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!
Two Franks — drummer Jon and trumpeter Noah — bookend a group that includes guitarist Jordan Samuels, pianist Dave Gibbons and bassist Rob Woodcock this Sunday for our “which way west?” concert. This Sunday, nestled into two sets of standards, modern jazz masterpieces and new compositions, the quintet will treat us to a sequence summoning the spirit of the Miles Davis’ classic post-bop “Miles Smiles” sessions of 1966. Those sessions, with Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams alongside Miles, produced key quintet recordings of Shorter’s “Footprints” and “Dolores” and Eddie Harris’s “Freedom Jazz Dance.” Drummer and band leader Jon Frank graduated from SFSU with a BA in music education and has been orchestra director at Hoover Middle School for more than 20 years. Â All along the way, he’s gigged on jazz dates and has led his own small combos, including this one. Â He’s been heard at…
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Riding the backdraft of that big ol’ semi known as California Bookstore Day, Bird & Beckett will be proudly displaying (and selling) some eyepopping examples of what some particularly lovely publishers have to offer. Â There will be cookies & juice & discounts too! Â Do drop in!
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On the first Friday of each month, our weekly jazz in the bookshop series features Don Prell’s Seabop Ensemble. Bassist Prell is a veteran of the 1950s LA-based Bud Shank Quartet and 30 years with the San Francisco Symphony. He’s a fiercely avid jazz player, willing to play anywhere and any time and has been a key to keeping our weekly jazz series going these many years. SeaBop is the ensemble crafted for the date by Don Prell, drawing on some of the best jazz musicians in the Bay Area. That said, the group has settled into a vital groove with reed player Jerry Logas and pianist Michael Parsons, lately augmented by Vinnie Rodriguez on drums.
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Each month, Walker Brents III spins a tale investigating the work of a poet, a philosopher, perhaps a bit of mythology or a vast national epic — or some other subject that holds a fascination for the incurably curious among us. Today, as the annual frolic known as the Glen Park Festival unfolds just down the block, Walker will muse on the Bhagavad Gita, a tale with uncountable implications, found within the Mahabarata, India’s great religio-mythological epic.
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Nilsson Schmilsson! Wrap up your Glen Park Festival outing with this romp deep into the catalog of famed-among-many-of-us American pop songwriter Harry Nilsson. Â The addled brainchild, or rather the rational brainchild of delightfully addled improvisors Christopher Gray, Joshua Raoul Brody and their stalwart cohorts, this event is the reprise & elaboration of a memorable evening they staged here at Bird & Beckett a few years back. Expect the unexpected, but warmly familiar work of a favorite American eccentric.
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Plenty of fun in the sun this Sunday at the corner of Chenery & Diamond in the heart of Glen Park… come up the block to the bookshop when you need a break from the festivities, & browse awhile… Keep in mind we’ve got a talk at 2:30 on the Bhagavad Gita and, at 4:30, as the Fest is folding its tents, a gaggle of performers singing their hearts out in a tribute to pop maestro Harry Nilsson. Â (See the posts above.) more info on the Glen Park Festival at this link.
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Bootstrap Productions has just published new books by poets Ryan Gallagher (Red Book of Blues) & Sunnylyn Thibodeaux (As Water Sounds), and will be celebrating their release with a reading by the poets, hosted by Derek Fenner (co-publisher w/ Gallagher), Thursday, April 24th, at 7:00 pm. Ryan Gallagher is the author of Red Book of Blues (Bootstrap 2014), Plum Smash and Other Flashbulbs (Bootstrap 2005), and has translated The Complete Works of Catullus (Bootstrap 2008) from Latin. He also curated, edited, and designed Young Angel Midnight, An Emerging Generation in the Arts in Lowell, MA (Bootstrap 2011), a project funded by the Cultural Organization of Lowell. He is co-founder of Bootstrap Press and teaches high school literature and journalism at Malden High School. Sunnylyn Thibodeaux is the author of the full-length collections As Water Sounds (2014) and Palm to Pine (2011), both out by Bootstrap Press, as well as various…
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Jeff Johnson, Ph.D., founder of UI Wizards, Inc., explores the psychology underlying the rules that make graphical user interfaces work. Early user interface (UI) practitioners were trained in cognitive psychology, from which UI design rules were derived. But as the field evolves, designers enter the field from many disciplines. Practitioners today have enough experience in UI design that they have been exposed to design rules, but it is essential that they understand the psychology behind the rules in order to effectively apply them. In Designing with the Mind in Mind, Jeff Johnson, author of the best selling GUI Bloopers, provides designers with just enough background in perceptual and cognitive psychology that UI design guidelines make intuitive sense rather than being just a list of rules to follow.
