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!
Friday, September 30th, 5:30 to 8:00 pm Special Fifth Friday booking! The Tom Lander/Charlie McCarthy Quartet jazz in the bookshop every Friday — since 2002! When there are five Fridays in a month, we enjoy the luxury of a special booking, and this time it’s a terrific quartet comprising guitarist Tom Lander and sax player Charlie McCarthy, with bassist Bill Lamphiere and drummer Tony Johnson. All four have long years of experience in the music. For his part, Charlie has played behind and alongside such luminaries as Ella Fitzgerald, Joe Henderson, Sarah Vaughan, Bobbie Hutcherson, George Shearing, Madeline Eastman, Frank Sinatra, Nancy Wilson, Lena Horne, Stan Getz and Joe Williams. The Friday evening jazz scene at Bird & Beckett began in October of 2002 — nine short years ago! 450+ consecutive Fridays of live jazz without missing a beat…
Read MoreSunday, September 25th, 4:30 and 5:30 pm (two sets) Prasant Radhakrishnan Jazz/Carnatic Saxophone which way west? Sunday concert series Each week, the Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project presents two sets of music on the stage at Bird & Becektt by Bay Area-based performers working in a variety of traditions, be it bluegrass, sufi Qawwali, jazz, western classical, North African music of the Imazighen… Today, we’re pleased to present one of the preeminent young musicians on the world music stage. Prasant Radhakrishnan is a versatile saxophonist, identified with both the South Indian Classical (Carnatic) and jazz disciplines, who produces a unique vocal texture on saxophone, reflecting his continued study of tradition, constant innovation, and vast concert experience. The foremost disciple of Carnatic saxophone pioneer, “Padmashri†Dr. Kadri Gopalnath, Prasant began developing his music over the course of nearly a decade of intensive musical training under his guru, much of which…
Read MoreSunday, September 25, 2:30 pm Walker Talks! Mad love: The Story of Layla and Majnun Walker Brents III tells the tale of Layla and Majnun — a 7th century Arabic story, best remembered from the rendering by 12th century Persian poet Nizami. Cherished by Persians, Arabs, Afghans, Turks, Azerbaijanis, Uzbeks, Indians and Pakistanis, the story of Layla and Majnun has been told in thousands of variations across cultures and art forms; Eric Clapton, too, plays the part of Majnun in his pleading classic, Layla, written in anguish for the unattainable love of Patti Boyd… Layla and Majnun is the story of Qays ibn al-Mulawwah, a young poet in the seventh century who fell in love with a woman named Layla and wrote poems expressing his desperate passion for her. Layla’s father, however, refused to let them marry and gave her hand to another man, whereupon Qays retreated to the wilderness,…
Read MoreThis coming Sunday… September 18th… two events A Panel Discussion of New Writing from India, Africa and the Caribbean Music by Macy Blackman and the Mighty Fines first up: literary panel at 2 pm! Speakers: Aaron Bady – Rohit Chopra – Gautam Premnath Academic specialists Rohit Chopra (Asst. Prof., Dept. of Communication, Santa Clara Univ.), Gautam Premnath (Asst. Prof. Dept. of English, UC Berkeley) and Aaron Bady (PhD candidate, Dept. of English, UC Berkeley) discuss recent writing in English from formerly colonized societies in South Asia, Africa and the Caribbean. They will look specifically at work by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Teju Cole, Mohsin Hamid, Marlon James, Gyan Prakash, Altaf Tyrewala and Binyavanga Wainaina. Since the publication of Salman Rushdie’s landmark novel, Midnight’s Children, three decades ago, postcolonial writing has become an integral part of global literary consciousness, read the world over. The discussion will cover themes including the experiences of immigrant and…
Read MoreMonday, September 19th, 7 pm John Sakkis & Lynn Xu + open mic POETS! 1st & 3rd Mondays hosted by Jerry Ferraz John Sakkis is the author of Rude Girl (BlazeVOX Books), and with Angelos Sakkis he has translated two books by Athenian poet Demothenes Agrafiotis — Maribor (The Post-Apollo Press), awarded the 2011 Northern California Book Award for Poetry in Translation, and Chinese Notebook (Ugly Duckling Presse). A graduate of SFSU and Naropa University, he lives in Oakland and works for Small Press Distribution. Lynn Xu received her MFA from Brown University. Her poems were selected by Anne Carson to receive the Greg Grummer Prize in 2006, by Fanny Howe to receive the SLS St. Petersburg Fellowship in 2007, and by Charles Wright to be included in the Best Amercan Poetry anthology in 2008. Her poems have appeared in 6×6, Boston Review, Eoagh, Tinfish, Octopus, The Walrus, Zoland Poetry, and…
