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| First Annual Bay Area JazzPoetry Festival 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 and National Poetry Month have married and their offspring is the First Annual Bay Area JazzPoetry Festival. The event takes place on Friday, April 27, at Berkeley's venerable Hillside Club. 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 tothrive.” -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.” write your comments about the article :: © 2007 Jazz News :: home page |