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!
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But nothing beats being in the room with the music & the musicians!
Friday, July 29nd – 5:30 pm George Cotsirilos Trio Jazz in the Bookshop – 5th Friday Special Guest George Cotsirilos, guitar; Robb Fisher, bass; Ron Marabuto, drums A “blue collar jazz trio†with an impeccable sense of swing, celebrating the recent release of its cd entitled “Past, Presentâ€â€¦Â noted by one reviewer as being “happy in its collective skin… the music is correspondingly relaxed, confident and elegant.â€Â Cotsirilos played a lot of rock and blues back in Michigan, but has become an assured jazz player working in the classic style associated with players like Kenny Burrell and Jim Hall. Fisher and Marabuto have been well-respected jazz players for decades as well, and have played extensively alongside artists of huge stature including Cal Tjader, Pharoah Sanders, Pepper Adams, Tommy Flanagan and many others. Marabuto plays at Bird & Beckett as part of our regular fourth-Friday group, and was the one who…
Read MoreSundays, July 31st – August 28th Outfest! Five Consecutive Sundays of Spontaneous Improvization Bird & Beckett’s Which Way West? concert series, in association with Outsound Presents: July 31 – TIME IS NOW, NOT MONEY: Lorin Benedict, voice; Scott R. Looney, piano; Bishu Chatterjee, bass; Bryan Bowman, drums August 7 – FORWARD ENERGY: Jim Ryan, sax, flute, trumpet; Rent Romus, saxes; Scott R. Looney, piano; Eric Marshall, bass; Timothy Orr, drums August 14 – CHUCK MANNING/STU PILORZ OUTFIT: Chuck Manning, tenor sax; Stu Pilorz, trombone; Ollie Dudek, bass; Omar Aran, drums August 21 – TIME IS NOW, NOT MONEY REDUX: featuring Kasey Knudsen, sax August 28 – LORDS OF OUTLAND: Rent Romus, saxes; C.J. Reaven Borosque, trumpet & electronic feedback; Ray Schaeffer, electric bass; Philip Everett, drums
Read MoreThis Sunday! 4:30-6:30 pm Vocalist Suzanne Kramer + Trio which way west? Sunday concert series Suzanne’s assembled a sharp outfit of musicians to back her in this foray into the classic jazz songbook. Michael Parsons on piano; Doug Pohorosky on bass and Wally Schnalle on drums. She’s a Glen Park denizen with a solid following for her varied musical projects, from the pop band called the Stone Ponies to the present swing into classic jazz territory. Bring your kids if you’ve got ’em… her’s will be in attendance…
Read MorePOETS LIVING, AND LIVING ON… Sunday, 7/24 at 2:30 “Roads of Bread” Poets pay tribute to the late Eugene Ruggles hosted by Martin Hinkle, with readings by Clive Matson, Jack & Adele Foley, Doreen Stock, Carl Macki and Dela Moon (from a 2004 SF Chronicle article): Eugene Ruggles’ overriding sympathy for victims of injustice that led him to develop large-venue political poetry benefits in San Francisco during the early 1970s. “Anyone who knows Gene knows his most astounding characteristic is his heart,” said longtime friend and publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti, former San Francisco poet laureate and owner and founder of City Lights Bookstore. “He really empathizes with the downtrodden and the down-and-out. ” The poetry benefits Ruggles organized attracted hundreds of people, which was unusual for a poetry reading. Through the 1970s and early 1980s, Ruggles organized about 20 benefits that raised money and generated publicity for organizations such as Amnesty…
Read Morethis evening at Bird & Beckett! Jazz at the bookshop jazz every Friday evening, 5:30 to 8:00 pm Singer Dorothy Lefkovits with the “230 Jones Street, Local 6 Literary Jazz Band” aka, the Chuck Peterson Quintet Tenor sax player Chuck Peterson inaugurated our weekly jazz party in the neighborhood back in late 2002, and it’s still going strong. Dorothy’s been singing in here almost as long… all the musicians on the bandstand tonight have long experience in the music, and swing in the best west coast post bop tradition… join your friends and neighbors for a fine, convivial summer evening… Beside Chuck, the band consists of reed player Howie Dudune, guitarist Glen Deardorff, bassist Dean Reilly and drummer Tony Johnson. A fine outfit indeed…