Read MoreTonight! Monday, September 12th, 7 pm POETS! David Rowe & Marc Olmsted A native of Worcester, Mass., David Rowe was educated at Swarthmore. His poems have appeared in the Cortland Review, the North American Review, Big Bridge, Dorado, Solid Quarter, Exquisite Corpse, YAWP, & in the anthology, the Maple Leaf Rag. A poet equally of the stage & the page, David has read his poetry on the Moe Green Poetry Show & WWOZ, & at countless venues both in the States & abroad. His first full-length book, just out from Verna Press (New Orleans), is Unsolicited Poems. Allen Ginsberg said “Marc Olmsted inherited Burroughs’ scientific nerve & Kerouac’s movie-minded line nailed down with gold eyebeam in San Francisco.†Olmsted has appeared in City Lights Journal, New Directions in Prose & Poetry, The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, Processed World and a variety of small presses. His work includes two…
Read MoreThis coming Sunday… September 18th… two events A Panel Discussion of New Writing from India, Africa and the Caribbean Music by Macy Blackman and the Mighty Fines first up: literary panel at 2 pm! Speakers: Aaron Bady – Rohit Chopra – Gautam Premnath Academic specialists Rohit Chopra (Asst. Prof., Dept. of Communication, Santa Clara Univ.), Gautam Premnath (Asst. Prof. Dept. of English, UC Berkeley) and Aaron Bady (PhD candidate, Dept. of English, UC Berkeley) discuss recent writing in English from formerly colonized societies in South Asia, Africa and the Caribbean. They will look specifically at work by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Teju Cole, Mohsin Hamid, Marlon James, Gyan Prakash, Altaf Tyrewala and Binyavanga Wainaina. Since the publication of Salman Rushdie’s landmark novel, Midnight’s Children, three decades ago, postcolonial writing has become an integral part of global literary consciousness, read the world over. The discussion will cover themes including the experiences of immigrant and…
Read MoreSunday, September 11, 4:30 pm Lori B – a woman, a guitar, a toy piano… which way west? Sunday concert series lori B made an indelible mark on the American creative landscape as a singer-songwriter with her debut CD, Hurricane Child, in 1996. She toured extensively and won raves, including this tribute by David Crosby: “Lori B was born to do this. She is a glorious shiny wonderful bundle of raw nerves. She will whisper to your heart and she will tell it the truth…”  In 2004, she released a second CD, Shadows of Love, and performed its music in front of rapt audiences until other paths beckoned. “Part poet, part vitamin, part snake charmer,” lori performs her music in public only rarely now, but always with startling intimacy and emotional depth. Her current work in San Francisco and further afield as a coach and healer consumes most of her…
Read MorePoetry Readings Times Four Saturday-Sunday-Monday Saturday, September 10 – 5 pm a poet from the neighborhood, and one from farther out Jane Rice & Suzanne Sigafoos Jane Rice is a neighborhood gal, but more importantly a serious poet of long experience. She will read from her new chapbook, The Truth About the World. Jane notes, “In all my poems I seek to create a tension between coincidence and the expectation of sequence. The mind yearns to find meaning in the connections of things. Yet we ascribe meaning only to a fraction of the coincidences that surround us. †A letterpress edition of Jane’s previous collection, Portrait Sitters, a painterly sequence of likenesses of Montparnasse artists during the inter-war period, was published by Propolis Press in 2007, and in the same year her chapbook Line Drawings was a finalist in the New York Center for Book Arts chapbook competition. Crayfish Tale,…
Read MoreMonday, September 5th, 7:00 pm H.D. Moe POETS! Featured reader + open mic Hosted by Jerry Ferraz 1st & 3rd Monday of Each Month H.D. Moe has been a force on the Bay Area poetry scene since the 1970s, tirelessly generating volcanic streams of work that falls somewhere on the psychedelic / surrealist / automatic writing spectrum, operating in a shimmering, oscillating wavelength that at times is audible only to the angels. Come hear a West Coast original! trebling snails mooting unpronounced grins soma bellybutton- ing  anu thinking grasshoppers radiating nightsea stone wind to me Jelly boxes awkwarding levi numinous whey muteing sparrows dimension flash covers triptych clock sun memorises pink arrows coming deeping rolfing kettledrums star woven crawfish opium levitas dogs blind stowaways transparent zrnurgy footballing dytharambic echos eurydice wowing sabu Jerry Ferraz, peripatetic troubadour & minstrel bardic wanderer, hosts.
