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!
James Mahone, saxophone David Udolf, piano Curtis Aikens, bass Akira Tana, drums $20 cover charge (cash, please), byob. To reserve a seat, call 415-586-3733 Charlie McCarthy had to bow out of tonight’s show, but his superb rhythm section has all the star power needed to carry the torch, especially with James Mahone and his tenor saxophone subbing in for Charlie. You’re in for a great jazz experience, when lights are low… James studied the sax at Cal State Northridge, forming Black Note in 1991 alongside bassist Marcus Shelby and pianist Eric Reed. They won the John Coltrane Young Artist Competition in that year, and his power as a saxophonist has only grown through the three-plus decades that have followed. As for Akira, leading the combo tonight, he made a huge mark with TanaReid, the combo he co-led from the same year, 1991, for the better part of a decade, releasing…
Read MoreHop transit to Glen Park Saturday at noon and enjoy five hours of art and music up and down Diamond and Chenery Streets! We’ll display the art of three friends of the establishment, the troubadour poet Jerry Ferraz, surreal Michael Koch (found 3-6 Tuesday to Sunday pricing used books and ringing up sales at the shop) and Keith Ferris from over in the Portola, whose book with writer & partner Lia Smith, celebrates MUNI, with portraits & sketches of drivers and riders and bits of documentation gathered and spun into prose from conversations Lia engaged in with the folks Keith has drawn. You’ll hear a few minutes of poetry each hour on the hour as well, at 1pm, 2pm, 3pm… and at 4pm, Keith will read some bits of Lia’s prose… Then grab dinner in the neighborhood and come back for a phenomenal quartet here at 7:30!
Read MoreErik Jekabson – trumpet, flugelhorn, compositions. Matt Clark – piano. Dan Feiszli – bass. Brian Fishler – drums. A program of originals by one of the great talents of Bay Area jazz, played by a top-flight quartet.
Read MoreGail Mitchell is a poet living in San Francisco. Bill Vartnaw is a poet living in Petaluma. Both are long-experienced and long associated coming out of the 1970s poetic ferment that yielded a path for voices of diverse American cultures, much of it captured in print by Bill’s Taurean Horn Press — including Gail’s title, Bone Songs. Bill himself is an eloquent poet and an invaluable chronicler of the artists whose voices enrich the region’s culture. An open mic follows, hosted by Jerry Ferraz and Michael Koch, themselves products of overlapping scenes, venues and personal histories with common roots. A word about Jerry. A child of San Francisco’s Eureka Valley, hard by the Castro District, Burmese by blood and American by upbringing, he took to wandering the city at a young age, drifting on the San Francisco fog through the 1960s, through the Haight, North Beach, the Mission, traveling a…
Read MoreWhat a weekend! Thursday at 7pm – Poets Gail Mitchell and Bill Vartnaw, with an open mic to follow. Friday at 5:30pm – The Erik Jekabson Quartet. Trumpet & flugelhorn player / composer Jekabson provides originals for a crack combo, with Matt Clark, piano; Dan Feiszli, bass and Brian Fischler, drums. Friday at 8:30pm (not 9, as stated here and there) – CD Release: “House of Welcome” – Free Press Music is a project of singer Christie Aida in close association with drummer Dave Mihaly. Billy White, piano, and Annelies Zamula, saxophone. Saturday at 7:30pm – The Charlie McCarthy Quartet. NOTE: Charlie has fallen ill and can’t make the date. James Mahone, a terrific tenor player, will sub for him, under drummer Akira Tana’s leadership, with the great David Udolf, piano, and the young and talented Curtis Aikens, bass. Sunday at 2pm – Poet Jorge Argueta with Jose Cuellar (Dr.…
Read MoreSeven spirited and talented student jazz musicians from Lick-Wilmerding High School, put the music through its paces for a 45-minute set beginning at 5pm. After a short break, a jam session follows, expressly offered to student musicians from all directions, hosted by the Akira Tana Trio, with Keith Saunders on piano and Eric Markowitz on drums. Whether you can make it to the show or not, please donate to help us pay the professional trio a guaranteed wage for their labors, and to gather an additional $175 as a donation to the Homeless Prenatal Program on behalf of the students in the combo. They’re participants in Lick-Wilmerding’s Public Purpose Program, which is partnering with the Homeless Prenatal Program this year, and have asked that their honorarium go to that important organization. All told, we’re looking for $625 this afternoon. Help us meet that hurdle!
Read MorePhilosopher, theologian and Islamic scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Professor of Islamic Studies at George Washington University, writes that Hafiz, “(t)his supreme poet, who is called ‘Tongue of the Invisible’ (Lisan al-ghayb), produced poems of magic beauty, poems whose imagery and music transmute the lead of the forgetful soul to the gold of the soul which lives in the longing for its Beloved and in the remembrance of that union which predates man’s terrestrial journey. Hafiz was himself aware that his was not simply a human voice. Rather, his poetry was a celestial song which brought the heavens themselves into a state of ecstasy.” Gary Gach presents poems of Hafiz crafted into English with Iranian short story writer and translator Erfan Mojib, newly published as Hafiz’s Little Book of Life (Hampton Roads, 2023).
