Takuya Kuroda and Kris Bowers

In the 1970s, Dr. Billy Taylor argued that "jazz is America's classical music" (qtd in Wilkins ).  However, the music has gone far beyond our borders (I am speaking as an American).  California-born poet and editor Felino A. Soriano proves this in his poem inspired by the Japanese trumpeter Takuya Kuroda.  (Kuroda is now based in Brooklyn.)

toward smile and its fundamental creation

                                                                   —for Takuya Kuroda

of this listening

and the burgeon of sound

syncopates among

dexterous fascinations amid

these wings and oscillating breathing hands

           their

soliloquies demonstrate preferences of

solitude, silence, danceable articulations

against mirror and/or varied languages

and

                     styles of brass-blown rhythms

linking into a bouquet’s center

the scent strong and elongated

                                                           and

with gift

a

sound

sings

sways and

converts hope

into an augmented elation of

tonal

                         interpretation

Here’s the link to Kuroda’s band: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRVExI2kJow

Right now I am enjoying his album Rising Son (2014):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spH_3GV6YsY

Here is a link to his website:  http://www.takuyakuroda.com/live/  It is quite attractive and contains informative essays.

Soriano has also been inspired by Kris Bowers, an American pianist who has played with Kuroda.  Bowers also won the 2011 Thelonious Monk Jazz Competition!  The poem, below, refers to his work with Jose James.

introverted dance and its electronic configurations

                                                                   —for Kris Bowers

this hall

which leads

lends

a talkative brand of paralleling

visceral exhalations

etched

into each

rolled species of extracting

syllables’ reinforced multiple meanings,

gained and by gathering what leaps from

a spiraling direction of blue/green/gold

led kaleidoscopic configurations

this hall

slim though populated

into pageantries of embracing

eclectic embraces—

never sends silence or

its synonym for chaotic

aggregations

Here’s the link to Bowers playing with Jose James; Bowers’ solo starts at 3:38 into the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yvq1BiyVWdE

Bowers performs a cover of Kendrick Lamar's "Rigamortis" here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Mx5rZFAm0g

For more information about him, see his biography:  http://www.allmusic.com/artist/kris-bowers-mn0002391273/biography

and his website:  http://www.krisbowersmusic.com/

Poet Felino A. Soriano has written numerous poems inspired by jazz and philosophy, including these  written for 5 of his favorite pianists, Jason Moran, Thelonious Monk, Robert Glasper, Vijay Iyer, and Ethan Iverson:

http://www.mungbeing.com/issue_56.html?page=27#4122

He is also the founding editor and publisher of both Counterexample Poetics, a site for experimental work, http://www.counterexamplepoetics.com/2009/04/information-contents_23.html, and the publisher Differentia Press:  http://www.differentiapress.com/   He has recently founded the journal Of/With:  http://www.of-with.com/  Its first issue will appear in September.  In addition, he is an editor at Sugar Mule and is currently working on a special issue for that journal:  http://sugarmule.com/

Felino also includes a link to a recent interview with Icebox Journal:  http://www.iceboxjournal.com/interview-2-felino/

He notes that this interview conveys of his writing process, something that will be useful to those of you who are interested in developing your writing process further and/or approaching our project of writing poetry in response to jazz.  I would also recommend going back to the original call for poems and listening to some of the YouTube videos there.  YouTube is an incredible resource, but so is WBGO and its Jazz Bee http://www.wbgo.org/  The Jazz Bee is a special channel for emerging artists although they don't seem to be playing them tonight.

For more see, his bio at his website:  http://www.felinoasoriano.info/about.html

Enjoy!  I'm glad to publish Felino's poems since they respond to some of our younger, newer, and most exciting artists as well as to the experimental aspect of jazz.  

If you would like to contribute to this blog's series of poems inspired by young and not-so-young jazz musicians, here is the original call for poems:  http://thesongis.blogspot.com/2014/06/lively-up-blog.html

You may also like Avis D. Matthews' "Metaphorical":  http://thesongis.blogspot.com/2014/06/metaphorical.html

Russell Streur's "Johnny James":  http://thesongis.blogspot.com/2014/07/johnny-james.html

Or Ed Schelb's "Blue Logic":  http://thesongis.blogspot.com/2014/06/blue-logic.html

I encourage you to read, comment, and contribute!  Jazz is so diverse.