For a decade now, saxophonist, composer, and Fulbright scholar Benjamin Boone has artfully merged the works of vital, contemporary poets with the in-the-moment creations of astute, innovative jazz musicians, first through his two critically acclaimed recordings with U.S. poet laureate Philip Levine, and most recently with 2020's The Poets Are Gathering, providing a striking platform for the spoken word. The dance of imagery and rumination set in motion by Patrick Sylvain's "Caught in the Rhythm" supplies a running theme for this exploding kaleidoscope of diverse voices, with Ambrose Akinmusire, Greg Osby, Kenny Werner and Ben Monder being a few of the interacting musical voices, offering an aural front page of dispatches, reveries, declamations, and narratives from past and present. Leave it to music, melding with shadow and light, to make the case for poetry. That's what this album--and its varied supplications to the muse--are for.
"...important poetic works in the context of sound and emotive playing. There is no line of demarcation, only artistic unity afloat in a solution of truth." - All About Jazz
"...a superb arsenal of poets who unravel their works with razor-sharp conviction and clarity... wondrous... like engrossing short films, all of which demand concentrated engagement." - DownBeat
Artists
Benjamin Boone - Saxophone
Ben Monder - Guitar
Greg Osby - Alto Saxophone
Ari Hoenig - Drums
Ambrose Akinmusire - Trumpet
T. R. Hummer - Spoken word
Patrick Sylvain - Spoken word
Kenny Werner - Piano
Kimiko Hahn - Spoken word
Tyehimba Jess - Spoken word
Edward Hirsch - Spoken word
