Double Take: Jazz Poetry Conversations

Paul Austerlitz | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 5, 2004)
• Original Release Date: May 5, 2004
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: INNOVA
• ASIN: B0001Z53L0
• Also Available in: MP3 Download
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #850,005 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Brother John [Live]

2. We Assume: On the Death of Our Son, Reuben Masai Harper [Live]

3. Here Where Coltrane Is [Live]

4. Bird Lives: Charles Parker in St. Louis [Live]

5. High Modes: Vision as Ritual: Confirmation [Live]

6. Elvin's Blues [Live]

7. Last Affair: Bessie's Blues Song [Live]

8. Audio [Live]

9. If You Don't Force It [Live]

10. Copenhagen [Live]

11. 4-29-99 [Live]

12. The Latin American Poem [Live]

13. Release: Kind of Blue [Live]

14. Interlude

15. Brother John [Live]

16. We Assume: On the Death of Our Son, Reuben Masai Harper [Live]

17. Here Where Coltrane Is [Live]

18. Bird Lives: Charles Parker in St. Louis [Live]

19. High Modes: Vision as Ritual: Confirmation [Live]

20. Elvin's Blues [Live]

See all 26 tracks on this disc

Editorial Reviews

Public Enemy’s Chuck D. was here to fight the power. Michael S. Harper is here to disturb the peace. Public Enemy used hip-hop to express race, sex, politics and purpose. Michael S. Harper uses the pantheon of jazz gods, his mouth and a bass clarinet.

For the past three decades, this poet laureate of Rhode Island hasn’t paid any mind to moth-eaten poetics with tired "let me count the ways" blah. Harper grabs the mic back from would-be coffee shop confessors and armchair cultural quarterbacks, shuts it off and shouts.

He speaks in cocaine highs creeping up your groin. He speaks with the mouth of Black Narcissus. He speaks Coltrane jazz with messy fingerings (calling on the howling ghosts of Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Bessie Smith)

His partner in crime is bass-clarinetist/composer Paul Austerlitz, known for his sweet n’ punchy collaborations with Fred Ho’s Afro-Asian Music Ensemble, and Caribbean music legends Gonzalo Rubalcaba and percussionist Julito Figueroa.

"Double Take: Poetry/ Jazz Conversations" breaks 180 degrees from bling obsessed rappers with MTV cribs or actors and actresses in Hollycars and goes straight to the root, where words and music can still kill you.

Harper and Austerlitz both teach at Brown University.