Contact:
Golda Solomon, 877-529-9528, or gs@goldajazz.com
Cornelia Street Café: corneliastreetcafe@earthlink.net
For immediate release
Po’Jazz
at The Cornelia
Street Cafe
Poetry
in Partnership with Jazz
Thursday, September 16th, 2004 6 - 8 p.m.
Talent
abounds when Manhattan College visits Po’Jazz,
the one-of-a-kind jazz and poetry series, in its third Thursday evening of
the month slot on September 16th Downstairs at The Cornelia Street
Café. The downstairs room opens at
5:30 for early dining and imbibing (serving the same fine
food as upstairs). Admission is $15
($13 students/seniors), which includes one drink.
Host
Golda Solomon, “The Medicine Woman
of Jazz,” welcomes dynamic performance poet Patricia Smith, along with Manhattan College professor/poet/author Joseph Lennon. Student poets
featured in Manhattan Magazine,
the college’s literary publication, will also present their work. Jazz vocalist/lyricist/arranger and poet Andrea Wolper will
lend her clear, rich voice and soulful improvisatory style to the evening,
accompanied by inventive bassist
Ken Filiano,
who is noted for his accomplishments in jazz, free improvisation, tango, interdisciplinary
performance, and classical music.
Patricia
Smith is four-time national individual champion of the notorious and wildly
popular poetry slam. Victor Infante of
the Orange County Weekly said “Smith
epitomizes what a performance poet should be: supremely confident, radiating
with presence, drilling each word for precise effect, no nuance of inflection
too small for consideration. Perhaps the greatest irony is that her talent
for performance often eclipses her writing ability—which is, likewise, immense.”
Golda’s
unique brand of jazz-flavored poetry was most recently featured at a pair of performances in Denver, Colorado, at the 92nd Street
Y’s Makor Marathon, and at Mamapalooza 2004 at the Bowery Poetry Club. Her poetry has been described as
having “a rhythm and spontaneity that
goes right to the heart… (She) has found her perfect accompaniment in jazz”
(Madeline Peters, President and founder of Poet’s Corner).
Rounding
out the jazz component of this month’s program is the Po’Jazz
Trio, consisting of Eliot Cardinaux on piano, Adam
Chilenski on bass, and Bram Kincheloe on drums. They
will be joined by special guest Daniel Levine on trumpet.
Po’Jazz is increasingly becoming “the place to be” every third
Thursday. Gladys Serrano of Mutable Music says, “Po’Jazz
at Cornelia
Street is
one big friendly party of good words, good sounds, and good food.” Performances are currently being recorded live
for a new CD (expected release summer 2005).
This
performance is part of a third Thursday of the month poetry and jazz series
at The Cornelia Street Café programmed by ICAAN co-founder Golda Solomon in
association with JazzJaunts (www.jazzjaunts.com). Dedicated to the belief that the arts are vital
for tapping into processes needed for individual healing and community building,
ICAAN (Interactive Communication and Arts Network) provides on-site arts programming
to workplaces, schools and other organizations. For more information about ICAAN, call 877-529-9528
or visit www.icaan.biz.
The Café is located at 29 Cornelia Street, Greenwich Village, NYC. Po’Jazz events take place in the café’s downstairs performance
space. By subway, take the A, C, E, F or V train to West 4th
Street, or the 1 or 9 train to Christopher Street - Sheridan Square (walk 21/2 blocks east
on West 4th and make a right onto Cornelia Street.) By car, take 7th Avenue south to Bleecker;
left on Bleecker; left onto Cornelia. For more
information, visit www.corneliastreetcafe.com,
or call 212-989-9319.
The
Cornelia Street Café poetry series is curated by
Angelo Verga. The editor-in-chief
of Manhattan Magazine is Elysa Fein. The next
event in this series will be held on Thursday, October 21st, from 6 until
8.
September’s Po’Jazz is funded
in part by Warwick Valley Winery & Distillery, located in Warwick, NY, in the foothills of the Hudson Valley. Visitors can
view the distillery, wine taste, apple pick (in season) and enjoy the beautiful
grounds and exciting music festivals throughout the year. On weekends, enjoy home made foods and live music
in the cafe. For more information,
call 845-258-4858 or visit www.wvwinery.com.
Artist bios follow; e-mail info@icaan.biz for photos.
About
the Artists
Eliot
Cardinaux,
piano, is currently a first year jazz piano student at the Manhattan School
of Music. He was born in Dayton, Ohio in 1984 and moved to New York in the fall of 2003.
He began playing jazz piano at the age of 15.
Adam Chilenski, bass,
is excited to be living in NYC. Having
recently moved here from Portland, Maine he already considers it his home. Adam has been making a living as a musician
since high school, and says he has no plans to do anything else.
Ken Filiano, bass, is
one of the busiest bassists working today.
He tours widely, with numerous festival and concert stage appearances
across the United
States,
Canada, Europe, and South
America. Ken's solo bass CD, Subvenire (NineWinds),
received unanimous critical praise, and a first place mention in Cadence Magazine's poll of top releases
of 2003. His collaborations with numerous
artists, including Steve Adams, Rodrigo Amado and
Carlos Zingaro, Vinny
Golia, Richard Grossman, and Dom Minasi,
have brought wide acclaim. He is a
member of numerous ensembles as well as an in-demand sideman with a lengthy
discography and performance CV. Along
with new music concerts and solo excursions with poets and dancers, Ken has
been a guest lecturer, performer, and workshop leader at institutions in the
United States and beyond. Critics
have called Ken a “creative virtuoso,” a “master of technique” . . .
