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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]
Mark your calendar for the first Sunday of each month from 5 to 7pm! Students of jazz from all directions are welcome to join in the jam session following tonight’s opening set by the Yoav Konig Quartet. Come prepared to call a tune from the jazz canon–know your key and set the tempo. You’ll be in good company! No charge to play, but donations from the assembled audience are very much appreciated to help us pay a modest honorarium to the musicians in the quartet. Thanks are due Jazz in the Neighborhood’s Emerging Artists program for their continuing support of our monthly student-oriented jazz jam session! RASOTA bass student Yoav Konig, a formidable young talent, has assembled a quartet of great players to start the festivities – with Nico Colucci on tenor sax, Michael Potter on piano and Miles Turk on drums, all current or recent graduates of the San…
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James Cagney is an award-winning Oakland poet and Cave Canem fellow. His books include Ghetto Koans, Black Steel Magnolias in the Hour of Chaos Theory, and Martian: The Saint of Loneliness. jelal huyler is a biracial Black poet from Oakland, born to a revolutionary Black mother. Carrying on throughout this dissociative so-called reality, he does not condone linear time and sayeth fuck capitalism in perpetuity. He is the author of the poetry collection A Man Was Lynched Today, published by Game Over Books. Michael Koch books and hosts our monthly 1st Thursdays poetry series. An open mic conducted by Jerry Ferraz follows the featured poets.
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Eric Shifrin, piano and vocals. Ari Munkres, bass. Jay Hansen, drums. $20 cover charge / byob. Students $10 / kids free. Reservations: Call the bookshop at 415-586-3733. Eric Shifrin brings the In Crowd to Bird & Beckett for a couple of hours every other second Friday, from 7:30-9:30, in the odd numbered months… May, July, September, November, January, March, et seq. Tonight, he convenes the trio for a fakebook’s worth of tunes that begin with the letter “G” — from the Great American Songbook and the canon of jazz standards and classics, with a few curios thrown in for fun. From Jelly Roll Morton to Herbie Nichols, he’s got a lot of music in those hands of his. Eric’s been wowing the swells, the swindlers and the salt of the earth in the City’s bars and boîtes, salons and saloons for decades. Eric & the In Crowd are always a…
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Tom Griesser, saxophone. Kurt Ribak, bass. Dan Foltz, drums. $20 cover charge / byob. cash at the door, please! for a reservation, call the bookshop at 415-586-3733. Tom notes: “I’m really excited to revive the Tom Griesser 3, a trio that had a weekly Friday night gig at the old Burritt Room from 2013 to 2017. Bird & Beckett is both one of my favorite live music venues and one of my favorite bookstores.”
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Lynne Maes, rhythm guitar & vocals. Hank Maninger, lead guitar & vocals. Tim Wagar, bass guitar. Leor Beary, drums. $20 suggested cover charge / byob. Students $10. Kids free. Reservations: call the bookshop at 415-586-3733. You’re in for two sets in honky tonk heaven. Mainstays of the Bay Area Americana scene, and the Bird & Beckett bandstand, for nearly a decade, Nashville Honeymoon has traversed country, rockabilly, bluegrass, and pop across four albums, writing songs that uplift the tangled mess of day-to-day life and investigate universal themes of love and loss – often at the same time. Their latest album, Sidewinder, is true to its title, offering a collection of songs that are grounded in classic country while edging into different sounds, genres, and themes that run through American pop music. This is some of the sweetest, sauciest, and most sincere country music you’ll ever hear.
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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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Laura Ramos & Edu González, vocals Armando Fox, piano Jesse Alejandro Cottrell, guitar Anastasia Preston, bass Ryan Friedman, percussion $25 cover charge / adult; byob. Students, $10; kids free. Formed in the summer of 2023, the latin cabaret ensemble Cantos di mi Tierra had its first public performances in October 2023 with three sold-out shows at Martuni’s in San Francisco and returned for two shows in January 2024. Soon after, adding a bassist and a percussionist, the ensemble performed at Feinstein’s at the Nikko, again enjoying a sold out audience. Their performance on August 17, 2024 at Feinstein’s was also sold out! Their appearance at Bird & Beckett in November 2026 was a delight, and we’re pleased to have them back, with a full band. Cantos De Mi Tierra operates as a collective much more than a band. From the beginning, they have envisioned a rotating cohort of talent, offering something…
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Ramya Shankar, vocals Prasant Radakrishnan, saxophone Unpil Baek, piano Peter Barshay, bass Varun Pattabhiraman, mridangam Barbara Nerness, biosignal researcher/composer $25 cover students $10 For a reservation, call the bookshop at 415-586-3733 Ramya Shankar is a genre-blurring sound artist and vocalist whose voice flows from deep Carnatic and folk roots of India into jazz and global music. Her voice is a vessel for emotion, healing, and human connection—fusing improvisation, rhythm, and story. As a composer and producer, Ramya crafts immersive sonic landscapes that explore the shared human experience—Love, Grief, Courage, Adventure, Joy—using the voice as a medium to trace emotional stages and reveal the profound textures of human feeling. Her work invites listeners into discovery, presence, and resonance. Peter Barshay is a veteran bassist with a strong reputation built over decades of performing on both the New York City and San Francisco Bay Area jazz scenes. He has collaborated with jazz…