Read MoreThursday, 7/21 at 7:00: Poets pay tribute to the late carol lee sanchez hosted by Bill Vartnaw, with readings by Avotcja, Duane BigEagle, Judy Grahn, Gail Mitchell, Kim Shuck, and others Born in Albuquerque, New Mexico and raised in the village of Pagute, carol lee sanchez passed away in Sedalia, Missouri on April 6, 2011 at the age of 77. Her cultural heritage was largely Laguna and Lebanese-American; the Laguna tribal name given her at birth translates as message bringer woman, and indeed so she was, in a long life as a poet, educator and activist. This memorial reading has been organized by poet Bill Vartnaw, who established his small publishing concern, Taurean Horn Press, in 1974 to publish carol lee’s poetry, having first encountered her at the Coffee Gallery on North Beach’s Grant Street, where she ran the a weekly open reading series regularly frequented by Bob Kaufman (then…
Read MoreSunday July 17th – 4:30 pm Faisal Zedan Ensemble Which Way West? Sunday Concerts Percussionist Faisal Zedan, from Syria, is joined by violinists Husain Resan, from Iraq, and Younes El-Makboul in a program of pan-Arab music. These three expert musicians have all graced the Bird & Beckett stage in the past, and can be counted on to provide a rich and delightful musical experience. Faisal Zedan is acclaimed for his virtuosity on the derbakki, the riqq and the framedrum and for his deep knowledge of the complex Arabic musical structures, with a repertoire that ranges from classical muwashshahat to regional folkloric styles. Husain Dixon Resan learned the oud at Baghdad’s Bayt-al-Fann school and joined its orchestra at age 16; he is considered a master violinist, and is also a fine vocalist. All three musicians are associated with Aswat, a very large vocal ensemble based on the Peninsula.
Read MoreSunday, July 17th – 1:00 pm LaborFest Writers’ Group Each year, LaborFest hosts writers in a reading and workshop at Bird & Beckett. Come to listen and, if you like, to participate. LaborFest is in its 18th year, and this year, in addition to commemorating the 1934 San Francisco general strike, it will commemorate and have events around the 150th anniversary of the US civil war and the role of slavery in California, the 125th anniversary of May Day and the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Fire In New York where 146 mostly immigrant Jewish and Italian garment workers perished in a fire. Go to this link to get the full schedule of events. Sunday July 17th – 3:00 pm Laurie Barkin – The Comfort Garden Tales from the Trauma Unit As a psychiatric nurse consultant working in SF General Hospital’s Trauma Unit, Barkin routinely evaluated and treated patients with…
Read MoreMonday, July 18, 7:00 pm Michael Koch & Willie Lizarraga followed by an open mic POETS! 1st & 3rd Mondays Willie Lizarraga, shown here, was born and raised in Peru, arriving in the Bay Area as a teenager in the 1970s. He teaches at Berkeley City College, and has won awards for his prose fiction. Read at this link an account of a recent reading by Lizarraga at Counterpulse, where he recounted the 1978 beginnings of San Francisco’s annual Carnaval celebration. As for Michael Koch, more soon… we heard him here last year, and were mightily impressed, but we’ll have to track him down for a photo and biographical details. In any case, a good reading is assured, and you’re welcome to join in the open mic. Jerry Ferraz is our host, and Carlota del Portillo and Priya Kailath have pitched in to allows us to offer the poets a…
Read MoreSunday, July 10th, 4:30 pm Sukhawat Ali Khan Ensemble A “which way west?” concert from the Sham Chorasi gharana tradition of Sufi music Sukhawat Ali Khan‘s music is rooted in the 600-year-old Sham Chorasi traditional school of music, established by his direct ancestors during the reign of Emperor Akbar of India. His training in both classical raga and Sufi Qawwali singing began at the age of seven in Lahore, Pakistan under his father, legendary vocalist Ustad Salamat Ali Khan, widely considered the preeminent classical vocalist of his generation and famed as half of the revered Ali Brothers, who reigned supreme in the music beginning in the 1940s and continuing into the 1970s. The video at this link features Sukhawat and his brother Shafqat performing with their father. The video linked to Sukhawat’s name at the top of this paragraph hints at the ease with which he travels with this profound…
