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!
A reading in turbulent times, with Palestine in mind and heart. Bring your poems. Michael Koch and Jerry Ferraz host. Deema K. Shehabi is a Palestinian-American poet, writer, and editor. She’s the author of Thirteen Departures from the Moon and co-editor with Beau Beausoleil of Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here, for which she received a Northern California Book Award. She’s also co-author of Diaspo/Renga (republished as Water to Water in Fall 2025) with Marilyn Hacker and winner of the Nazim Hikmet poetry competition in 2018. Deema’s work has also appeared in Academy of American Poets, Prairie Schooner, Los Angeles Review of Books, Poetry London, Kenyon Review,The Massachusetts Review, and in anthologies including Ask the Night for a Dream: New Palestinian Writing from the Diaspora. Zeina Hashem Beck is a Lebanese poet. Her collection of 40 palindromic sonnets, titled This Was Supposed to Be About Beauty, is forthcoming from Penguin Poets in…
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Friday, May 2nd – two concerts: at 6pm, it’s a trio led by trumpeter Mike Olmos with Jed Holtman, bass, and Andre Sumelius, drums. Mike Olmos is back at 8:30 in saxophonist James Mahone’s quartet with Sam Bevan, bass, and Michael Mitchell, drums. A phenomenal night of small combo jazz. Twenty bucks cash for either show, or catch both for $35. Byob, as always, and a reservation is always a good idea — call the shop at 415-586-3733. Saturday, May 3rd at 7:30pm, trumpeter Erik Jekabson brings a quartet with Matt Renzi on saxophone, Dexter Williams on bass and Brian Fishler, drums. $20 cover, cash please! An interesting sequence of three dates in two days without a piano or guitar in sight. Chordless and bursting with musical intricacy! The two quartet dates this weekend are supported with a subsidy from Jazz in the Neighborhood, a 501(c)3 that puts your support…
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Wednesday, April 30th at 7:30pm, we’re pleased to present a book release party for short story writer & cartoonist Janice Shapiro with her debut graphic novel fresh out from Fantagraphics, Honoria: A Fortuitous Friendship. That’s young Honoria at the far right, with her siblings and her mother, Sara Murphy, who, together which her husband Gerald Murphy, were at the center of a constellation of gadflies flitting about them and their guests at the Murphys’ Cap d’Antibes villa — guests that included their good friends Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald, not to mention the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Dorothy Parker, Cole Porter and Pablo Picasso, reveling through the nights and languishing in the sun on the beach by day. It’s the summer of 1929, when Ida, a young, sheltered and unsophisticated girl from New York, is sent by her father to stay with Honoria and her parents, the Murphys, at their villa…
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Jazz is the sound of surprise. Risk an hour of your life! Byob and a twenty for the trio!
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Hal Richards, winds, reeds & arrangements. Henry Hung, trumpet. Rumi Abe, piano. Ron Belcher, bass. Akira Tana, drums. $25 cover charge, cash please! $1.50 surcharge on credit/debit. Please pay at the door, and byob. For a reservation, call the shop at 415-586-3733. Hal Richards is a musician of many horns. When he first strolled into Bird & Beckett in the early aughts for a gig with our Friday happy hour band, the one that started all this jazz for us back in 2002, he made it a point of pride that he carried in all his horns — numbering seven, if we remember correctly — in a single entrance. These days, he still makes it a single entrance for the most part, but he picks and chooses which horns and how many of them to lug. Sometimes as few as five or six! Still, it’s not the number of horns…
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Joyce Todd McBride, piano & compositions. Stacy Starkweather, bass. David Rokeach, drums. $20 cover charge, cash please! $1.50 surcharge per seat for credit/debit cards. please pay at the door, and byob. for reservations, call 415-586-3733. Joyce Todd McBride, widely adored as the director of the massed vocal ensemble Conspiracy of Venus, is also much admired as a brilliant pianist and composer, in which guise she’s just released a playful, intricate and deep quintet album called “The Night-time Violets Bloom.” She’ll be celebrating at Bird & Beckett this Friday, April 25th, 8:30-10pm, with a piano trio date in the company of long-time collaborators Stacy Starkweather on upright bass and David Rokeach behind the drum kit.
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Drummer Tony Johnson corrals the usual suspects — Charlie McCarthy, saxophone; Sam Cady, piano; Chuck Bennett, bass. Make Tony’s dates a habit. Fourth Sunday of every month. The 230 Jones Street band plays two months in a row, then switches out for the Tony Johnson Quartet (Bob Kenmotsu, tenor sax; Keith Saunders, piano; Eric Markowitz, bass). Then, it’s back to the 230 Jones band for two months, the Tony Johnson Quartet for a month, two months of 230 Jones, a month of Tony’s quartet, et seq. You’ll get (the) rhythm, both. $20 suggested cover charge; byob. Call the shop for a reservation – 415-586-3733.