Read MoreRonald Sauer is a poet, translator and raconteur steeped in the work of Baudelaire, Aloysius Bertrand, Voltaire, Jacques Prevert, Jacques Roumain, the surrealists, and more. Â A little background on Michael Koch will follow. Jerry Ferraz hosts featured poets and an open mic at Bird & Beckett on the 1st and 3rd Monday of each month.
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Daniel is a twenty-first century connoisseur with distinctive and often anachronistic tastes-aesthetic, culinary, and even mind-altering. When Daniel sets out to seek answers about his past in long-sealed documents, he makes a startling discovery that leads him on a cross-country quest. In the course of his travels, he becomes preoccupied with Antoinette, an enigmatic archivist who may hold the key to his search. When he discovers she may be involved with his closest friend, Roger, he comes to distrust them both. His quest becomes a dangerous obsession that drives him to the brink of madness. Rockwell’s prose evokes the dark humor of Edgar Allan Poe and the uneasy aristocrats of Edith Wharton in this new novel of aesthetic obsession. “With huge amounts of imagination and flair, Daisy Rockwell has written a wonderfully funny but ultimately chilling parable about the wages of connoisseurship. I thrilled to it.” -Henry Alford
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Every third Friday, guitarist Scott Foster brings in a newly constituted ensemble for the occasion.  This week:  tenor sax players Ken Rosen and Harvey Robb make up the front line, with Scott on guitar and Richard Saunders on bass.  We’ll hear some marvelous players delving deep into the tenor sax tradition that is a cornerstone of jazz. Jazz in the bookshop… every Friday without fail. San Francisco’s longest running neighborhood jazz party!  Scott’s monthly Bird & Beckett sessions draw on the fantastic pool of jazz musicians that populate this little berg, from his years of experience gigging and teaching around town. One day we’ll realize what a golden era of jazz it is in San Francisco!  Don’t be shy to make it out to Bird & Beckett’s Friday and Sunday sessions…Â
Read MoreVocalist Jenny Ferris will be joined by reed player Rich Lesnik, pianist Laura Klein, bassist Dean Reilly and drummer Tom Hassett in a program of jazz standards.
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A reading by six writers, all officers or Board members of PEN Oakland:  Floyd Salas, Claire Ortalda, Sharon Doubiago, Kirk Lumpkin, Judith Cody and John Curl. About PEN Oakland: PEN Oakland (the “blue collar PEN”) was founded in 1989 to promote emerging multi-cultural literature and to educate about the nature of that work.  PEN Oakland annually dispenses awards to books and authors that reflect a multi-cultural or marginalized viewpoint while representing the highest standards of literature, and also honor a writer of conscience with a literary censorship award.  They have also published anthologies, organized symposia, and engaged the media in a dialogue toward a deeper understanding of non-traditional literature.  They ain’t kiddin’ around! Readers: Floyd Salas, recipient of NEA and California Arts Council fellowships among other awards and honors, is the critically-acclaimed author of a memoir, two volumes of poetry, and four novels, including Tattoo the Wicked Cross, which earned a…
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An East Bay launch party for the new, fifth, issue of our lovely literary magazine, Amerarcana, will take place with readings by contributors Micah Ballard, Steve Dickison, Marina Lazzara, Jackson Meazle and John Sakkis at on Friday, April 11th, 8 pm, at the Public School — 2141 Broadway, near 19th Street BART station. Nick Whittington will host, and we’ll have a stack of books on hand for you to buy.  Back issues too, at a low, low $5 per.
Read MoreErica Goss is a former editor of Caesura, the journal of literature and art put out by Poetry Center San Jose. She taught high school poetry for five years, has lead art and writing camps for young people, and currently teaches poetry workshops for adults. In 2012, she began writing a column on video poetry for Connotation Press. She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2010 and 2013, and received the first Edwin Markham Prize for poetry, judged by California Poet Laureate Al Young. Wild Place was also a finalist in the 2010 White Eagle Coffee Store Press Chapbook Contest, and received a special mention from Jacar Press’s 2010 Chapbook Contest. José Luis Gutiérrez is a San Francisco-based poet. His work has appeared in The Cortland Review, Poemeleon, DMQ, Eratio, Jet Fuel, Margie, Juked, Otis Nebula, among others.
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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," 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.
Click on "donate" in the navigation bar above. Better yet, make a check out to the “Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project” and drop it off or mail it 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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We're immensely appreciative of Jazz in the Neighborhood for having stepped in as our temporary fiscal sponsor for a few months, while we straightened out some paperwork to get nonprofit status restored to the BBCLP. We're happy to say that's been done, and all past, present, and future donations made directly to the BBCLP are fully tax-deductible!
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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
