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!

Monday, October 10th – 7pm
Featured Poets Linda Noel & Stephen Meadows
Open Mic Follows
VirtualPoets! zoomed
on the 2nd and 4th Monday of each month

Paul Corman-Roberts stands in as host of tonight’s reading for regular host Kim Shuck, who’s out on tour with her poetry. Two featured readers followed by open mic tonight. See the zoom info below. On the fourth Friday, come back for an all-open reading! Tonight, here’s what you need to know: Linda Noel is a Native Californian of the Koyungkowi tribe who grew up in Willits. The former Poet Laureate of Ukiah has presented her work at various venues across the western United States and has most recently been both a featured reader and workshop presenter at the Redwood Coast Writers Conference, the Watershed Project, The Conference of American Indians; Humboldt State University, and Santa Rosa Junior College to name a few. Her work has been published in a variety of magazines, journals and anthologies including The Dirt is Red Here, by Heyday Books. She will be included in the…

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Sunday, October 9th – 5pm
Nashville Honeymoon
Second Sundays Sin & Celebration

New album, new date at Bird & Beckett. Country music, sweet, tart and pretty. Bring your sweetie, or just bring yourself, and bring a twenty for the band. Byob, if you care to. Bird & Beckett is a guaranteed fair wage venue; your cover charge stakes us to the band’s guarantee. Can’t make it to the show? View it live on our Facebook page or YouTube channel. Your donations to help pay the musicians and support the stream are much appreciated! But nothing beats making the trek into the shop to be with the musicians and hear them up close and personal. It’s a beautiful thing.

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Sunday, October 9 – 10am
Ericka Scott (African American Cultural District),
in conversation with journalist Denise Sullivan
SF Lives Live Talks 2nd Sunday of Each Month – live stream only

SF Lives Live Talk: Ericka Scott, Director of Projects with the African American Cultural District in conversation with journalist Denise Sullivan Catch the live stream on Bird & Beckett’s YouTube channel and Facebook page. Tune in at 10am to watch it live, or watch anytime in the archive at the same links. San Francisco journalist Denise Sullivan conducts a monthly series of conversations (the second Sunday of each month from 10-11 a.m.) with The City’s activists, educators, arts and cultural leaders and lesser-known workers, the everyday people who help make this place we call home, live streamed from Bird & Beckett Books. Ericka Scott is the Director of Projects with the African American Cultural District in San Francisco. Born and raised in the historic Fillmore District/Western Addition we’ll talk with Scott about her multiple roles as a small business owner of Honey Art Studio, where she hosts art and fashion…

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Saturday, October 8th – 7:30pm
Tammy Lynne Hall Trio

Tammy  is just the best! Tonight, she’s in the company of bassist Brian Juárez and drummer Brandon Farmer. Two sets of soul satisfying music. Doors open at 7:20pm for the 7:30pm show. $20 cash cover charge Bird & Beckett is a guaranteed fair wage venue; your cover charge stakes us to the band’s guarantee. BYOB Can’t make it to the show? View it live on our Facebook page or YouTube channel. Your donations to help pay the musicians and support the stream are much appreciated! But nothing beats making the trek into the shop to be with the musicians and hear them up close and personal. It’s a beautiful thing.

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Friday, October 7th – 7:30pm
Jean Fineberg’s JAZZphoria Quintet

Doors open at 7:20pm for the 7:30pm show. $20-25 cash cover charge; sliding scale. Bird & Beckett is a guaranteed fair wage venue: your cover charge stakes us to the band’s guarantee. BYOB Can’t make it to the show? View it live on our Facebook page or YouTube channel. Your donations to help pay the musicians and support the stream are much appreciated! Saxophonist/flutist/composer Jean Fineberg’s latest quintet features first-call keyboardist Frank Martin,  5-album guitarist Nancy Wenstrom, Pride & Joy bassist Marc Levine and Cold Blood drummer T. Moran. The ensemble will perform tunes from Jean’s latest album, Jean Fineberg & JAZZphoria, which is currently enjoying airplay on more than 50 radio stations, including the Bay area’s KSCM. Bandleader Jean Fineberg has performed and/or recorded on more than 40 albums, including stints with Melba Liston, David Bowie, Laura Nyro, Cornell Dupree, Mo’fone and The Montclair Women’s Big Band. Her compositions…

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Thursday, October 6th – 7pm
Poets! First Thursdays
Greg Pond
& Tony Aldarondo plus open mic

The featured poets tonight are Greg Pond and Tony Aldarondo. An open mic, hosted by Jerry Ferraz and Michael Koch follows.  Our ongoing series is scheduled for the first Thursday of every month, with the doors opening at 6:45pm for the 7pm reading. You can also view the reading live on our Facebook page or YouTube channel   Greg Pond has written four books of poetry: “aftermoon“ – “Blackened Blue” – “4:00 a.m. (DARK)” and “4:00 a.m. LIGHT).” He is a member of the Revolutionary Poets Brigade, board member of Clarion Performing Arts Center, curator for Queer Rebels, and volunteers as facilitator of Poetically Speaking, a weekly conference-call program for seniors.   Tony Aldarondo has performed music and poetry in venues throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, overseas and once while standing up on a Jet Blue airplane! He is also a theater and film actor and voice-over artist. Tony…

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Wednesday, October 5th – 6:30pm
Avotcja’s Every Step I Take 2!
An expanded edition of her classic poetry & prose selected works, with 70 pages of new material!!

