I heard a segment about this collaboration of the late poet Philip Levine and jazz musician-composer Benjamin Boone yesterday on NPR. I have been a fan of Levine's poems for a while... Boone's music was a revelation. I was able to listen to about half of the album on Spotify yesterday before heading out to dinner, and it had me in tears. Levine was in his mid-80s when he recorded it, and he sounds old, but not at all antiquated. There is very little artifice in his readings, but there is understated musicality and energy... the jazz of poetry is in the words on paper but also in his voice. The selection of poems is wonderful, ranging from Levine's gritty depictions of the working life from his days in Detroit, to celebrations of jazz, to his lyrical songs to the California Central Valley– in fact it was at Fresno State that he met Boone.
As for Boone's settings of the poems, they are, so far, perfection– this is not your father's beat poetry recited to a bongo and bass, but full-on modern jazz composition. Boone recruited some of the top musicians in jazz to take a solo– or should I say a stanza?– on several tracks: Tom Harrell, Branford Marsalis, Greg Osby, and Chris Potter among them.
Wonderful.
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Hi Bill - Thank you so much for this touching post about my album with Philip Levine. Very touching to have read this. Did you know we released a POTER OF JAZZ VOL 2 with the rest of the tracks we recorded? If you want to know more, google me and send a message from my website. Again, thank you so much for your kind words - Ben
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