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Denny Berthiaume, piano. Chuck Bennett, bass. Curt Moore, drums. $20 suggested / adult; byob. (pay what you can). Students, $10; kids free. A classic piano trio date. Pianist Denny Berthiaume, bassist Chuck Bennett and drummer Curt Moore, three veterans of the Bay Area jazz scene, have been plying these waters together for many years, all the while pursuing countless other musical pursuits & associations. You won’t regret an evening spent in their company. Do come! Here’s a sample of their work, from their first lp, Fascinating Rhythms: . In 2004, these three San Francisco Bay Area musicians decided to create a rhythm section devoted to their own compositions and individualized arrangements of standards. After recording its studio demo in 2005, “THE TRIO” began a series of public performances in clubs (Shanghai 1930, The Agenda, Anna’s Jazz Island, Piedmont Piano Company) and festivals (San Jose Jazz Festival). Their early recordings include…
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Here’s a little backstory, to get us to where we now stand… in re: the Fridays, anyway… Read on! And thanks for being part of the Bird & Beckett story in the present day. /s/Eric Whittington, proprietor, since 1999 Once upon a time, in the late spring of 1999, Bird & Beckett opened its doors down on Diamond Street where Manzoni now serves exquisite Northern Italian cuisine to the ravenous epicures who’ve found their way to Glen Park. We took on the nicely appointed 1,000 square foot space from the four-year-old Glen Park Books, and paid our rent to Manhal Jweinat, still to this day the crepemaster behind the counter of his kitty-corner coffee house, Higher Grounds, which he opens in the early morning before jamming across the street to handle his love child, Manzoni through the dinner hours. Amazing fella, and still a good friend, that Manhal! Within…
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Eileen Myles in conversation with Nathan Kernan, author of A Day Like Any Other: The Life of James Schuyler (FSG, 2025), on the life and language of James Schuyler, with additional discussion & reading of Schuyler’s work by Tom Carey, Jason Morris, & Hannah Zeavin. * Born in Chicago in 1923, James Schuyler grew up in Washington, DC, and upstate New York before moving to New York City in 1944, where he fell into the social orbit of the poet W. H. Auden. After two years in Italy, he returned to New York in 1949 and began to publish his first poems. There he met fellow poets O’Hara, Ashbery, Guest, and Koch. For many years he lived outside the city in Southampton, Long Island, in a close relationship with the painter Fairfield Porter and his family, and spent his summers in Maine. Schuyler’s subsequent years in New York City were marked by…
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Join PEN Award finalist Jeanne Carstensen, in conversation with Frances Dinkelspiel, for the paperback launch party for A GREEK TRAGEDY, with live rebetika music. The author: Jeanne Carstensen, in conversation with Frances Dinkelspiel The book: A Greek Tragedy: One Day, A Deadly Shipwreck, and the Human Cost of the Refugee Crisis (Atria/One Signal, 2025) The band: Gregory Masaki Jenkins & friends Wine and cheese will be served! Jeanne Carstensen is an award-winning journalist and the author of A Greek Tragedy: One Day, a Deadly Shipwreck, and the Human Cost of the Refugee Crisis (2025), a finalist for the 2026 PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction, Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the California Book Award. Author Héctor Tobar called it “essential reading for anyone hoping to understand the migrations and injustices of our modern world.” Jeanne lives in Glen Park and is thrilled to celebrate her paperback release at Bird and…
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Fried, Flipped or Fake, Proposition Chicken has something for everyone — and 10% of your tab goes to Bird & Beckett every Monday in April, from 9am to 9pm. It’s their Non-Profit Mondays policy, and they do it year round! They serve great food all year round as well. From ten bucks in revenue on all the April Mondays, a buck goes to Bird & Beckett. Your humble proprietor and friends have roadtested the yardbird & tofu and have proclaimed them and all their sides quite delicious and modestly priced! So plan to get breakfast, lunch or dinner on Monday April 20, and then turn out Monday April 27th at 6pm for a party on their streetfront patio, with live music and a scattering of poets curated for your dining pleasure by the Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project. You’ll hear a friendly local jazz trio featuring Joe DeAndreis, saxophone;…
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All month long, Proposition Chicken has been dedicating their non-profit Mondays to Bird & Beckett, cutting us in for 10% of the revenues from any sales made at the counter. Orders placed online don’t count. Gotta go there and talk to the good folks face to face for us to benefit. It’s a friendly place; they don’t bite! They’re super nice actually, and the place has a great patio with a fireplace and everything. Yardbird, fried, flipped & fake. Plus all those sides and canned wine, beer & cocktails. They’re open for breakfast, even! Did you realize that eggs is chicken? We just tripped on that! You can get chicken chicken, even at breakfast, if that’s your bag. Well, this coming Monday is your big chance if you’ve been waiting for one! We’re throwing a party to celebrate and we crave a big turn out to go with the grub!…
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Bay Area guitarist George Cotsirilos returns to the intimate language of solo nylon-string guitar on In the Wee Hours, due for release by OA2 Records on May 15th, performed live for you at Bird & Beckett on Friday, April 24th. Illuminating beloved standards and two original compositions with patience and depth, George recorded these tunes in unedited first takes over a period of several years. Gathered on this, his seventh recording on OA2, the album unfolds with the quiet authority and refined lyricism that have defined George’s career—from his early solo and trio recordings to his celebrated quartet release, Refuge–recordings praised for their fluidity and swing. On In the Wee Hours, classics such as “Come Sunday,” “Haunted Heart” and the title ballad are rendered with a meticulous touch and subtle dynamic shadings that reveal the hidden architecture of each melody. Alternating between exquisite instruments by José Ramirez and Alberto Morales,…
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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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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
