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653 Chenery Street in San Francisco's Glen Park neighborhood
Open to walk-in trade and browsing Tuesday to Sunday noon to six
phone: 1-415-586-3733 email: [email protected]
Sunday, July 12th, 5pm to 7pm (the happy hour show): Mitch Polzak & the Royal Deuces, with Joe Goldmark, pedal steel. $20 suggested — pay what you will at our Sunday happy hour shows. Stay for a tune, stay for two sets. Contribute what makes sense to you, and know it’s going to a good cause! Settle in for the Bay Area’s best honky tonk, rockabilly, twang, classic and outlaw country music! BYOB and food to share, if you like. Hang with the neighbors & enjoy what’s truly great about Americana! And some amazing musicianship! Mitch and Joe are here together for three dates a year — the second Sundays in March, July and November. This is the place to be! ___ July 12th, 8pm ( the late show): Freddie Bryant’s Kaleidoscope West Trio Freddie Bryant, guitar and vocals; Doug Miller, bass; Sylvia Cuenca, drums. Freddie is a fabulous NYC-based…
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Sundays at 5pm is our happy hour slot every week. Stay for a tune, stay for two sets. Come when you like and leave when you like, and pay what makes sense to you. Bring something to sip if you like — but we have Hetch Hetchy’s finest reservoirs tapped if it’s water you’re craving. That’s on us! If you want to bring some comestables to share with your fellow revelers, we’ll set up a table to accommodate that! The second Sunday of every month at 5pm, it’s our “Americana” slot, and today we’re pleased to present honky tonk, twang, classic and outlaw country music from showman, singer and guitar virtuoso Mitch Polzak with the duo he calls his Royal Deuces. You can catch Mitch & the Royal Deuces in rowdy bars throughout the American West and abroad as well. He’s big in Spain, we can tell you that! He’s…
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Freddie Bryant – guitar/voice. Sylvia Cuenca – drums. Doug Miller – bass. Cover charge – $20; byob. Students – $10. For a reservation, call the bookshop at 415-586-3733. Freddie’s Kaleidoscope West Trio presents Poems, Groove and Song: a special program curated for Bird and Beckett’s intimate space. The music is based on a kaleidoscope of influences from straight-ahead to blues, New Orleans grooves to Brazilian, Latin and world rhythms with songs from his recent album SOLO BOSSA, his acclaimed song cycle UPPER WEST SIDE LOVE STORY and LIVE GROOVES…EPIC TALES. Freddie received a master’s degree in classical guitar from Yale School of Music and is in demand in the New York jazz and Brazilian scenes where he has worked with Eliane Elias, Tom Harrell and many others. He was a member of Ben Riley’s Monk Legacy Septet and has played with the Mingus Orchestra for two decades. His impressive array…
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Since the McCarthy era theatre text have consistently expunged any mention of important contributions from the Left to the American Theatre. Professor Joel Eis, author of five previous books on theater and politics and a radical theatre practitioner in the 1960s, has unearthed and compiled the story of this sixty-year movement. From the first use of agitprop in the Yiddish theatre in 1887 to the first true theatre-in-the-round in Harlem in 1938, this movement produced the most important plays, playwrights and theater styles for the first half of the twentieth century. Free event, presented in person and live streamed. (A caveat for those viewing in the stream: the visuals presented with the talk in the shop will not necessarily be well served by the live stream. Come to the show if you possibly can!) Visit the Laborfest website for more information on the month’s schedule of events.
