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!
The Grant Levin Quartet featuring Noel Jewkes Noel Jewkes, reeds Grant Levin, piano Kash Killion, bass Mark Lee, drums every Friday after work
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Sylvia Cuenca on drums Roni Ben-Hur on guitar Harvie S on bass
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Rob Sudduth, saxophone Dahveed Behroozi, piano Jason Lewis, drums
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Both poets have new books to read from: Crossing Pleasure Avenue (Karen Hildebrand) and Posttraumatic (Ron Riekki). About Karen Hildebrand’s Crossing Pleasure Avenue, one reviewer had this to say: “Karen Hildebrand’s poetry is like sociology—if sociology could be felt by the hairs on one’s neck and seen in fragrant, Fauvist Technicolor. Her brilliant debut full-length collection, Crossing Pleasure Avenue, reminds us of the strangeness of the everyday and the pleasure in those ripe moments when the past and the present buckle and overlap.” Ron Riekki’s Posttraumatic (from Hoot & Waddle) “is at turns heartbreaking and hysterically funny, profound and absurd, filled with acerbic wit and a sense of childlike innocence. Drawing on Riekki’s experience in the military, as an EMT, as an actor, his time at a marketing firm in China, and much, much more, the essays contained in Posttraumatic are at times hard to believe, but are never…
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The Jazz Philanthropists Union presents…a Jazz in the Neighborhood Guaranteed Fair Wage Fund Event Michael Zilber’s Originals Saxophonist/composer Michael Zilber is hailed as “one of the best players and composers around anywhere, period!” by jazz great David Liebman and called “one of the true masters of the modern jazz saxophone” by All About Jazz. A multiple Downbeat honoree for his CDs and educational work, Zilber will be debuting new pieces on this gig, joined by 3 of the very best the Bay has to offer, Keith Saunders on piano, Peter Barshay on bass and Akira Tana on drums.
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Talk about your San Francisco jazz… On the fourth Friday of each month, our weekly jazz in the bookshop series features The 230 Jones Street, Local 6 Literary Jazz Band — aka The Chuck Peterson Quintet — five musicians whose history on the local jazz scene dates back 60 years, to the very early 1950s.
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Feather Press Presents: Birds of Paradise Please join us for Women’s History Month at the reading series Birds of Paradise. In this series, we honor the lineage of phenomenal, inventive and prolific women who have helped to shape and guide us as artists, writers and creative beings. Featuring: Cassandra Rockwood-Rice Jennifer Barone Kimi Sugiyoka Lauren Ito Norma Smith Thea Matthews Hosted by: Ingrid Keir
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Dynamic frontman & harp player Aki Kumar is a bonafide star among the next generation of West Coast blues artists and the world’s first professional blues harmonica player to hail from India. A master of the hugely influential Chicago blues sound, Kumar inherits his style from the harp legends of the 1950s and 60s. Aki has a unique voice in the blues, blending elements of blues harmonica pioneers of yesteryear with a signature sound of his own. “..old school blues at its finest by way of India. And the lad has soul to spare.” -Dan Aykroyd aka Elwood Blues Born and raised in Bombay (now Mumbai) – India, Kumar has long established his mark on the West Coast blues scene as a top-notch frontman, vocalist , entertainer and blues harp player. The Aki Kumar Blues Band has been the culmination of his journey through American roots music and constantly showcases his…
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Dave Ellis, saxophone Grant Levin, piano Aaron Cohn, bass Jaz Sawyer, drums Through the heart of the 1990s, down on Folsom Street at the Up & Down Club, out on Market at the Cafe du Nord, over on Valencia at the Elbo Room, in clubs across the land and on ground breaking albums, Dave Ellis made waves in the Charlie Hunter Trio while Alphabet Soup (Kenny Brooks and Dred Scott), the Broun Fellinis (David Boyce), Will Bernard, Ledisi, Scott Amendola and a raft of other musicians made allied explorations into jazz inflected with psychedelic and hip hop influences. He’s never stopped, playing with jazz greats including pianist Kenny Barron, Mulgrew Miller and Christian McBride along with high profile soul and R&B artists and a whole slew of bands from the Grateful Dead universe and the Dead themselves. Jaz Sawyer, influenced by teachers and mentors Eddie Marshall, Donald Bailey and Ed…
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High Voltage Women: Breaking Barriers at Seattle City Light (Red Letter Press, 2019), by Ellie Belew, documents a great victory for women in the trades and for women’s rights. One of the first women Electrical Trainees at Seattle City Light, Megan Cornish, will speak at the event.
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Scott has a good band for you this month… Darren Johnston, David Boyce, Noah Schencker, Cairo McCockran… He does it for you the 3rd Friday of the month… each and every month… this is a man who does not heed the siren’s song… he stays the course! So, who’s he got? We’ll tell you again: Darren Johnston on trumpet David Boyce on saxophone Noah Schenker on bass Cairo McCockran on drums C’mon people! This is a fantastic jazz town, a fantastic jazz scene. Join us! Bring dough for the musicians, and donate to the venue! You’ll only regret it if you don’t do it and you come some day to find a yoga studio in our place. We’ll stick as long as humanly possible, but we rely on the community’s support! That’s you, and you, and you! Damn if the community hasn’t made it possible this long… 20 years, come May!
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Elliott Levin; Mogauwane Mahloele; Mark Pino, drums Elijah Pontecorvo, bass Elliott Levin is a legendary poet and vocalist on the Philly free jazz scene, traveling out to the Bay Area, a solar flare on any bandstand. In the company of Mogauwane Mahloele, South African percussionist, instrument builder, sculptor and painter, bassist Elijah Pontecorvo and drummer Mike Pino, this promises to be an engagement without parallel at Bird & Beckett.
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We sincerely regret to announce that the Bruce Ackley / Phillip Johnson date, previously scheduled for June 11th, has been postponed. We look forward to rescheduling when possible. Bruce Ackley has been a cornerstone of the world-traveled, San Francisco-based saxophone quartet Rova since its founding in 1978. Born in Rochester, New York in 1948, he began singing in choral groups at age 10, taking up the saxophone in 1970. He formed his first improvising trio that year with friends from his art school days at Wayne State in Detroit, where he studied painting and drawing. In 1971 he relocated to the Bay Area. Largely self-taught, Bruce studied saxophone briefly with Lee Hester and Noel Jewkes, and clarinet with Beth Custer and Ben Goldberg. Throughout the 1970s he was involved with the emerging free improvisation scene in San Francisco, and formed Sound Clinic with Lewis Jordan and George Sams in 1975.…
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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." 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
