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!
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But nothing beats being in the room with the music & the musicians!
The Get Happy String Band, Feb. 10th. Triple Chicken Foot (from L.A.), Feb. 17th. Both shows, 4:30 to 6:30 pm. No cover charge, but we’ll be sure to ask you to help us pay the bands and we surely hope you will! Expect very limited seating and a big ol’ crowd and a very, very good time! All ages very welcome, though do be careful the kids don’t get stepped on (and please leave those big strollers in the car)! The Get Happy String Band, based right here in the Bay Area, features Meredith Axelrod and Darcy Noonan, who came together through their mutual love of such masters as The Mississippi Sheiks, The East Texas Serenaders and The Memphis Jug Band. For this show, guest & super guitarist Craig Ventresco will join the fun. Together, they’ll excite and delight you with raucous rags and bombastic breakdowns in an authentic sound straight out of 1933.…
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Tamim Ansary gives a talk this evening on “the often-interrupted history of Afghanistan” as engagingly elucidated in his newest book, Games Without Rules (Public Affairs, 2012). With deft narrative momentum, Ansary helps the reader get past the generalizations and assumptions that obscure the realities of Afghanistan and its national history since the mid-1700s, revealing a human arc of intention, ambition and conflict within that country and among those who would try to dominate it from outside for geopolitical and economic reasons of their own. Ansary first came to wide notice with his book West of Kabul, East of New York, a personal narrative emerging from the events of Sept. 11 and his attempt to understand the complexities, contradictions and continuities of his own heritage, Afghanistan-born and raised to an Afghan father and American mother, and his emigration to the U.S. and coming into maturity as an Afghan-American. His subsequent books…
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Thursday, Jan. 31st at 7 pm: Two distinguished poets, reading their original poems and translations. Richard Silberg reads from his new collection of poems, The Horses: New and Selected Poems, published in September of last year by Red Hen Press. Silberg is an important member of the contemporary Bay Area poetry community — as a skilled and thoughtful poet, of course, and also as a translator of Korean poets Ko Un and Oh Sae-Young, a teacher of poetry classes and workshops at UC Berkeley Extension and Associate Editor of Poetry Flash, a crucial publication that has been a touchstone for the community for decades. Silberg’s poems have been published in The American Poetry Review, Denver Quarterly, VOLT, New American Writing, North Coast Review, City Lights Review, Parthenon West Review, The Addison Street Anthology: Berkeley’s Poetry Walk, among others, and on the Berkeley Poetry Sidewalk; his essays from Poetry Flash were…
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Friday, Feb. 4: Don Prell’s Seabop Ensemble with Jerry Logas, sax Michael Parsons, piano Don Prell, bass Chris Bjorkbom, drums Bassist Prell got his start in L.A. in the 1950s, when he was a core member of the Bud Shank Quartet, traveling internationally and recording three albums. The first Friday of every month, he brings in a fine bebop band; always a good time at Bird & Beckett! No cover charge, but your generous donations at the shows make it possible for us to pay the band. Thanks!
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This reading celebrates Les Gottesman’s newest chapbook, Misuses of Poetry and Other Poems, from Finishing Line Press. Les’s first published poems were in Ted Berrigan’s C magazine in 1965. More recently, his poems have appeared in numerous print and online journals as well as in thirteen chapbooks from his own imprint, Omerta Publications. Les has been a teacher in San Francisco for over 30 years. He received an MFA in Writing from California College of the Arts in 2011. See his poems (and photographs) at lesgottesman.com. Jodi A. Sanchez hails from Chicago, Illinois. A graduate of New College of California’s MA Poetics program, she is eternally grateful for the education and inspiration found there. Her works can be seen in local literally magazines and in Beatitude: Golden Anniversary Edition. She currently strive to share her stories in all artistic forms and remember those heard along the way.
