continuing in the world of jazz-poetry compare and contrast

Guys like Peddlar and Jay Davis are the classics they are part of a golden age that gave birth to our silver one now. I covered them so lets get into the silver age people for a second, Tina Smith first of all was hard initally because of how unique and in your face her style is. I solved it however and placed her as our Nina Simone, people unfamiliar with her will say "no way Nina Simone was a precious cute little jazz singer who sang stuff like Don't Smoke In Bed and Tina does raucus political poetry." That is just not accurate on either front. Nina Simone was hardcore with a blast of true humanity and so is Tina. People forget that Nina went up on stage and sang Langston Hughes poetry, she was nothing to mess with.

If you look up best jazz singer on this here internet you will see a battle for the number 1 spot between Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald and its a matter of preferance. This mirrors the battle in my own mind between Lady Zen and Tricia who dont have any such battle except in my mind. Billie has this insane character to her voice that makes it so she doesn't even have to hit the notes your drunk on who she is. Lady Zen is a spellbinding performer in much the same way, someone who can captivate the whole room without trying that hard or at least not looking like it. She can make you feel her pain without her screaming it, you can't teach those goosebumps.

If your asking yourself if I get sick to my stomach for dishing out compliment after compliment to this same small group i say NO. Ella was different there was a pinpoint percision in how she hit every note that made the experiance of listening to her so rich. As I kid I grew up on Billie but I grew into Ella. Tricia is Ella, a great poetic mind capable of anything and the best at conveying what she wants nothing more nothing less and bringing you close to her for the experiance. Part of the reason everyone calls her mother is for that, her uncanny ability to not just tell a story but weave it through words perfectly plucked and leave you at the end looking up like "wow, thanks."

If Wil is the pop jazz Miles Davis then Sean is the pop jazz not by his own choice Coltrane Sean who speaks from the page in metaphors and symbols as dense and amazing as Coltrane doing a freaking sixteen minute MY FAVORITE THINGS. His notebook is filled with four bar line chunks scribbled from moments of genius the way Love Supreme staples itself together to form greatness. I say it again for the hundredth time SEAN IS THE ILLEST.

Peter Hazen from houseboat is our Dave Brubeck so versatile and full of imagination full of weirdness that he can be frustratingly brilliant. If people come back from meeting Peter and wonder "That guy does nineteen different things very very very well why I can't do one!" it is valid. Your just not built like Hazen none of us are, his timing and scheming of words puts him in a top tier.

Jazzy is our Peggy Lee because of her off beat creativity and intense sense of style, people still stick FEVER in their mp3 players right off the bat and its because she made that hers. Jazzy makes that a priority.

Wil says I am Stan Getz and if anyone is reading this please respond in the comments as to if that is a good choice and if so what makes me so Stan Getz. I DON'T DO DRUGS PEOPLE!

nerding out of control

So lately my new thing has been to take all the poets that perform regularly on Tuesday nights at the North Star and assign them a comparison to a Jazz great. Wil Gibson has joined me on this as co-decider and so listing them we have to start from the beginning with Peddlar Bridges who is our Cab Calloway. If you don't know Cab Calloway was a genius of performance with loud crazy outfits and incredible hilarious vocal shifts mid song. He knew how to keep a crowd pumped up even if they were laughing at him. No one fits Peddlar better. Then its Jay Davis and he is our Duke Ellington, artistically versitile and good natured but not only that knows how to put a band together around him that can make good music. He knows how to go to a venue and get excited about other peoples work to keep the scene alive. Nate shuddered a little when we called him Louis Armstrong but that is just his bashful side, before Nate the scene was struggling and he brought this insane passion and skill level that hadn't existed before so young people could look up and say "THAT IS A POET!" and old people could just say "WOW!" Without Nate tuesday nights would be more time for me to sit and sing Journey's Faithfully to myself while my Fiance watches(or tries) to watch CSI.

Moving on Wil could only be Miles Davis who is not the best Jazz musician or mind of all time but is the most accessable the most genius at making music that can not be represed. One of my friends said that Miles brought Jazz to white people and Wil brings real hip hop philosophy to those who don't know it. I like that. Miles had an eye for talent and bringing people up through his band and letting them grow on their own from there. Wayne Shorter is an example. Wil has lent an ear to everyone in this town and heard, digested, and given suggestions to them.

If you think I'm finished your dead ass wrong I have the whole group figured out people. Keep posted to find out more.

new champ

Last Tuesday we had a slam that it has taken me a while to recover from. It was a lot of information to take in, fourteen competitors stepped up and slammed for the love of it all and were judged numerically on their value. Its so hard to put your finger on who you feel was the best or "broke out" or "should have won" I think i'm going to stick to my original idea expressed a few blogs ago that if you go up there and make an impression, you win. If you go up on stage and stomp around enough that people are buzzing about it, that is what this whole thing is for.

Lady Zen was amazing as always and has a quiet self confidence that the crowd just soaks up, Jazzy was back to her top form. It's so hard to grade people because you just know when a performer is up there whether or not they are in that zone. Wil wasn't entirely there, a lot of us that already have a spot for the April qualifier are much more focused on that and using this stuff as practice. I think he would be the first to say he will be different in April.

Ryan, Sam, and Roller Girl are all from National Slam teams in the area and joined in. I told Sam he was the favorite and he was for a while, he has a pacing in her vocal performance and control over his body that a lot of people don't bother with. A lot of people are hooting and hollering up there trying to make broad sweeping physical motions to match, Sam has a less is more approach that keeps people pulled in to what he is saying.

It wasn't his night though. It was Tina Smith who tore down the house and gave the best vocal texturing to her words that I've ever seen her do. She's always been consistent and focused heavily on going up there with material she knows. This time you really felt it, that beyond revolution and fighting for your rights there is humanity in her words. She doesn't mask it or dress it up and the audience responded. It was her night and now she is the champ. She got a perfect score in the last round you cant really beat that.

13 of us tried.

consider the game changed

The first post I made on this site was about the night Juba came in as an unknown and won a slam pushing everyone that thought they were the best back a spot or two. That type of stuff earns you a hall of fame in my insignifigant mind. This recently took place again with someone who we all silently know will take over slam poetry if she puts her mind to it.

Her name is Lady Zen and on her first night she came to the open reading just to scope it out and perform probably put her name out there and see if the energy here(north star cafe tuesday night PORT VERITAS BABY) was interesting at all. I thought she was good but she does the singing in the middle of the poetry thing and having a terrible voice myself I resent those with good voices who want to do poetry as well. I mean c'mon just sing and be famous already!

This isn't one of those things where I backpeddle into a kiss butt session, poets are sensitive people that need to compliment each other so that they can all be friends. I'm a writer i'm speaking logistically here, this is a different situation. Lady Zen can sing at a professional Jazz singer level(not Al Jolson style either) but to top that she can drop some really skillful, creative and meaningful verse. She's not expressly hip hop she is a mixture of so many different moods and fields and last night she gave a performance that deserves to be in my top tier.

I don't think other poets should learn from her or copy her, I'm old school I want people to be like themselves first. I think they should just listen and enjoy her.