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Jazz is our sweet spot. Make it yours. Support what we do in that regard! Make a donation to our 501(c)3 nonprofit and bring cash to the shows! Bird & Beckett is known internationally for what we’ve been doing. Live jazz and great books since 1999!
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Join us for a reading of “If San Francisco Collapses,” a new documentary theatre play by Megan Robertson. As we live in an age defined by technological advancements, this play examines technology’s impact on the region which birthed it. San Francisco has historically been a mecca for revolutionaries, artists, and activists. How does this truth coexist with the significance the city now holds for technology and tech workers? Through memories, figurative recollections, and calls to action, this play, begun at the University of San Francisco’s Performing Arts & Social Justice Department, examines the inner lives of San Franciscans, in their own words. What does this technological pull do to our personhood and the fabric of our city? Free event. RSVP encouraged here.
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Night Train to Odesa just won a major award in the UK, and was abridged for BBC Radio 4. It sits between memoir, reportage, and literary journalism, and has been praised for its pacy narrative style – definitely not a dry tome on the war in Ukraine, but on-the-ground reportage, starting in Russia just before the invasion, moving to Odesa, Kyiv, and then eastern Ukraine, as the journalist moved into frontline reporting. It was called a “powerful insight into what it’s like to go it alone in a conflict zone.” The book was released in paperback April 5th of this year, and Stout is touring in support of its release starting at the Ukrainian Institute of America in New York City, with talks at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) in Washington, DC and the Atlantic Council, also in Washington, among others. The Observer review: “… a luminous love letter to an embattled nation, as…
Read MoreFrom the website of Senator Bernie Sanders: WASHINGTON, April 3 – After filing Joint Resolutions of Disapproval (JRDs) to block the sale of two of the most egregious Trump Administration offensive arms sales to Israel, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today rose to bring the JRDs up for a vote by the full Senate. The sales would provide almost $8.8 billion more in heavy bombs and other munitions to Netanyahu, including more than 35,000 massive 2,000-pound bombs. The first resolution, S.J.Res 33, would block a sale of $2.04 billion for 35,329 MK 84 2,000 lb. bombs and 4,000 I-2000 Penetrator warheads. The second resolution, S.J.Res.26, would block $6.75 billion for 2,800 500-pound bombs, 2,166 Small Diameter Bombs, and tens of thousands of JDAM guidance kits. All of these systems have been linked to dozens of illegal airstrikes, including on designated humanitarian sites, resulting in thousands of civilian casualties. None of these…
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The Oakland School for the Arts Alumni Quintet brings together musicians whose roots trace back to the halls of OSA, where they studied under the mentorship of the legendary Dave Ellis—a guiding force who continues to shape their musical paths today. Though they’ve since scattered across the country, from San Francisco to Baltimore, Stockton to New York, their shared foundation and deep musical connection keep pulling them back together. Featuring Gus Hurteau on vibraphone, Max Ehrhardt on trumpet, Hannah Mayer on piano, Ale Sanchez on bass, and Miles Turk on drums, the quintet has been playing with one another in different combinations for years. In high school, their talents brought them to stages like Yoshi’s, and just recently, they returned from a cultural exchange tour in Shijiazhuang, China, where they represented their musical roots abroad. This concert is a rare and special reunion—a one-time event that brings these far-flung friends back home. Expect a dynamic set blending modern jazz with touches of experimental R&B, rooted…
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From Monday to Sunday, you can catch great jazz, hear from a Scottish war correspondent who left Moscow for Ukraine at the beginning of the war and is briefly on tour before returning there, attend the reading of a documentary theater piece in development… or just drop in during the day to buy a book… Definitely, jazz! OAS alumni played Monday. They were great and now gone! The 230 Jones Street band plays Friday at 6; the Joyce Todd McBride Trio Friday at 8:30; the Hal Richards Quintet Saturday at 7:30; and a jam session happens Sunday at 5! Bring cash for the musicians ($20-$25 for the Friday & Saturday shows) and byob! Call for reservations and details – 415-586-3733.
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From gospel to Brazilian choro, poetry to literary investigation and celebration, and all that jazz, Bird & Beckett offered you a lot this past week and capped it off with Bentley High scholars investigating F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby Sunday at 3pm and the Vince Lateano Trio Sunday at 5pm Get your culture this weekend and get your books now, before the General Strike! Get your strike card here. Call the shop for information or to reserve seats – (415) 586-3733
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In troubled times music is a salve for the soul. This ‘Jazz plays Spirituals’ concert features Neil Adler (piano/bass), Michael Turner (voice/piano), David Adler (bass) and John Anning (drums). Neil Adler is a local bandleader/pianist and chromatic harmonica player whose has ‘Emi’s Song’ album, featuring a variety of jazz genres, was released with great success last year. Neil’s other side is playing gospel piano in a Pentecostal church with multi-instrumentalist Michael Turner. This powerhouse aggregation will bring jazz spirituals to celebrate Emancipation Day, in a concert that promises to be inspirational and uplifting. $20 cover charge
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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," 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