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which way west? Sunday concert series. All ages welcome! No cover charge, but your generous donations make it possible for us to pay the musicians. Sunday, Jan. 27 – 4:30-6:30 pm: The Bay Area Jazz All-Stars. Mark Levine is widely known (with a couple of Grammy nominations) for his Latin jazz work, but he’s no less a superb straight-ahead player who studied early on with Hall Overton and Jaki Byard and has done solid work with the likes of Woody Shaw, Blue Mitchell, Joe Henderson, Harold Land and Dave Liebman. For this date, he’s assembled a quintet that can easily cover all that territory, call it jazz of the Americas, if you will. He’s dubbed this group the Bay Area Jazz All-Stars, and it features Chuck MacKinnon on trumpet, Al Bent on trombone, John Wiitala on bass and Ron Marabuto on drums. All of these players have been among the…
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7 p.m. – Two accomplished writers take entirely different ends of the spectrum as their starting point in memoirs of humor, insight and no small measure of narrative grace. Lucille Lang Day’s Married at Fourteen tells the tale of her young life and its trajectory, while Herbert Gold’s Not Dead Yet takes up the other end of the spectrum. Both sparkle with wit and feisty independent spirit. It’ll be a Saturday evening to remember in Glen Park’s literary center as these two accomplished writers and kindred spirits hold forth at Bird & Beckett, reading from their latest books. Make time to stay for the book signing and casual conversation to follow. Lucy Lang Day writes, “I started seriously looking for a husband when I was twelve. I’d had enough of being a child, enough of being told what to do. I was unhappy at school; I resented homework; I didn’t…
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Seven events over eight days… and one more on Super Bowl Sunday (before the game!) Friday, the 25th, 5:30 to 8:00 p.m.: Come down to the shop after work for The Chuck Peterson Quintet, summoning up the golden days when West Coast jazz hipped the fans to driving bebop solos on a pillow of laid back but rich harmonic invention… This is the group also known as The 230 Jones Street, Local 6 Literary Jazz Band, led by flute player Chuck Peterson with the able reedman Howard Dudune fronting a rhythm section comprising Glen Deardorff on guitar, Dean Reilly on bass and Tony Johnson on drums. Saturday, the 26th, 7:00 p.m.: Writers Lucille Lang Day and Herbert Gold read from their memoirs, Married at 14 (Day) and Not Dead Yet (Gold). Gold has been an important writer since the 1950s, long associated with the Beats, but that’s far from all.…
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Sunday, Jan. 27 at 2:30 p.m. A talk on the poet in the time of America’s greatest trial, his work amidst the intense misery of the hospital wards bringing him face to face with the suffering wrought by the national suicide then in progress. The experience was inevitably incorporated into his evolving poetic persona, resulting not only in several unchallenged literary masterpieces but also spawning a new species of mythical-spiritual being, arising not from classical civilization but out of an American democracy which persists imperfectly yet recognizably to the present day. Walker Brents III gives a monthly talk on topics ranging from bits of mythology to the lives and works of writers and philosophers to historical chapters, with brilliant insight and a unique frame of reference that has gained him an avid and devoted audience.