Read MoreHurry down for an 8:30 start for the late show this Friday, as singer Christie Aida leads Free Press Music in a concert celebrating the band’s new recording, “House of Welcome, Vol.1.” Check it out here. ——————————————————————– House of Welcome opened as a luxury hotel after the 1906 earthquake and lives on now as the Cadillac Hotel, operated by the nonprofit Reality House West to offer supportive services and housing to residents with few resources. House of Welcome remains the Cadillac’s signature concept in the present day. Many of the songs on Free Press Music’s new EP reflect FPM leader Christie Aida’s immersion as a volunteer for Reality House West, the nonprofit created by the late Leroy Looper and his wife Kathy Looper and other activists to make the Cadillac a refuge and a home for its residents. The stories, struggles and everyday life experiences of Tenderloin and SOMA residents…
Read MoreLoralee Christensen, vocals Ricc Sandoval, guitar Henry Salvia, piano Paul Olguin, bass John Hanes, drums Byob and a twenty for the band. All ages welcome! Loralee is a soul singer well known and loved on the North Bay music scene for three decades or more. She’s performed with soul legend Bettye Lavette, Clarence Clemons (The E-Street Band), Mickey Thomas (The Starship, Elvin Bishop) and Johnny Colla (Huey Lewis & the News). Ricc Sandoval on guitar has been a mainstay on the Bay Area scene, playing with Katherine Chase, and most recently Shana Morrison. Drummer John Hanes plays a very active role in the local improv music scene, playing with the likes of Pihillip Greenleif, John Schott, Myles Boisen and many others. His work with Pearl Harbor and the Explosions is the stuff of legend. He also plays with Victor Krummenacher of Camper Van Beethoven & Monks of Doom fame. Henry…
Read MoreGuitarist Brad Buethe leads a quartet with saxophonist Rob Sudduth, bassist Peter Barshay and drummer Jason Lewis, exploring each tune with the musical insight and freedom that comes of decades of experience traveling far beyond the boundaries of San Francisco, and the comfort of calling it home. $20; byob. Reservations, call 415-586-3733.
Read MoreFeaturing vocalist Sandra Aran, Sondango brings you two generous sets of superbly crafted songs with deep grooves, playing salsa, samba, bolero, cumbia, ska and more. With music director Richard Nelson Hall on piano, Scott Foster on guitar, Dean Muench on bass and Dan Foltz on drums, Sondango will have you dancing in the aisles. Bring a twenty for the cover charge and something to sip. With an eye towards representing the grand diversity that is San Francisco, Richard and Sandra write their original songs in Spanish illustrating such common themes as love, loss, joy and passion. Strongly rooted in their love of jazz and Latin rhythms, Sondango brings together musicians from San Francisco, the East Bay and the Peninsula. Sondango embodies a meeting of cultures, and sensibilities with the here and now. After studying classical piano and composition at the National University of Mexico, Sandra completed her Bachelor of Arts…
Read MoreThursday, September 28th, Martin Nakell travels up from SoCal with Rebecca Goodman, where both teach creative writing at Chapman University’s Wilkinson College, to present prose and poetry at 7:30pm in the company of their friend Evan Burkin, himself a writer and an MFA student of creative writing at San Francisco State. Author of the manifesto “The Way of Chaos: Literary, Art, and Music Composition,” Nakell has published 18 books of fiction and poetry. Consciousness, his most recent collection of poems, was published in 2021 by Spuyten Duyvil Press. His forthcoming Martin Nakell Reader will come out from Spuyten Duyvil in 2024. “The content of Consciousness is language,” he says.”If the reader connects with the language, I will have done well.” Goodman has written three “fictions,” her latest being the recently published Forgotten Night (Spuyten Duyvil 2023), preceded by Aftersight (Spuyten Duyvil, 2015) and The Surface of Motion (Green Integer, 2008).…
Read More9/27, 7:30 – David Kubrin book event – Marxism & Witchcraft. With Francisco Herrera.David Kubrin, genial and brilliant philosopher of art, science, community and social evolution, comes over — with his friend Francisco Herrera providing guitar and song — to present his book Marxism & Witchcraft. Starhawk notes that, “Marxism and Witchcraft is a vitally important book, a tremendous resource for anyone interested in the question ‘How did we get into this mess?’“At this time of environmental meltdown, Kubrin’s careful analysis of how and why the mechanistic model was imposed on science, philosophy and Western culture is vital to our understanding what we must do to transform it. To see the world as alive again, infused with vitality and spirit, we must also confront the violence with which that worldview was stamped out — the Witch persecutions that assaulted women’s power and traditional modes of healing, the genocide against indigenous…
Read MoreAll welcome! Musicians, be our guests. Audience, help us pay the trio! Bring a twenty if you’re able, and consider donating to the Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project, the 501(c)3 we use to fund our music, poetry and other cultural programming. That’s what makes it work when audiences can’t carry the burden of paying the talent. We’ve got a lot of talent in San Francisco, spanning the generations.
Read MoreRaquel Baena – trombone and vocals Justin Flynn – saxophones Dan Neville – marimba and vibraphone Andres Fonseca – drums and percussion Juan Sebastian Monsalve – bass and musical director $20-$30 sliding scale cover charge; byob. Balsa de Fuego gathers Panhispanic rhythms and music such as Cumbia, Joropo & Currulao and bends them and blends them using lots of resources and sounds from jazz and the community vibe of Terraza 7 in Queens, resulting in a truly New York flavored collage. This new project lead by Colombian composer Juan Sebastian Monsalve (known as one of the precursors of the New Colombian Music with his band Curupira) assembles a diverse range of musicians from the New York music scene, achieving a powerful contemporary sound with strong roots in tradition.
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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