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!
Kai Lyons, guitar. Peter Barshay, bass. Vince Lateano, drums. Come enjoy the long-running third Sunday residency of this trio–three colleagues spanning generations, savvy in the ways of jazz and delighted with the work. You’ll be delighted, too. Benji’s out this week, so Kai Lyons is in. You will be delighted. We guaranteed it. Relax and kick back in the shabby elegance of Glen Park’s best bookshop cum jazz club, bar none! BYOB and a twenty for the band.
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Tim Armacost, saxophone. Dean Johnson, bass. Ron Vincent, drums. $20 cover charge; byob. Reservations always welcome; call 415-586-3733. Tim Armacost has established himself as one of the most important improvisers on the New York scene today, and he’s at Bird & Beckett tonight! Drummer Ron Vincent and bassist Dean Johnson, fresh and supercharged from a sequence of dates with the Bill Mays Trio, complete the trio. Tim is a Grammy-nominated saxophonist born in Los Angeles who came of age as a musician in Tokyo, New Delhi and Amsterdam, where he burnished his reputation as an upcoming talent with a big tenor sound and an impeccable rhythmic sense. He tours regularly around the world as both sideman and leader, and has worked with phenomenal jazz musicians including Al Foster, Jimmy Cobb, Kenny Barron, Tom Harrell, Billy Hart, Victor Lewis, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Peter Erskine, Ray Drummond, Roy Hargrove, Don Friedman and…
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Skylar Tang, trumpet Hannah Mayer, piano Ruby Farmer, bass Sylvia Cuenca, drums $20 cover charge; byob Trumpeter Skylar Tang, Bay Area born and raised and now a rising star in New York, has been turning heads on the circuit here with her quartet for the last few weeks, a tour that she kicked off at Bird & Beckett as featured artist with veteran drummer Sylvia Cuenca’s stellar quartet on the eve of New Year’s Eve. This is your last chance to catch Skylar before she heads back to New York. Tonight, she’s in the company of two fine colleagues, pianist Hannah Mayer and bassist Ruby Farmer, with Sylvia on the drum throne. Read more at skylartang.com. Please join us tonight!
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Threeology is: Tom Griesser, saxophone Scott Foster, guitar Ollie Dudek, bass Their book of music is full of tunes associated with Oscar Pettiford and Lucky Thompson as well as other material living in the cracks between swing and bebop. $20 suggested cover charge; byob. $10 for teens and students. Kids free.
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Antonin Artaud, charismatic silent movie actor, visionary dramatic theorist and inspired prophet, was driven, by an increasingly troubled mind, in the years just prior to the second world war, to undertake a quixotic voyage to Mexico in search of an elemental connection to the life of the earth and the sky. Much of what actually happened there is unknown, but in the years that followed, including other voyages and descents in and out of madness, his experiences and imaginations became the source of a great many poetic documents, which are available to us, standing alone as priceless testimonies of a strange and gifted mind. Catch the live stream of the talk by Walker Brents on Bird & Beckett’s YouTube channel or Facebook page. If you’d like to come in person and take a seat to listen, send us an email at [email protected], and we’ll reserve a space for you. $10…
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Isaiah Javier plays jazz saxophone. He’s on a west coast tour out of NYC with a sextet. Don’t miss it. Isaiah Javier – saxophone Joey Du Boi – trumpet Liam Rosenthal – guitar Max Levenson – piano Arlo Erwin – bass Sam Hicks – drums $25 cover charge; byob Isaiah came up in the Bay Area but is now in New York. Here, he was part of the SFJazz High School All-Stars jazz band that included Skylar Tang, who we heard at Bird & Beckett last week and will hear from again next week, also touring out of NYC. A lot of talented youth coming out of the Bay Area these days! Catch them whenever they pass back through Bird & Beckett or you’ll regret it later!
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Nashville Honeymoon plays traditional country music, and pushes its boundaries. Two sets of true blue Americana this evening at Bird & Beckett! Hank Maninger’s lead guitar and Lynne Maes’ vocals are the right combination, riding a solid rhythm section with Tim Wagar on bass and Leor Beary on drums that can play a country shuffle every bit as well as a country rock anthem. Nashville Honeymoon offers up a rich wedding banquet of originals and classics in a lovely marriage of modern and timeless music. And with Joe Goldmark featured on pedal steel, there’s an added dimension to the joy and the heartache this music plumbs so well. It’s not your usual bar scene here, it’s true. That has its attributes, for sure, but country concerts at Bird & Beckett are always a pleasure — Americana music, loosely defined, is offered up at Bird & Beckett on the second Sunday…
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$20 cover charge; byob; reservations, 415-586-3733. Trumpeter Josh Deutsch and guitarist Nico Soffiato have worked together since 2006 and perform regularly in the New York City area, also touring extensively and giving master classes and workshops in the US and Italy. This January, they’ve joined up with drummer Ken Mastrogiovanni for a short West Coast tour to include concert dates and workshops, kicking off their Bay Area segment with this show at Bird & Beckett. Deutsch and Soffiato met in Boston, and over the years, the musical relationship born through this collaboration has resulted in a set of music composed specifically for their ensembles, including many co-written originals and reinvented arrangements of music from jazz, classical and popular worlds. The music ranges from electronic loops to entirely acoustic pieces, balancing carefully crafted compositions with space for improvisations and interaction. Their third album, “Redshift” was released in 2020 on the label…
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Howard Wiley fronts the Luis Peralta Quartet Friday at 8:30. With Isaac Coyle on bass and Andre Sumelius on drums, it promises to be a fine quartet, indeed. But first, at 6, Eric Shifrin, Ari Munkres and Mark Lee take you on an easy stroll down Tin Pan Alley, everyone’s favorite thoroughfare beyond Bourbon Street in the time/spacewarp…with sidetrips!. Another great Friday evening at Bird & Beckett.