Read MoreSunday, September 4th, 4:30 & 5:30 pm – two sets Anthony Brown & Friends which way west? Sunday concert series Percussionist Anthony Brown, born of an African-American/Native American father and a Japanese mother, is a mainstay in a hugely influential movement that started locally three decades ago, as a handful of talented Asian-American musicians began to develop innovative approaches to jazz composition, instrumentation and performance. After playing as a youth in pop and R&B bands and working in military choruses and jazz settings, Anthony co-founded with bassist Mark Izu and trumpeter George Sams the San Francisco-based ensemble known as United Front– which proceeded to blaze the way along a path that has led to the Asian-American Jazz Orchestra and related projects by colleagues Jon Jang, Francis Wong, Melecio Magdaluyo and many others. Today at Bird & Beckett, Anthony, on drumset and percussion, is joined in a trio by Mark Izu…
Read MoreFriday, September 2nd, 5:30 to 8:00 pm jazz in the bookshop Every Friday Evening It’s the first Friday of the month, and that means it’s time for Don Prell’s SeaBop Ensemble! Next Friday (the second Friday of the month) we host The Jimmy Ryan Quintet. Bird & Beckett’s Friday jazz sessions have been going on since 2002 and show no signs of slowing down… For each SeaBop date, Don Prell assembles the band from a retinue of top-knotch musicians steeped in the bebop and west coast jazz that we love so well… For Sept. 2nd, Don has concocted a SeaBop trio configuration of guitar, piano and bass — no drums or horns — with Scott Foster, guitar; Michael Parsons, piano; and Don himself on bass. Don always puts a lot of effort into conceiving and rehearsing the particular configuration of musicians/instrumentation and the set list itself. We’ll be excited to…
Read MoreMonday, August 29th, 7:00 pm Bill Berkson and Duncan McNaughton POETS! Bill Berkson and Duncan McNaughton are contemporaries, friends and widely respected literary figures. In addition to their writings (more than a dozen books of poetry by Duncan since 1961, and a like number of volumes of art writing, poetry and other material by Bill beginning in about the same year), both have been long engaged through critical work and correspondence in furthering the understanding of artistic endeavor. Both have been important teachers in the Bay Area as well– Duncan founded the innovative and highly influential Poetics Program at New College in 1965 and directed it until 1990; and Bill was a key faculty member at the renowned San Francisco Art Institute from 1984 to 2008. Both have roots on the east coast — Bill was born in New York in 1939;…
Read MoreSunday, September 4th, 5:30 & 6:30 pm – two sets Anthony Brown & Friends which way west? Sunday concert series Percussionist Anthony Brown, born of an African-American/Native American father and a Japanese mother, is a mainstay in a hugely influential movement that started locally three decades ago, as a handful of talented Asian-American musicians began to develop innovative approaches to jazz composition, instrumentation and performance. After playing as a youth in pop and R&B bands and working in military choruses and jazz settings, Anthony co-founded with bassist Mark Izu and trumpeter George Sams the San Francisco-based ensemble known as United Front– which proceeded to blaze the way along a path that has led to the Asian-American Jazz Orchestra and related projects by colleagues Jon Jang, Francis Wong, Melecio Magdaluyo and many others. Today at Bird & Beckett, Anthony, on drumset and percussion, is joined in a trio by Mark Izu…
Read MoreSunday, August 28th, 2:30 pm Walker Brents III’s Flintlock Tales Walker talks! quite a lot! and most interestingly on the last Sunday of each month at Bird & Beckett, barring the summer months– when he rambles the west to make sure the roads still lead on… and, thus far, they have. For many many years now, Walker has been concocting tales of Flintlock, a sharp-clawed and unpredictable cat, given to whims of its own brought to a certain hard-etched definition in the cyclone of a hard and, when you come down to it, beautiful landscape– just the kind of landscape his creator has taken in in a long youth and adolscence in the dusty west, and those repeated seasonal rambles… Flintlock evokes a certain sense of recognition– a certain sharp pain of realization… and a certain amusement mixed with astonishment. Come hear, y’all…
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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