“a paradigm of that type of artist. . . who can play anything in any context and make it
work, simply because he puts the music first and leaves peripheral considerations
behind.”
Bram Kincheloe, drums, has been playing music all of his life, starting
drum lessons at the age of five and taking piano lessons from his mother.
He has toured Japan twice with the Monterey Jazz Festival High School All
Star Band, and visited Amsterdam twice to study at the Conservatory Von Amsterdam.
Bram moved to New
York at the age of 16 to study at the LaGuardia High School
of Performing Arts, and, after one year, left to attend the Manhattan School
of Music, where he is currently studying with Justin Dicioccio.
Joseph
Lennon, poet, has
published poetry and essays on literature and Irish culture in journals, magazines,
and anthologies. Dr. Lennon is assistant
professor of English at Manhattan College and is poetry editor of The Recorder, the journal of the American
Irish Historical Society. His first
book, Irish Orientalism:
A Literary and Intellectual History (Syracuse
University Press), was published this year.
Author Stephen Howe says of it, “[Lennon’s work]… is undoubtedly the
fullest, most detailed and perceptive analysis of these themes yet to have
been attempted.”
Patricia Smith, poet, is four-time national
individual poetry slam champion. She
has read her work at countless venues around the globe including Carnegie
Hall, Bumbershoot, the Writers Voice, Black Roots at the Frederick Douglass Creative Arts Center, the Poets Stage in Stockholm, Expo 90 in Osaka, the Sorbonne in Paris, and on tour with Lollapalooza. Smith has shared the
stage with Adrienne Rich, Sharon Olds, Allen Ginsburg,
Walter Mosley, Joyce Carol Oates, Ntozake Shange, Gwendolyn Brooks and Galway Kinnell. She was featured in the nationally-released
film “Slamnation,” appeared on an episode of the
HBO series “Def Poetry Jam,” and performed the poem “Awakening” at the 1991
inauguration of Mayor Richard Daley in Chicago.
She is the author of three volumes of poetry—Close to Death,
Big Towns, Big Talk,
and Life According to Motown. Her poems have been published in The Paris Review, TriQuarterly, AGNI and other literary journals and anthologies. She has won the prestigious Carl Sandburg Award,
as well as a literary award from the Illinois Arts Council and an honorary
degree from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She is the author of Africans in America,
a chronicle of slavery in this country and the companion volume to the groundbreaking
four-part PBS series. “Professional
Suicide,” a one-woman show that got its start during the summer of 2001 while
Smith was writer-in-residence at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterford, CT, was produced by The Play Company in New York City and directed by Tony-nominated Marion McClinton. Recordings
of her work can be found on the CD Always in the Head (Wordsmith Press), as well as in the compilations
Grand Slam, A Snake in the Heart, By Someone’s Good Graces, and Lip. A
short film of Smith performing the poem “Undertaker,” produced by San Francisco’s
Tied to the Tracks Films, won awards at the Sundance and San Francisco Film
Festivals and earned a prestigious Cable Ace Award as part of the Lifetime
Network’s first annual Women’s Film Festival. As Emily
Van Hazing of the Fitchburg, MA Sentinel/Enterprise says,
“She is a testament to the power of
words to change lives.”
Golda Solomon, “the medicine woman of jazz,” is a professor of communications,
speech, and theater arts; a poet, performer, producer, and docent; a supporter
of women musicians as well as young musicians, poets, and performers. She
was project director of Po’Jazz at The Hudson Valley Writers’ Center for four years,
and co-founded the brooklyn
poetry choir. Golda has pioneered several
unique businesses including JazzJaunts, a personalized jazz service, and, with Barbara
Sfraga, ICAAN (Interactive Communication and Arts Network),
which provides innovative, on-site, organization-specific arts programming
to workplaces, schools, and other organizations. Golda has a collection of poetry, Flatbush Cowgirl, published in 1999, for which
she co-produced a companion CD, First
Set. She also co-produced the CD
Po’Jazz: Takin’ It To The Hollow, which includes over 20 poets and musicians.
In 2002, Golda's poetry won first prize at the Writer's Workshop in
Asheville, North Carolina. Her book and
CDs are available on www.amazon.com and www.jazzjaunts.com.
Andrea
Wolper,
vocalist and poet, continues to draw the attention of audiences and critics
with her fine vocal and interpretive abilities.
She has appeared in jazz rooms and in concert halls in the New York
area and across the country, including the Donne
in Musica Festival (Italy), Greater Hartford Festival of Jazz,
Fairfax (CA) Jazz Festival, First Night New York, two JVC Jazz Festival (New
York) Special Concerts, Many Colors of a Woman Jazz Concert, and, by special
invitation, in “A Singers Celebration” at the Blue Note in New York, joining
an impressive roster of jazz vocalists. Her
1998 self-titled debut CD has been lauded in music industry journals and by
radio deejays across the country. A
soon-to-be-released CD, produced by Todd Barkan
and featuring bassist Ken Filiano and guitarist
Ron Affif, will present Andrea’s arrangements of
standard and non-standard music as well as her own compositions.
In addition to singing, Andrea is a creative songwriter, lyricist,
arranger, writer, poet, and actor. Her
journalism and poetry have appeared in numerous publications and she is the
author of two books, The
Actor’s City Sourcebook and Women’s
Rights, Human Rights: International Feminist Perspectives. She has acted
extensively in her native California and on the Off-Broadway stage, and studied
at New
York’s
prestigious Neighborhood Playhouse and Ensemble Studio Theatre. For more information, visit www.WordsMusic.com