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653 Chenery Street in San Francisco's Glen Park neighborhood
Open to walk-in trade and browsing Tuesday to Sunday noon to six
phone: 1-415-586-3733 email: [email protected]
Ralph Alessi, trumpet. Adam Benjamin, piano. Richard Giddens, bass. Mark Ferber, drums. $20 cover charge (cash at the door, please). BYOB. Students, $10. Trumpeter Ralph Alessi–ECM recording artist and acclaimed instrumentalist, composer, and educator known for his distinctive and innovative approach to jazz improvisation and composition–returns to his Northern California roots, on tour out of NYC. He’s travelling up and down the California coast and into the central valley with a purpose-built quartet. Pianist Adam Benjamin, based in New Orleans, is on faculty at University of Nevada, Reno; while bassist Richard Giddens, born in Fresno, headed to NYC at age 17, built a career in jazz and is Director of Jazz Studies at Cal State Fresno and drummer Mark Ferber, raised in Moraga, works out of Brooklyn and Los Angeles. Ralph Alessi was born in 1963 in San Rafael and raised there in a musical family. His father, Joseph Alessi,…
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Shakespeare Dharma recounts Matthew Perifano’s rich and strange journey with Shakespeare that began with a reading group that approached Shakespeare as mind/body practice rather than as theater. Eventually, this reading group would form Birnam Wood Musical Shakespeare Co. and Matthew would discover his facility for setting Shakespeare’s verse to music. As Matthew became more knowledgeable about Buddhist Dharma, he discovered connections between Buddhist teachings and the truth about human nature and human existence to be found in the plays and sonnets of Shakespeare. Certain passages have become like sutras to him which he is happy to share with you. Ultimately, on a most profound level, Shakespeare became a refuge of solace and healing during the darkest days of the AIDS epidemic.
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Encore: Vernaculars Plays Sonny Sharrock’s Ask the Ages Karl Evangelista, guitar David James, guitar Francis Wong, sax Chris Trinidad, bass Jimmy Biala, drums $25 cover charge (cash at the door please) / byob. Students $10. For a reservation, all the bookshop at 415-586-3733. Fresh from an SRO performance at The Back Room in Berkeley this past weekend, Vernaculars convenes at Bird & Beckett for an encore performance of “Ask the Ages,” the final album by legendary free jazz guitarist Sonny Sharrock. In a departure from other live versions of this recording, this evening will feature a twin-guitar frontline: local firebrands Karl Evangelista and David James. Bassist Chris Trinidad, drummer Jimmy Biala, and renowned saxophonist Francis Wong complete the quintet. Vernaculars is a collective ensemble of Bay Area-based artists pushing the language of Filipino American music, Asian American jazz, and avant-garde concepts into the future. The group draws inspiration from…
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Kasey Knudsen, saxophones Mat Muntz, bass Scott Amendola, drums $20 cover charge (cash at the door, please) / byob. Students $10. For a reservation, call the shop at 415-586-3733. __________________ “Nobody fuses like Scott Amendola – he’s not pandering, he just loves to rock, and freak out, and write actual tunes, and improvise, and devise a space where great musicians can explode.” Greg Burk, metaljazz.com “Amendola’s music is consistently engaging, both emotionally and intellectually, the product of a fertile and inventive musical imagination.” Los Angeles Times “If Scott Amendola didn’t exist, the San Francisco music scene would have to invent him.” Derk Richardson, San Francisco Bay Guardian “Amendola has complete mastery of every piece of his drumset and the ability to create a plethora of sounds using sticks, brushes, mallets, and even his hands.” Steven Raphael, Modern Drummer “…drummer/signal-treater Scott Amendola is both a tyrant of heavy rhythm and an electric-haired…
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Exploring the tonal and atonal universe on a daring journey into the unknown. $20 suggested donation / byob. Students $10. Kids free
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Hafez, the global poet, keeper of spinning planets in their places, dweller upon the threshold of taverns. Hafez lived in Shiraz at the same time as Chaucer lived in England. His command of the intricate poetic form known as the “ghazal,” within which he compressed, like open secrets, the elusive signs and concepts of God’s hands and God’s eyes, is one-of-a-kind, in terms of world literature. There is also Hafez the Sufi saint. Well, not a saint exactly, though there are plenty of them. More like a “rend” which means a mystic libertine, denouncing insincerity while gripped with all the perplexities that bedevil us, the common people, for whom he has made oracles. Oracles and intricate simplicities. For us. Walker Brents III explores these aspects of the poet Hafez. Catch Walker’s monthly talks streamed live in the moment on the Bird & Beckett YouTube channel or Facebook page. If you’d…
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Talk, Jazz, Jazz, & Jazz, <br>then, More Talk & More Jazz! _____ Thursday, March 19, 7:30pm – livestream only Walker Talks…on Sufi poet Hafez _____ Friday, March 20, 6:00pm Mutant Audio with David Boyce {$20} _____ Friday, March 20, 8:30pm Amendola / Knudsen / Muntz {$20} _____ Saturday, March 21, 7:30pm Vernaculars play Sonny Sharrock’s Ask the Ages {$25} _____ Sunday, March 22, 5:00pm Shakespeare Dharma: A Queer Journey through the Truth & Refuge of Shakespeare’s Verse _____ Sunday, March 22, 7:30pm Ralph Alessi Quartet on tour {$25} _____ Reserve a seat by calling the bookshop at (415) 586-3733. We’ll hold your reservation until the music starts. No advance ticket sales; plan to pay with cash at the door, and byob. Typically, a $20 cover; student price $10; kids free. _____ MORE DETAILS: Thursday, March 19, 7:30pm Walker Talks…on Hafez of Shiraz Walker Brents III considers Hafez, the Sufi…
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Spend your Sunday afternoon with us at Bird & Beckett! Vince Lateano leads his long-running trio with Ben Stolorow on piano and Peter Barshay on bass through two sets of swinging bop, post-bop, jazz classics and standards. With Noel Jewkes–aka “Dr. Legato”–joining for the date, you’re guaranteed a marvelous hour or two while the light still holds in San Francisco’s grooviest neighborhood. Come early and get a taste of the natural beauty of Glen Canyon just up the street from the shop, then ramble down Chenery and poke into Buddies Market at the corner of Chenery and Diamond to grab something that’ll wet your whistle while you listen to four fantastically talented, good natured, long-experienced musicians that epitomize five decades of San Francisco jazz! Hit an ATM on the way, and bring a twenty to help us pay the trio! Stay as long as you like, contribute what feels comfortable.…
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Darren Johnston, trumpet Scott Foster, guitar Dan Seamans, bass $20 cover charge; byob. Students $10. Dan Seamans steps up as leader of a fresh, one-off trio that won’t sound quite like any other. That’s the magic of small combo jazz, where friends and colleagues fall together to discover new music on the bandstand. It happens in a shop where night-blooming jazz happens year round, always a delight.
