We are in the midst of a remarkable jazz/poetry convergence, and Benjamin Boone is in the vanguard of this creatively charged movement. The saxophonist/composer’s critically hailed 2018 release The Poetry of Jazz (Origin), a singular collaboration with the late Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Philip Levine, is at the forefront of the remarkable wave of recent projects and recordings that have rescued the jazz/poetry connection from Beat-era clichés.

With ecstatic reviews from both jazz and literary outlets such as Jazz Times, NPR’s All Things Considered, The Paris Review, and DownBeat, and with a ranking of #3 “Jazz Album of the Year” in the latter publication’s 83rd Annual Readers Poll, just behind Chick Corea and Wynton Marsalis, The Poetry of Jazz has emerged as one of this genre’s most captivating and compelling voices. “You hold in your hands jazz history,” says producer/pianist Donald Brown. “This is a CD that must be heard!” And with the release of The Poetry of Jazz Volume Two, listeners can expect another poignant musical excursion into the heart of Levine’s poetry.

Recorded during the same sessions that produced the first album, the second volume is a nonpareil artistic achievement on both musical and literary fronts. Levine, who died in 2015 at the age of 87, was one of America’s most acclaimed poets: he won the National Book Award for Poetry twice, and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 1994 volume The Simple Truth. Named the U.S. Poet Laureate by the Library of Congress in 2011, he was an avid jazz fan who found an ideal musical collaborator in Boone, a fellow professor at California State University, Fresno.

Working closely together in the three years before Levine’s death, they honed a connection on stage in which the rhythm and cadence of Levine’s recitation inspired and informed Boone’s compositions. The poet essentially became part of the band, with an unerring sense of where to pause and let the music come through. While the first album tended to focus on Levine’s poems inspired by and referring to jazz artists, the second volume touches on themes both timeless and topical, evoking “the immigrant experience, the aftermath of war and conflict, and the downtrodden working class,” Boone says. “There are also atmospheric vignettes like ‘Belle Isle,’ the sardonic ‘The Poem Circling Hamtamck, MI, All Night, In Search of You,’ and the bluesy ‘An Ordinary Morning.’”

A highly regarded composer who has often worked with setting text to music, Boone employs a vast and vivid sonic palette in writing and arranging for Levine’s poems. He recruited an impressive cast of California players, relying particularly on bassist Spee Kosloff, pianist Craig von Berg, pianist/arranger David Aus, and drummer Brian Hamada, who died in 2018 (the album is dedicated to both Levine and Hamada). The gifted jazz singer Karen Marguth contributes wordless vocals on two of the four instrumental tracks. Levine recites one of his most anthologized poems, the achingly rhapsodic “The Simple Truth,” followed by a second version featuring Marguth’s vocalizing on “a track that’s double the length of the piece with Levine, so there’s more time musically to express the meaning of the poem,” says Boone, who also includes instrumental versions of “Yakov” and “They Feed They Lion,” poems Levine recites on the previous album, so “the band gets to shine and interpret the poetry purely musically.” A reprise of “Godspell” rounds out the album, serving as a postlude and marking the loss of drummer Brian Hamada, who did not play on this track, and Levine, whose poem is now absent.

Levine’s collaboration with Boone wasn’t the first attempt to set some of his verse to music, but “some of these encounters were disasters,” he wrote. “Either I couldn’t hear what they were doing or they couldn’t get what I’d written. The most satisfying for me was the collaboration with Ben Boone. His ability to both hear and ‘get’ my writing was astonishing, and to put the poems to a music that complemented the language. It was the first time I’ve ever performed to accolades from my fellow poets.”

With the second volume of The Poetry of Jazz, he expanded a collaboration that opens up new territory for jazz-steeped composers and poets with a keen musical ear. When asked what makes a good poem, Levine said that for starters you need “fresh language and authentic imagery,” but also something more. “If it has those two things, and then musically it’s interesting, as a piece of rhythmic language, I’m going. I’m hooked. And I’m off to the races.” With Boone, Levine found an ideal running partner.

Media Contact: Terri Hinte | 510-234-878 | hudba@sbcglobal.net

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