Read MoreSunday, July 10th, 2:00 pm TEN YEARS THAT SHOOK THE CITY: SAN FRANCISCO, 1968-1978 A reading by editor Chris Carlsson and contributors Pam Peirce, Andrew Lam and Mary Jean Robertson Though the starting and ending dates of this anthology may be mere signposts in a much more extended, impossible to define continuum, the period of intense political and cultural churn that began with the general strike at San Francisco State University and that came to a bonechilling halt with the twin events of Jonestown and the City Hall murders engendered countless life-changing realizations for those who found themselves here for any part of that era… and rippled through the entire American and international societal fabric. In Ten Years That Shook the City, many such pivotal circumstances are described and explored by individuals who lived through the dream and the reality in all their sobering, frightening, beautiful and inspiring aspects. Peirce…
Read MoreSunday, July 3rd, Doubleheader 4:30 & 5:30 pm (two sets) The Buena Vista Jazz Band A “Trad Jazz†celebration of Independence Day & a nod to the birth of the great Louis Armstrong (often cited as July 4, 1900 — which makes for a good story regardless of whether it is absolutely accurate). Regardless of Louis’ precise actual birthday, for most of us there could be no better epitomization of America, its idea, its essence and its existential reality. This date with the Buena Vista Jazz Band, a joyous annual tradition at Bird & Beckett, features Chris Bradley, cornet; Don Neely, clarinet; John Hunt, trombone; Duncan James, guitar; Larry O’Leno, piano; Mike Kenny, bass; and Steve Apple, sitting in for Greg Gotelli on drums. With a front line comprising Bradley, Neely and Hunt, this band boasts some of the most acclaimed players of early jazz that the Bay Area can claim,…
Read MoreThursday, June 30th, 7:00 pm The Songs of Order / Lie In Disorder Poet Neeli Cherkovski: a reading and a conversation with Gary Gach Poet Neeli Cherkovski’s new book, From the Middle Woods, branches out from The Confucian Odes to espouse a renewed natural politics for the 21st century. With this book, Neeli has blended the sacred and the profane as well as the essences of pristine nature and concrete commerce, bringing to life such landscapes and sensations as the pungent odors of ocean and pine needles along the tree-studded coast of northern California. East meets West and politics meets wilderness head on, but gently, in “Cherkovski’s capable and caring sculptor’s hands.” In his afterword to the book, Neeli writes “These poems began as a communion with The Confucian Odes as rendered into English by Ezra Pound… (poems) ripe with the spirit of the ‘common folk,’ the world of nature,…
Read MoreSunday, July 10th, 2:00 pm TEN YEARS THAT SHOOK THE CITY: SAN FRANCISCO, 1968-1978 A reading by editor Chris Carlsson and contributors Pam Peirce, Andrew Lam and Mary Jean Robertson Appropriate that ten days following our reading with poet Neeli Cherkovski, we present a conclave of contributors to this newly published anthology of essays on some of the momentous events and movements of an era that ended with the assassinations of Harvey Milk and George Moscone… appropriate in that Neeli came to San Francisco specifically to work for Moscone… appropriate in that he remembers getting to know well an old Russian poet some years before in Los Angeles, a man who had lived through the October Revolution of 1917, the “ten days that shook the world” which American journalist John Reed so vividly depicted in his book of that name.
Read MoreSunday, June 26 – events at 2:00 and 4:30/5:30 Sunday Double Header 2:00 pm – The Poems of Richard Hugo A Staged Reading by PUS Theatre Company Richard Hugo was the poet of the barroom, the open road, and the river, his work laced through with mystery, sadness and regret. Hugo (1923-1982) gave us several very fine books of poems (“The Lady in Kicking Horse Reservoir”, etc.) and memoir (“The Real West Marginal Way”) and taught a generation of writers at the University of Montana. PUS is the theatre company known as Performers Under Stress, expert interpreters of the work of Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter, and creators of striking original works… in an upcoming production, they will present a one-man meditation on Hugo’s work by Turk Muller. This afternoon, Turk will try out some of that material on you, the suspecting audience… it will be a gratifying encounter with…
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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.
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Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project
653 Chenery Street
San Francisco, CA 94131
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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.
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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
