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!
October 30th – Sunday, 4:30 to 6:30 pm All ages welcome – no cover – kids free Suggested donation for adults – $10 Tango No. 9 which way west? Sunday afternoon concert series Tango No. 9 has been making audiences swoon for 13 years with their exquisite sets of classic, nuevo and orginal tangos, and we’re overheated with excitement every time they hit the stage in our cozy little bookshop. Violinist Catharine Clune, pianist Joshua Raoul Brody and trombonist Greg Stephens have been joined in this group by the dashing Zoltan de Bartolo who vocalizes those Argentinian, Spanish and Italian tunes that stir the soul. From Astor Piazzola’s Buenos Aires and Paris to your own fog shrouded city of love, they deliver music that is haunting, inspiring and soulfully satisfying.
Read MoreSunday, October 30 – 2:30 pm Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh Walker Talks! Expository explorations on literary, mythological & historical themes Walker Brents III can always be relied on to entertain and edify as he muses on topics of timeless interest — in this instance, the Shahnameh. Composed by the 10th century Persian poet Ferdowsi, the Shanameh recounts the history of Iran, beginning with the creation of the world and the introduction of the arts of civilization (fire, cooking, metallurgy, law) to the Aryans and ends with the Arab conquest of Persia. Though not precisely chronological, there is a general movement through time in the poem. Some characters live for hundreds of years, but most have normal life spans. There are many shÄhs who come and go, as well as heroes and villains, who also come and go. The only lasting images are that of Greater Iran itself, and a succession of sunrises and…
Read MoreFriday, October 28, 5:30 to 8:00 pm The 230 Jones Street, Local 6 Literary Jazz Band aka The Chuck Peterson Quintet with vocalist Dorothy Lefkovits jazz in the bookshop every Friday! Tenor sax player Chuck Peterson finishes out the month’s schedule of Friday evening jazz sessions at Bird & Beckett with four long-time associates who have been at the top of the jazz scene locally and nationally for six decades. Reed player Howard Dudune plays with the easy grace of Lester Young and a swinging humor all his own, while guitarist Glen Deardorff drives the rhythm with a fierce insouciance. Bassist Dean Reilly, one of the most respected elder statesmen of the local jazz scene and a well traveled pro, looks , acts and plays like a youngster with his first ducktail. And drummer Tony Johnson, still sporting the Aussie accent of his own youth, swings effortlessly and keeps time…
Read Morewhich way west? Sunday concert series all ages welcome! $10 per adult suggested donation Sunday, October 23rd, 4:30 to 6:30 pm (two sets) Jinx Jones Jazzabilly All Stars Jinx Jones is a guitar star of the first magnitude on the San Francisco scene, effortlessly covering the bases from the Buck Owens sound of Bakersfield to the Dick Dale wave of Santa Cruz to the Wes Montgomery sophistication of Cleveland lounges and New York recording studios… Here at Bird & Beckett, he’ll be showcasing his Jazzabilly All Stars, running down the changes with just a hint of Bakersfield twang, Nashville gloss and Pacific Coast curl. Jinx plays with “alacritous dexterity and excruciating elegance†says Rockabilly Magazine. He’s a charmer too, but keep that heartbeat in check, ’cause we hear he’s headed for the altar in short order!
