeria, came to the San Francisco Bay Area and took up residence in 1990. Â A few years ago, in 2011, he relocated to Portland, but he travels back to this area from time to time, and we are fortunate to be able to present him once again to Bird & Beckett audiences with a fine ensemble of local musicians — long-time associates who have well learned the music of Moh’s home culture. The Imazighen are indigenous people of North Africa dating back to at least 10,000 B.C., whose home encompasses a vast area extending from Morocco, Western Sahara and Mauritania on the Atlantic coast across Algeria, Tunisia and Libya and into Egypt as far as the Nile, including the coastal plains and the Atlas Mountains in the north and the desert regions south to the Niger River — a huge…
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Walker Brents III offers a contemplative glance of the poem as a whole image of itself. See with the ears, Hear with the eyes. The last Sunday of each month, Walker Brents takes us along another meander. Â Where it takes you is the question…
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Rob Reich, piano and accordion. Todd Sickafoose, bass. Eric Garland, drums. Nothin’ but jazz!
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A reading by Susan Cohen, Lucille Lang Day, Julia B. Levine, Colleen McKee, Melissa Stein, Lisa Gluskin Stonestreet. With works by over 100 poets, The Bloomsbury Anthology of Contemporary Jewish American Poetry, edited by Deborah Ager and M.E. Silverman, celebrates contemporary writers, born after World War II, who write about Jewish themes. This anthology brings together poets whose writings offer fascinating insight into Jewish cultural and religious topics and Jewish identity. Featuring established poets as well as representatives of the next generation of Jewish voices, it includes poems by Ellen Bass, Charles Bernstein, Carol V. Davis, Edward Hirsch, Jane Hirshfield, David Lehman, Jacqueline Osherow, Ira Sadoff, Philip Schultz, Alan Shapiro, Jane Shore, Judith Skillman, Melissa Stein, Matthew Zapruder, and many others.
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On January 17th, Scott will revisit the music and influence of guitarist Jim Hall, leading a fine trio that will feature bassist Adam Gay and drummer Jim Zimmerman. Guitarist Scott Foster, who’s been on the Friday gig since its beginning in late 2002, now assembles a fresh ensemble of musicians for each of his monthly “Third Friday” dates.
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The Grace of Crows:  Jerry Ferraz, long-time host of our ongoing poetry series at Bird & Beckett — and a key bard of the San Francisco poetic axis that runs through North Beach and the Mission District — will read from two chapbooks that have just been produced.  The first, The Golden Key is an epic work that he has long performed with guitar, though tonight he’ll read it without accompaniment.  The second is a set of poems he’s composed over the past few years on his frequent stays at the family’s Gill Ranch retreat up near the mouth of the Russian River.  Called The Grace of Crows, it comprises several dozen pieces of varying lengths born of his observation of the wildlife and natural world there.  Born in Eureka Valley, Jerry is inextricably linked with the poetry that has grown and flowered in and around San Francisco these many decades. An…
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Subtitled “How Five Teen Pastimes Got Caught in the Crossfire, and Why Teens are Taking Them Back”, Beth Winegarner shows why we can “stop blaming teen violence on the wrong things–and…understand how Slayer, Satanism and Grand Theft Auto can be a healthy part of growing up.” Read more on Beth’s blog at http://bethwinegarner.squarespace.com/the-columbine-effect/
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Patrick Wolff – tenor sax John Wiitala – bass Hamir Atwal – drums Deep in the groove of classic jazz, and straight into the here and now. Â All three musicians are among the elite players on the San Francisco jazz scene. Read up on Patrick here
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Afro-Nuyorican by birth, Avotcja is a Bay Area treasure now & has been for decades! Â Hear her radio shows on KPFA and KPOO, and catch her performances of music & poetry around the Bay and you’ll know why. Â She’s a brilliant and deep poet, a champion of la cultura, an inspiration to countless young, creative artists of color– in fact performers of all colors, even that pinkish one we quaintly call white. Bird & Beckett is always proud to lead off another year in our “which way west” concert series with an annual performance by poet/small percussionist Avotcja and her award-winning ensemble Modupue — a band that attracts some of the most exciting world music instrumentalists in the Bay Area, including at any given point the likes of Sandy Poindexter, Yancie Taylor, Jon Carlos Perea, Coto Pincheira, Hafez Modirazdeh, Shirley Kazuyo Muramoto, Eugene Warren, Billy Dunn, Jimmy Biala and Francis…
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Ready to relax a bit as the holidays wind down…and regroup before celebrating the new year?  Drift into the shop mid-day on the day after Christmas for a few sets of jazz that will put you in a solid late ’50s groove…  remember those Miles albums like Cookin’, Relaxin’, Workin’?  remember Wes Montgomery’s gorgeously unwinding lines? like that. Guitarist Kai Lyons, a local kid making some waves, is home for the break from a school back east where he’s pursuing his music studies.  Bassist Dillan Riter hails from San Jose, and is quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with on the instrument. Drummer Erik von Buchau has been an important player on the local and wider scene, having played with jazz statesmen including George Cables, Joe Farrell, Mark Levine, Bruce Forman and Laurindo Almeida. A really fabulous trio! The new CD is called “First Time Around.”  Based on the evidence, it’s unlikely to…
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A Christmas season tradition at Bird & Beckett, join us for a trad jazz blowout on Sunday the 22nd with the sweet sounds of the 20s & 30s and a few Christmas favorites from the Buena Vista Jazz Band on the last Sunday before Christmas… The bandstand will be full to bursting with seven fine instrumentalists and a terrific singer:  Darlene Langston, vocal; Andrew Storar, trumpet; John Hunt, trombone and vocal; Don Neely, clarinet, soprano sax and vocal; Duncan James, guitar; Alan Steger, piano; Michael Kenny, bass; and Greg Gotelli, drums.
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During the holidays, we’re excited to welcome back the supremely talented young pianist Joe Warner, who’s been making a big impression on jazz audiences — and on some of the best jazz musicians in the Bay Area — for the past several years. This afternooon at Bird & Beckett, he’s playing with bassist Josh Hari and drummer Geechi Taylor. A superb trio, indeed! Joe is heard around the Bay Area backing top-flight vocalists including the Dynamic Miss Faye Carol and Kenny Washington and sharing the bandstand with instrumentalists that include Marcus Shelby, Ron Belcher, Howard Wiley and Robert Stewart.  He also produces the noteworthy “Jazz in the Basement” series at the First Congregational Church of Martinez — undoubtedly worth a trip out there.  Take a look at his website: http://www.joewarnermusic.com/ Joe will be putting his trio through their paces with jazz standards and a few Christmas chestnuts this Sunday at Bird &…
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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.
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