Avotcja, poet and prose writer, musician, musicologist, dj and cultural warrior, has just brought out With Every Step I Take 2 (Taurean Horn Press, 2022). Join us at Bird & Beckett for a publication party and help us celebrate with Avotcja and master percussionist & steel pan wizard Val Serrant. No charge! Donations appreciated. Call for a reservation: 415-586-3733 The event can also be found in a live stream, and can also be viewed later in the archive, on our Facebook page and YouTube channel. Your donations help us to pay the artists and to meet the expenses of streaming. “Introducing herself as storyteller, ‘wild woman,’ a ‘bonafide sound junkie,’ nothing slows or dampens Avotcja’s passion for the power and wonder of music. Guided by ancient, ancestral wisdom, she refuses to separate poetry and storytelling from song or dance. In ‘Blue To the Bone,’ her rhapsodic tribute to Oakland’s uncrowned poet…

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Saturday, October 1st – 7:30pm
Trio Paz
Phillip Greenlief, saxophones
Adriana Camacho Torres, bass
Scott Amendola, drums

Phillip Greenlief saxophones Adriana Camacho Torres, bass Scott Amendola, drums $20 cash cover charge at the door BYOB The live stream can be found on our Facebook page or YouTube channel Mexico City born, raised and based bassist Adriana Camacho Torres takes improvised music wherever it wants to go in the company of local heroes Phillip Greenlief and Scott Amendola on saxophones and drums, respectively. Phillip Greenlief was born in Los Angeles in 1959. Scott Amendola was born in New Jersey in 1963. Each has been in the Bay Area for three to four decades. Two Bay Area musicians with global reputations. Such are the musicians we can boast of here, and such are the international connections they provide. Read an interview with Adriana here. Visit her website here.

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Friday, September 30th – 7:30pm
Erik von Buchau Vibes Quartet

Dig the vibes! Erik von Buchau, vibraphone Matt Clark, piano Giulio Cetto, bass Jeff Marrs, drums BYOB and a twenty for the band! For a reservation, call the shop at 415-586-3733 Also live streamed on our Facebook page and YouTube channel Your donations help us pay the musicians a guaranteed fair wage. Here’s a taste! Catch Erik at the 11:30 mark!  

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Wednesday, September 28th – 8pm
Thoreau, the Teacher
Walker Talks! – live stream only

You’ll find Walker’s Talk on our Facebook page and YouTube channel. Please donate to help us pay Walker for his heroic & eloquent locution. Tonight, Walker Brents III delves into the thought of Henry David Thoreau, whose genius lay in seeing nature for itself, with no need to be any other thing. We grow spontaneously in our understanding as we read him, which is why the cosmos arising from his pages strangely resonates with our own, in all we see and do not see. His gift to us is an awareness of the value of education as it relates to the needs of the living mind. The world before us is inexhaustible in what it can teach us, and in the ways we can learn to protect it.

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Tuesday, September 27 – 7:30pm
Frank Muschalle, Boogie Woogie Solo Piano, from Germany on Tour

  Free blues & boogie woogie tonight! No cover charge! The German Consulate of San Francisco has offered to sponsor a free performance by renowned boogie woogie and blues pianist Frank Muschalle for your listening pleasure! Mr. Muschalle has been touring worldwide for three decades to all points of the compass, spreading boogie woogie pleasure wherever he finds a good piano, and Bird & Beckett has one for him! Come sample his wares, courtesy of our friends at the Consulate! Doors open at 7:15 for the 7:30pm show. Get a taste of Frank’s boogie woogie from the video below. Visit his website here (in English) or here (auf Deutsch).  

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Sunday, September 25 – 7pm
Vince Lateano’s Doggone Jazz Jam Session

No cover charge. Donations help us maintain the tradition and pay the trio! Come prepared if you want to play!

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Sunday, September 25 – 5pm
Rudi Mwongozi solo piano

Piano jazz by the deep, soulful and wonderful Rudi Mwongozi is one of our favorite things! Click on the youtube link below for a blazing and wonderful trio rendition of “My Favorite Things” from an outdoor performance at a lovely & festive NYC Eid-Al-Fatir celebration in 2017. A master musician thriving on the vibe. Rudi will play a solo set at Bird & Beckett Sunday the 25th at 5pm. Don’t miss it! $5 to $25 sliding scale cover charge requested. All ages welcome. Call ahead to reserve a seat at 415-586-3733.

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Saturday, September 24
to the end of the month
reggae, jazz, boogie woogie, Henry David Thoreau!

most events start at 7:30, doors at 7:20. byob. for reservations/information, call the shop at 415-586-3733. cover charge is typically $20 to $25 — cash, please! Saturday, Sept. 24 – 7:30pm jazz club goes roots reggae for one glorious night! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlW23PtWLB0 The Baytals Safaa Modir, guitar Connor Sablan, keyboards Russell Vazquez, bass Hafez Modirzadeh, tenor sax Keshav Batish, drums Sunday, Sept. 25 at 5pm – Rudi Mwongozi solo piano home on a visit to family, from NYC at 7pm – Vince Lateano’s Doggone Jazz Jam Session with Ben Stolorow & Peter Barshay _________________________ can’t make it down to the shop? you’re missing out on a good thing! but you can usually catch the livestream on our Facebook page and YouTube channel. Please donate to help us pay the musicians! A recurring monthly donation can give you unlimited guilt-free consumption of the stream and our sincere gratitude. Bird & Beckett guarantees…

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Saturday, September 24 – 7:30pm
Classic Reggae with the Baytals featuring Hafez Modirzadeh

Can’t call it jazz, but tonight we’ll more than willingly let Hafez take us into deep roots reggae for a Saturday night! Not to worry, jazz will look away briefly to allow us this liberty!

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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.

____________

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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To take our SURVEY, click here, and help the BBCLP get to know you better! As Duke Ellington always said, we love you madly...

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

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