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The Guitar Trifecta is a union of three wonderful guitarists — Lloyd Gregory, Carl Lockett and Eddie Pasternak — each a uniquely expressive musician of superb skill and long experience. Reservations for this event can be made by calling the bookshop at 415-586-3733. Cover charge is $25 (cash at the door, please); students, $10. BYOB. Co-founded some years ago by Gregory and Lockett with the late Calvin Keys, long-time friends and colleagues, the Trifecta continues to grow and expand with each iteration. In Pasternak, Gregory and Lockett have found a perfect partner to continue their celebration of all that the guitar can offer the sensitive player and the receptive ear. Lloyd Gregory grew up in Cleveland where he had an aunt who played piano at their church; her influence prompted Gregory to begin playing the instrument at age 5. He ultimately became a multi-instrumentalist who learned to play trombone, drums, and…
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Elaine Alt, tenor saxophone & clarinet Jon Venker, organ Luke Schwartz, guitar “Tender” Tim Shea, drums with special guest vocalist May Oskan $20 suggested cover charge / byob. $10 students; kids free. For a reservation, call the shop at 415-586-3733 “Tender” Tim Shea, with his small combo Hipsteria, is ubiquitous on the jazz casual scene around town and around the Bay, wherever fine jazz is purveyed. Catch him this evening in the neighborhood at your favorite jazz bookshop, with a top notch quartet and a singer who handles classic and quirky tunes with unique swing & authority. Tim has performed and studied with some of the finest musicians in the world in a variety of styles and settings, including Donald “Duck” Bailey, Johnny O’Neal, Grant Levin, Slide Hampton, Smith Dobson V, Roomful of Blues, Chapito, The Cunninghams, Brian Patneaude, Jim Gunderson, (David) Tronzo, Danny Spencer, Mark French, Top Cat, Gerald…
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Playing material exclusively from the just released Forgotten Aspect album, saxophonist Elaine Alt’s Alt Jazz Ark Corpus X Quartet assembles at Bird & Beckett this Friday for a concert in celebration of the album — original compositions that swing mightily! This project is a retrospective of material Elaine wrote during the late 1980s and early ‘90s. The quartet’s rhythm section features Bay Area characters, all of whom have much more extensive credentials and play at more prestigious venues than Elaine, sez he/she/them in an excess of modesty! Elaine’s output is prodigious; the album is terrific. Elaine Alt – alto & baritone saxophones & piano Gaea Schell – piano & flute Christopher Amberger – bass Greg German – drums $20 cover charge; cash at the door please. BYOB. Students $10. Elaine Paul Alt is a powerhouse musical/political activist, running jam sessions at the Mercury Cafe on Octavia, playing with Bohemian Knuckleboogien at…
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Bryan Gould, trombone and vocals. Noel Jewkes, saxophones. Brad Buethe, guitar. Richard Saunders, bass. Tony Johnson, drums. $25 cover charge; byob. Students, $10. Kids free. For a reservation, call the shop at 415-586-3733. Reserved seats are held only until showtime. Tunes from the 1930s and ’40s have inspired Swing Fever for many decades and they’ve been playing the music well over half a century. The band draws from a vast repertoire richly appointed with many, many hundreds of swing era classics and obscure masterpieces that they deliver with a rich and easy sanctified intelligence, as Billy Higgins would call it. Swing is never gone from real jazz, and the jazz of the swing era itself is immortal. Living proof. Here at Bird & Beckett! Swing Fever performs the music fresh as the day swing hit its stride as America’s dance music. “Swing Fever keeps its music alive without turning it…
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Charles Chen, piano Mikiya Matsuda, bass Benny Amón, drums $20 cover charge, cash at the door / byob. Students $10; kids free. For a reservation, call the bookshop at 415-586-3733 Classic 1940s-1960s piano trio repertoire, inspired by the likes of Ahmad Jamal, Clarence Profit, George Shearing, Errol Garner and many, many more.
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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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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
