Beyond Words: Jazz + Poetry

Wednesday, August 8, 7:30 pm, Rendon Hall at California Jazz Conservatory

With Poets
TONGO EISEN-MARTIN
ISABELLA BORGESON
AMOS WHITE / MC

& Musicians
DILLON VADO – drums and percussion
JEFF DENSON – bass
DAVEED BEHROOZI – piano

Beyond Words: Jazz + Poetry is a monthly poetry and jazz show that explores the intersection of the oral poetic image in evolution with jazz music. Beyond Words features poets, authors, singers and jazz musicians. It is a collaboration of San Francisco Bay Area haiku poet, author and impresario Amos White, and renowned jazz musician and composer Dillon Vado.

Amos White is an American haiku poet and author of The Sound of the Web: Haiku and Poetry on Facebook and Twitter, recognized for his vivid imagery and breathless interpretations. He was a Finalist in the NPR National Cherry Blossom Haiku Contest 2013 and has been published in The Wittenberg Review, Oakland Review, Bones Journal, San Francisco BayView, Area 17, World Haiku Association Anthology.

Dillon Vado is a drummer, vibraphonist and educator in the San Francisco Bay Area, and a graduate of the California Jazz Conservatory. He regularly performs on vibraphone with Alan Hall’s Ratatet, on drums with The Electric Squeezebox Orchestra, and leads several of his own projects.

Pianist and composer Dahveed Behroozi’s focus is on jazz, classical, and new music. His playing has been described as, “highly expressive, lyrical and colorful.”

Bassist and composer Jeff Denson is an acclaimed performing musician and a highly respected educator. Currently leading or co-leading four distinct ensembles, he has toured extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe. He is also a full professor at the California Jazz Conservatory, and serves Outreach Director, nurturing young musicians.

San Francisco poet Tongo Eisen-Martin is a movement worker and educator who has organized against mass incarceration and extra-judicial killing of Black people throughout the United States. His latest curriculum, We Charge Genocide Again , has been used as an educational and organizing tool throughout the country. His book of poems, Someone’s Already Dead, was nominated for a California Book Award.

Isabella Borgeson is a queer, multiracial Filipina American poet and teaching artist from Oakland, California whose poetry is an artistic extension of her activism and community organizing. She has received fellowships from Voices of Our Nation Art Foundation and the Poetry Incubator through Poetry Foundation and Crescendo Literary, and her work has been featured on CNN, NBC, Inquirer, and the Guardian.

Jazz in the Neighborhood presents its Wednesday night series at CJC with financial support from AFM Musicians Union Local 6.

Tickets available online at the CJC box office or at the door.
$20 general admission / $10 full-time students