Read Morejazz in the bookshop every Friday since 2002! all ages welcome! $10 per adult suggested donation Friday, October 21st, 5:30 to 8:00 pm Aran-Foster-Peterson-Prell The third Friday of each month, three founders of our nine-year old series of Friday jazz parties join forces with a guest drummer to keep the bebop flame burning bright on Chenery Street. Tenor player Chuck Peterson proposed the series back in the fall of 2002, telling us he’d make sure we had a band every single week if we’d promise to provide the venue — and both sides to that pact have kept their word. Chuck brought bassist Don Prell into the mix, and Don brought in guitarist Scott Foster, and so it’s gone ever since. In fact, the band grew to eight pieces in the tiny performance space at the “old” location down on Diamond Street before splintering into more manageable units that make…
Read MoreSunday, October 16 – 2 pm Maestro David Meltzer The Stuntman! Interviewed on the Bird & Beckett stage by Gerry Fialka David just wowed ’em in the Mission, at our Litquake reading at Kaleidoscope, trading “fours” with his new bride Julie Rogers and then dazzling ’em all with his fleet-footed delivery of the newly penned mini-epic tale of derring do and crashing calamity called “The Stuntman,” a worthy latter-day successor to one of our favorite poems of his, “The Red Shoes.” From ballet to action flicks, does this man never tire of soaring to new poetic heights of quotidian life?? Son of a cellist and a harpist, Meltzer was born in ’37, grew to the age of 17 in Brooklyn and nearby Rockville Centre, then came west with his pop to Los Angeles. Roosted there for three years, left high school unfinished, made his way up to San Francisco, fell…
Read MoreSunday, October 16th, 4:30 & 5:30 pm (two sets) Suggested donation $10 per adult kids always free! Parlor Tricks Industrial Ragtime Band which way west? Sunday concert series Imagine a New York Sunday morning in the spring of 1904, the electric streetlights winking off and Reverend Edward Martin Waller making his way from the maternity hospital to the church as the happily weary denizens of the city’s Saturday night syncopated frenzy trail home to bed. Newborn Fats Waller suckles happily at his mother’s breast, a zeppelin floats across the horizon, all seems right with the world… for the secretaries and the clerks, the warehouse workers and factory mechanics, all that’s needed is a good day’s sleep, and come Sunday night, the bars and clubs spring right back to syncopated life, the bubbly starts to flow again… and its time for a few Parlor Tricks! Watch a few here! It’s a…
Read MoreThursday, October 13th, 7:00 pm Six at Kaleidoscope: San Francisco Poets For the Ages Buddhists, Beats & Beyond! Bird & Beckett at Litquake (offsite at 24th St & Folsom) Bird & Beckett takes its show to the Mission District to meet Litquake on its own turf! Poets David Meltzer, Neeli Cherkovski, Latif Harris, Julie Rogers, Walker Brents & Jerry Ferraz are all solidly familiar faces on Bird & Beckett’s poets’ stage in the nearby neighborhood of Glen Park, where high-caliber readings have been a constant feature of the programming since the shop’s founding. Tonight, we’re proud to bring them to Kaleidoscope, one of the most vital young venues in the Mission District, found next door to Philz Coffee just off the corner of 24th & Folsom. As it happens, Jerry Ferraz was on the very first bill of poets presented in the bookshop back in 1999, when someone told us…
Read MoreMonday, October 10th, 7 pm Micah Ballard + Alli Warren – POETS! Litquake at Bird & Beckett Litquake and Bird & Beckett both got their start in San Francisco in 1999, and we’re proud to be participating in that amazing city-wide literary festival for the first time with two events this week! First off, tonight it’s the kind of poetry reading that Bird & Beckett has done to perfection hundreds of times in the past 12 years! Two very fine young poets will be on hand– hosted by Bird & Beckett’s Nicholas Whittington, an excellent poet in his own right and editor of our annual literary journal, Amerarcana, with its third volume now in the works. Tonight’s bill features Baton Rouge-born Micah Ballard, a generous and gracious soul, who arrived in San Francisco at the age of 24 in the year B&B and Litquake were founded… 1999! Micah went through…
Read Morejazz in the bookshop every Friday since 2002! Friday, October 7th, 5:30 to 8:00 pm Don Prell’s Seabop Ensemble The first Friday of each month, bassist Don Prell puts together a combo and puts them through their paces, chasing down the bebop changes that continue to intrigue and delight us. This week, reed & flute player Jerry Logas, plus Michael Parsons, piano, and Chris Bjorkbom, drums. Don got his start in LA in the 50s, touring nationally and internationally for several years as the bassist for famed sax player Bud Shank’s quartet. He’s truly mad about the music, and his enthusiasm is infectious. Friday, October 14th, 5:30 to 8:00 pm The Jimmy Ryan Quintet jazz in the bookshop Since late 2002, Bird & Beckett has hosted regular weekly jazz sessions by some of the finest seasoned players in the city and some of the best of the young…