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An evening of Hindustani music performed by vocalist Madhurranjan Mohaan, violinist Krishna Parthasarathy and tabla player Ferhan Qureshi, in an ongoing series of concerts curated by Qureshi. Madhurranjan Mohaan is a vocal student of Shrimati Lalita Sharma and represents the Mewati gharana (style) that was made famous throughout the world by Pandit Jasraj. In addition to performing as an accomplished soloist, Madhurranjan leads the classical organization Sangeetaamsha, dedicated to supporting the spread of Indian classical music. He is also a founding member of the Indian classical fusion band BayRaagis. For this performance at Bird and Beckett, he will be accompanied by Krishna Parthasarathy on violin and Ferhan Qureshi on tabla. Various formats of South Asian classical music will be presented including khyaal, thumri, tabla solo and bhajan. $20 cover charge at the door (cash or venmo) Reservations, call the shop at 415-586-3733
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San Francisco State University professor emeritus Robert W. Cherny’s book, The Coit Tower Murals: New Deal Art and Political Controversy in San Francisco, published by University of Illinois Press in November 2024, follows a train of thought and explication developed over Prof. Cherny’s long career teaching and writing on American social and political history. Tonight at Bird & Beckett, Prof. Cherny will discuss the politics that swirled around the Coit Tower project in the New Deal era of the 1930s, and implications for political art in the present. The Coit Tower murals, completed in 1934, remain a highly visible and prized feature of San Francisco’s storied cultural and political history. In 2017, just as a local controversy over Victor Arnautoff’s 1936 Washington High mural was rising to a high boil, Cherny brought out his book Victor Arnautoff and the Politics of Art (also published by University of Illinois Press). That…
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“AVOTCJA’s poetry is music and Avotcja’s music is poetry. Both are as hot as fire and as soothing as snow flakes. And in both she brings the best of her talent in Spanish and English. Listen to her. Read her. Enjoy her. Celebrate her.” • Camincha – Peruvian Poet/Novelist; & Pacifica Poet Laureate, 2017-2021. _______________ Poet / Playwright / Essayist / Fiction Writer / Multi-Percussionist / Photographer / Teacher, Avotcja is a Bay Area icon and is renowned for her group Modúpue. At Bird & Beckett tonight, Modúpue will be a quintet with Avotcja joined by violinist Sandi Poindexter, saxophonist Francis Wong, bassist Heshima Mark Williams and talking drum master Baba Ken Okolulo. Modúpue was named best jazz group of the year twice, in 2005 and again in 2010, by the Bay Area Blues Hall of Fame. Avotcja herself was named a “Jazz Hero” by the Jazz Journalists Association. Her…
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Electric & soul satisfying, GG Amos is a powerhouse singer and guitarist, a jewel in the crown of the North Beach blues scene, a fixture on the regional circuit and an avidly loved performer on international stages. You’ve heard her feeding the energy of the rowdy crowd at The Saloon on Grant Street. Now, enjoy the sublime concert setting of Bird & Beckett and savor what she can do, leading her terrific quartet with Parris Bertolucci on organ and piano, Marc Levine on bass and Randy Lee Odell on drums. $20 cover; byob.
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2025 is our year! Let’s own it! Poets’ open mic on Thursday 1/2/25 starting at 7pm, hosted by Michael Koch and Jerry Ferraz. ___________________ Friday 1/3/25 from 6-8pm, $20 at the door (cash or venmo), byob. Saxophonist Jim Grantham brings his quartet featuring Mark Rossi on piano, Richard Saunders on bass and David Rokeach on drums. Jim graduated from Berklee School of Music and taught there before coming out to San Francisco in 1978 to teach at SFSU; here, he immediately made the scene at Todd Barkan’s Keystone Korner, the fabled club Jim refers to as the “Rahsaan Roland Kirk School of Music.” In the eight years from 1973 to 1981, Keystone Korner presented a great many of the legendary giants of jazz, typically in three and four-night runs, providing fertile ground for Jim’s development as a master saxophonist and educator. Keystone Korner is lodged in the consciousness of jazz…
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Annette A Aguilar drummer/percussionist San Francisco native, New York’s finest returns to the Bay for a New Years show! Quintet & Descarga with John Calloway, flute Murray Low, piano Mike Arnold, bass Ricky Aguilar, percussion Annette A Aguilar, drums plus special guest pianist, from Colombia, Carolina Calvache $25 cover charge ($25-$50 sliding scale) byob
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SUPPORT BIRD & BECKETT - DONATE TODAY!
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," 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.
Click on "donate" in the navigation bar above. Better yet, make a check out to the “Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project” and drop it off or mail it 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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We're immensely appreciative of Jazz in the Neighborhood for having stepped in as our temporary fiscal sponsor for a few months, while we straightened out some paperwork to get nonprofit status restored to the BBCLP. We're happy to say that's been done, and all past, present, and future donations made directly to the BBCLP are fully tax-deductible!
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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