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A preview of a work in progress with Lisa Austin, Linda Champagne, Carla Diamond, Trudy Fisher, Lori Gates, David Katznelson, Harry Levy, Linda Ryan, Sue Sponge and special guests. Memwah is Howie Klein’s printed and photographed recollections of his life well-lived. Tasked with finishing a book upon his death in December 2025, award-winning columnist Denise Sullivan has gathered a cast of friends from his San Francisco years at KSAN, KUSF and 415 Records, to read the ’70s and ’80s portions of Klein’s memoir aloud, speak to the causes he cared about, and spin the records he loved. From the tenements of New York and its downtown psychedelic scene, on the hippie trail through Afghanistan and India, to a vegan kitchen in Amsterdam, by the mid-’70s, Klein found himself at Harvey Milk’s camera store on Castro Street, and at the center of San Francisco’s mid-’70s social, political and musical scenes. Working…
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August 1st, 7:30pm: Harold Carr Quintet — Flavia Cerviño-Wood, violin; Andrew Voigt, woodwinds; Derek Coombs, piano; Harold Carr, bass and compositions; Susanna Goldenstein, percussion. Album release for Bird Is Whiter Than The Moon. Everyone who attends will receive a free copy of the album! $25 cover charge / byob for adults — cash at the door, please! There’s always a 50% student discount for our shows; preteens free; reservations welcome. For a reservation, call the shop at 415-586-3733. _____ August 2nd (the happy hour show), 5pm: Monthly First Sundays Student-Centric Jam Session. August 2nd (the late show), 8pm: Sylvia Cuenca Quintet feat. saxophonist Rico Jones — Joel Behrman, trumpet; Rico Jones, saxophone; Matt Clark, piano; Essiet Okon Essiet, bass; Sylvia Cuenca, drums. $25 cover. _____ August 6th, 7pm: Andrew Paul Nelson and Mukethe Kawinzi Poets! Followed by poetry open mic. _____ August 7th, 7:30pm: Jon Frank Trio — Grant Levin, piano;…
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The posts that follow show you what’s come and gone. Search the videos on our youtube channel or facebook page to find evidence of what you remember, or what you missed! Then, make sure you catch the next thing that catches your fancy. The live streams are great, but live music in a room with folks you know or ought to get to know, that’s irreplaceable…
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Takezo Takeda, guitar and vocals. Chris Burns, piano. Karl Severeid, bass. Paul Revelli, drums. $20 cover charge / byob — cash at the door, please! Students $10. Reservations welcome. For a reservation, call the shop at 415-586-3733. From Shinjuku to San Francisco, it’s an electric blues bonanza!
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Eric Shifrin, piano and vocals. Raul Ramirez, drumset & percussion. Heath Proskin, bass. $20 cover charge (cash at the doors, please). Students, $10. Kids free. For a reservation, call the bookshop at 415-586-3733. Eric Shifrin has been wowing the swells and the swindlers in San Francisco for decades, from the commonest saloon to the most pretentious salon, in the bars and the ballrooms, anywhere folks gather to remind themselves what it is to be in with the in crowd! Tonight, Eric’s In Crowd comprises the great percussionist Raul Ramirez, from the Peruvian port city of Callao, and the unflappable bassist Heath Proskin, assaying a batch of tunes with a tropical lilt. Eric himself hails from Malibu, spent memorable years in Hawaii while still an alto player, and honed his chops on piano in Japan. The trade winds brought him here with his wife Kotomi some years ago, and we’re…
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YIPPEE! I think I saw it move! Did you see it move!?!? Nancy Kurshan, a founding member of the Yippies and lifelong activist, is coming to Bird & Beckett with her new book. “EQUAL PARTS REVEALING MEMOIR, VALUABLE HISTORICAL DOCUMENT, AND GALVANIZING GUIDE TO FOLLOWING ONE’S BELIEFS.” – Publishers Weekly The Oakland author and lifelong activist shares her bold, candid memoir of a life on the front lines of American protest. Climate activist China Brotsky will join her in conversation. Nancy participated in the civil rights and peace movements from her high school years in the early 1960s. While a student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, she joined Friends of SNCC (the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and Core (the Congress of Racial Equality) and participated in the April 17, 1965 Washington, D.C. demonstration against the Vietnam War organized by the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) which kicked…