Read MoreMonday, Jan. 28th at 7:00 p.m. Poets from the West Coast and the East Coast converge in Glen Park. Lee Slonimsky has published one book of poems in free verse, Talk Between Leaf and Skin (SRLR Press, Austin TX, 2002), but has been working primarily in traditional forms and meter for the past several years, especially with the sonnet. His book Money and Light contains 22 sonnets. Orchises Press published his sequence of about 60 sonnets on the life of Pythagoras, Pythagoras in Love, in 2007. His journal credits include Best of Asheville Poetry Review, Blue Unicorn, The Carolina Quarterly, The Classical Outlook, Iambs & Trochees, The Lyric (for whom he also judged the quarterly contest for the Fall 2004 issue), The New York Times, The Raintown Review, and Valparaiso Poetry Review. His wife, Carol Goodman, is an acclaimed mystery writer who has been making some use of his sonnets…
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Poets! is an ongoing Bird & Beckett poetry series, hosted by Jerry Ferraz, which presents featured poets followed by an open mic. We’re moving this series from its twice-a-month Monday schedule to a once-a-month “Third Thursdays” schedule. So mark your calendars! Click here for an overview of the series. 7:00 p.m. Tonight’s reading in our ongoing monthly “Third Thursdays” poetry series will be an all-open-mic in honor of Dan Harrington. As you’ll read below, Dan was a fascinating and unique person — a long-time friend of our series host Jerry Ferraz — who often showed up at our readings over the years with a banjo or guitar to deliver a rough and lovely song that he’d been working out — usually a chestnut from the folk annals by the likes of Woody Guthrie, but sometimes an original drawing on his deep abiding affection for the wilderness trails or his compassionate observations…
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which way west? Sunday concert series. All ages welcome! No cover charge, but your generous donations make it possible for us to pay the musicians. Sunday, Jan. 20 – 4:30-6:30 pm: Mike Lipskin & Dinah Lee with Paul Mehling & Jerry Logas. Mike Lipskin is a 50-year veteran Stride Jazz pianist who has an original sound within that idiom. Early on, Lipskin gained the stamp of approval of giants including Willie “The Lion†Smith, Eubie Blake, Dick Hyman and Jay McShann. He will be making swinging jazz combinations with stellar guitarist Paul Mehling, leader of the Hot Club of San Francisco, Dinah Lee, distinctive jazz vocalist, and reed man in the Lester Young tradition, Jerry Logas. This will be a rich and satisfying program of lovely, irresistible songs from the classic American Songbook of the 20s, 30s and 40s together with engrossing jazz instrumentals. Lipskin has appeared at Carnegie Hall…
Read More2:00 p.m. Mary Burger is a writer and artist living in Oakland. Her book Then Go On was published in 2012 by Litmus Press. Earlier books include Sonny (Leon Works, 2005) and A Partial Handbook for Navigators (Interbirth, 2008.) With Robert Glück, Camille Roy, and Gail Scott she co-edited the anthology Biting the Error (Coach House Books, 2004.) She is the founding editor of Second Story Books, publishing contemporary cross-genre writing. Mary is also a studio artist at The Compound Gallery & Studios in Emeryville, where she makes prints and mixed media works. Denise Newman has a new chapbook out from Omerta Press called Film Studies and is the author of three prior collections of poems, The New Make Believe (The Post-Apollo Press, 2010), Wild Goods (Apogee Press, 2008), and Human Forest (Apogee Press, 2000). Her translation of The Painted Room by the Danish poet Inger Christensen is distributed by Random…
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which way west? Sunday concert series. All ages welcome! No cover charge, but your generous donations make it possible for us to pay the musicians. Sunday, Jan. 13 – 4:30-6:30 pm: Misisipi Mike & Friends. Country picker & singer/songwriter Mike Wolf, aka Misisipi Mike, has more friends than there are double consonants in the English language, and plenty of ’em are fine musicians of the Americana ilk. Count on a lovely afternoon of new tunes and chestnuts and a parade of able instrumentalists & crooners at Bird & Beckett this Sunday! Mike is one of the most prolific and creative forces on the San Francisco country music scene, fronting a number of bands and filling key support roles in many others, while writing reams of great songs and creating a huge catalog of show poster art of striking originality for other bands on the scene — proudly and capably carrying…
Read MoreThis winter/spring, watch for some major jazz musicians in our Sunday “which way west?” series… always 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Never a cover charge, but don’t neglect to help us pay the musicians — unless you’re flat broke! All ages welcome! In between the dates we’ll describe below, you’ll hear country music (Misisipi Mike on Jan. 13), Americana (during the SF Bluegrass & Old-Time Festival bookings on Feb. 10 and 17), Hindustani (North Indian) classical music (vocal/tabla and violin/tabla on Mar. 24 and 31), etc. None to be missed! But here’s a run-down of the spectacular Sunday jazz bookings we’ve got in store for you in the next several months: January 20th: Mike Lipskin, a 50-year veteran stride piano player — who early on gained the stamp of approval of several giants of the style including Willie “The Lion” Smith, Eubie Blake and Earl “Fatha” Hines, will bring in singer…
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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