Read Morewhich way west? Sunday concert series Sunday, October 9th, 4:30 & 5:30 pm (two sets) $10 suggested donation per adult – kids welcome & free! The Black Crown Stringband Didn’t get enough bluegrass and old-time music last weekend at HSBG? True to its name, the festival ranges far afield from that lively and mournful music we can’t get enough of… So here’s a double shot of the real McCoy– a band made up of players from several of the Bay Area’s best bands in the tradition. Comprising founding members of the Earl Brothers and the Mercury Dimes (guitarist John McKelvy and banjo player Matt Knoth, respectively), a fiddler who’s recorded and toured with the Mercury Dimes, the Stairwell Sisters and the Crooked Jades (Elise Engelberg) and a bassist who’s been busy with a number of local bluegrass outfits in the past several years (Karen Sonnenblick), the Black Crown Stringband first…
Read MoreTwo Book Events This Weekend Sunday, October 9th, 1:00 pm Vaganova Today: The Preservation of a Pedagogical Tradition Agrippina Vaganova (1879-1951) is revered as the visionary who first codified the Russian system of classical ballet training. The Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet, founded on impeccable technique and centuries of tradition, has a reputation for elite standards, and its graduates include Mikhail Baryshnikov, Rudolf Nureyev, Natalia Makarova, and Diana Vishneva. Yet the “Vaganova method” has come under criticism in recent years. In Vaganova Today, Catherine Pawlick traces Vaganova’s story from her early years as a ballet student in tsarist Russia to her career as a dancer with the Mariinsky (Kirov) Ballet to her work as a pedagogue and choreographer. Pawlick then goes beyond biography to address Vaganova’s legacy today, offering the first-ever English translations of primary source materials and intriguing interviews with pedagogues and dancers from the Academy and the Mariinsky…
Read More                      At First Christian Church at the corner of Duboce and Noe (adjacent to Duboce Park) Saturday, October 8th, 6:30 to 9:30 pm String Thing! A Benefit to Celebrate the Elegant Universe of George Peacock $10 to $30 suggested donation at the door, or in advance at Peacock Music or Bird & Beckett music – food – community! George Peacock has been building and repairing fine stringed instruments in his shop in the Duboce Triangle, at the corner of 15th and Noe, since 1971 — 40 years! Now, sadly, he’s fighting a very serious illness, and his friends, compatriots, patrons and neighbors are stepping up to come to his aid with this benefit concert, to be held in a lovely old (1906) church just a few blocks from the…
Read MoreOctober 2nd – Sunday, 4:30 to 6:30 pm Special guest “fingerstyle†jazz guitarist who must remain nameless! In the tradition of the famed Massey Hall concert in Toronto in 1952, where our patron saint Charlie Parker had to be billed as “Charlie Chan†for contractual reasons, we must not name the performer gracing our stage today… However, trust that he is a performer of extraordinary repute in his lovely and intricate profession of solo acoustic jazz guitar, “one of the most highly regarded fingerstyle guitarists of his generation,†with a repertoire that “spans the entire history of the music from ragtime through swing to modern masters like Thelonious Monk and Herbie Nichols to free improvisationâ€â€¦ Various critics named his album “Spinning Song†among the best jazz records of 1997 in Cadence and Coda magazines, and it placed high on the Cadence reader’s poll of that year. Acoustic Guitar magazine dubbed…
Read MoreSunday, October 2nd – 1 pm From New York: Three Poets – One Hour Brant Lyon Mary Mackey & Jane Ormerod Three poets who love to perform, on tour! Jane Ormerod called us up and said she was coming to San Francisco, and could she bring some friends along for the ride, so how could we say no? Brant runs a reading series pairing poets with an improvisational band, and has had his music performed in all sorts of venues, from Carnegie Hall on down to the Bowery Poetry Club and the Nuyorican Poets Cafe… Mary’s poetry has been translated into twelve languages and she is entranced by the merger of Portuguese into her work… Jane has performed in Los Angeles, Seattle, Ireland, The Netherlands, you name it… and recently performed at the John Cage Retrospective in Bexhill-on-Sea, England… Welcome them to San Francisco & Glen Park. One hour of…
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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.
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
