[Dixielandjazz] Jazz Peotry Festival

[Steve Barbone]

NOT OKOM, but a while back list mate Charlie Suhor waxed poetic on list
about Jazz & Poetry. Here's a blurb about the First Annual JazzPoetry
Festival in the Bay area of California.

Cheers,
Steve

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

EVENT: First Annual Bay Area JazzPoetry Festival

CONTACT:  Raymond Nat Turner (510) 835-5348 raymond at upsurgejazz.com

DATE/TIME Friday, April 27, 2007 - 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm

FESTIVAL LINEUP:
* Golda Solomon and Saco Yasuma (NYC)
* Avotcja and Modupue (Oakland)
* Adam David Miller and Gael Alcock (Berkeley)
* COPUS (SF)
* UpSurge! (Oakland)

LOCATION: Berkeley Hillside Club 2286 Cedar Street (510) 848-3227
http://www.hillsideclub.org

ADMISSION: $20 

The great poet T.S. Eliot wrote "April is the cruelest month." But this year
in Berkeley it will be the coolest month! Jazz Appreciation Month (JAM) and
National Poetry Month (NPM) have married and their offspring is the First
Annual Bay Area JazzPoetry Festival. The event takes place on Friday, April
27, 7:00 pm at Berkeley's venerable Hillside Club. Located at 2286 Cedar
Street, the Hillside Club overlooks Berkeley's world- renown "Gourmet
Ghetto" home to some of the Bay Area's best eats.

The First Annual Bay Area JazzPoetry Festival features New York City alto
saxophone sensation Saco Yasuma paired with New York poet Golda Solomon.
Time Out New York said "Avant-Jazz altoist Saco Yasuma has a theatrical
bent-but she is not hiding anything. She's got a killer sound and soulful
compositions." Dubbed the Medicine Woman of Jazz, "an insightful observer of
the scene and narrator of a thousand hipper yesterdays, Golda Solomon lays
it all out with streetwise authority on Word Riffs, the second recording to
document her compelling partnership of poetry and jazz."-Bill Milkowski,
Jazziz, Jazz Times

Avotcja, poet and host of KPFA's popular Music of the World segment "BeBop,
CuBop y Loca Saya" will perform with her band Modupue (Mow-dew-pway) voted
Jazz Group of The Year 2005 by the West Coast Blues Hall of Fame. A gifted
poet, Avotcja fluidly goes back and forth between Spanish, English and
Spanglish while never veering from truth, justice and the blues.

Adam David Miller, Berkeley's revered, esteemed poet author whose memoir
"Ticket to Exile" is due to publish this coming fall from Heyday Books
performs with cellist Gael Alcock. The classically trained Alcock works with
composers and new music ensembles, and accompanies singers, dancers, poets,
and artists. Her solo compositions explore jazz, middle-eastern, and free
styles of improvisation.

The Bay Area JazzPoetry Festival's eclectic and exciting line-up will
include world beat band COPUS. "COPUS produces music that is part jazz, part
classical, cerebral and sexy. Think of COPUS as the love child of Jack
Kerouac and Grace Jones."-Music Connection Magazine." Although I have always
been a jazz fan, the spoken word aspect was never one of my favorites. COPUS
has definitely changed that perspective. It is my belief that this music
could be legendary if given the opportunity to thrive." -MusicDish.com

Oakland's own UpSurge rounds out the first year festival's lineup with their
unique fusion of eclectic jazz and courageous poetry that reaches deep into
your soul. Their conscious words, assorted grooves and feels, dissolve
boundaries that separate genres and people. Voted "Best of the East Bay"
(East Bay Express Reader's Poll 2003), critic Lee Hildebrand describes
UpSurge as a "free-pushing jazz band with two strong poets out front...fresh
energy."

Festival tickets are $20 at the door. The first fifty audience members
seated by 7 p.m. are eligible for the raffle with prizes from our sponsors.
So come on time!