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The After the End of the World Coretet formed in San Francisco in the summer of 1989. All four member of the group are composers, long-time practitioners, and devotees of music to the core. This iteration of the group is the same as on the recording called ’13’, and features Annelise Zamula on saxophones and flute, Bill Noertker on bass, Dave Mihaly on drums and Jon Birdsong on trumpet. Some singing may occur, who’s to say? The set will be a mix of their original music and some choice covers. Jon Birdsong is visiting from his home in the EU, so this is an extraordinarily rare opportunity to experience the AEWC live and in person. The chemistry of these four together is singular and choice. Come hear this group, buy a book, talk to the musicians between sets. Soul and allure guaranteed. The Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project, a…
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Come out for our monthly “student-centric” jazz jam session! If you’re game to play, bring your instrument(s) and be ready to call a tune. The session will start after a short jazz set by this month’s session hosts, an octet from San Francisco’s Community Music Center. Just want to come out and experience the fun? Bring your ears and a little cash to help us pay the CMC combo. Jazz in the Neighborhood is underwriting part of the festivities to lighten the load, but we’ll need your help as well. Whether you’re coming to play or just to listen, you’re an integral part of the afternoon. The Community Music Center, with campuses in the Mission District on Capp Street and in the Richmond District on 30th Avenue, has been teaching students of all ages and income strata the pleasures, rudiments and intricacies of music across the genres for over a…
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Politics and class war aside, the culture wends its way forward! Spend the evening in our cozy bookshop and enjoy this dual guitar quartet in the spirit of a legendary musician, the master guitarist George Barnes. When Barnes moved out to the Bay Area in 1975, he hired 30-year old guitar hotshot Duncan James along with two of Duncan’s senior colleagues, bassist Dean Reilly and drummer Benny Barth, to form what was to be Barnes’ last quartet. Duncan learned volumes from intertwining his guitar with that of Barnes, and in that vein the guitar virtuoso Ned Boynton has taken the lessons he’s learned from Duncan to carry the music on into a new century. Ned and Duncan will satisfy your hunger for something real and beautiful tonight, with consummate musicians Simon Planting and Bob Blankenship adding the necessary on bass and drums. $20 cover charge / byob. Students $10; kids…
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Keith Felton and Jessica Loos read new and recent work as the featured poets in our first Thursday of the month poetry series, a Bird & Beckett tradition dating back a quarter century. The reading and the following open mic are hosted and moderated by Jerry Ferraz and Michael Koch. Jessica, who cut her teeth with the Living Theater on the Manhattan’s Lower East Side, has been a central presence on the North Beach poetry scene for decades, well known as an organizer of events including the readings at North Beach First Fridays and the annual North Beach Festival. Bring 3 minutes of your own poems to read in the open mic segment. No charge, though donations are appreciated.
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Wednesday, June 24th — 7pm. no charge. buy a book! San Francisco Poets Ava Koohbor, Of Flesh and Frequency: A Poetics of Sound Making. Jessica Loos, Tambourine. Marina Lazzara, The House Begins an Alphabet. Music by Blind Van de Monk. _____ Thursday, June 25th – 7:30pm $20/byob Students $10. Tango No. 9 Catharine Clune, violin. Greg Stephens, trombone. J Raoul Brody piano & accordion. Zoltan diBartolo, tenor. _____ Friday, June 26th – 7:30pm, $20. Byrds of a Feather: Vampire President & Garden of Delights jazzreggae resistance & solution. David Byrd, sax & vocals. Toho Saunders, bass & vocals. Carlos Caminos, guitar. Eli Goldlink, keys. Jordan “J Bird” Davis, drums. _____ Saturday, June 27th – 7:30pm, $20. B3B4 – organ jazz classics and originals. Kevin Gerzevitz, organ. Tom Griesser, saxophone. Scott Foster, guitar. Dan Foltz, drums. _____ Sunday, June 28th – 5pm. donate! Jam…
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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.
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
