The Literary Press Group (distributors for 58 Canadian literary presses) have chosen Sound Off as their feature book for “Poetry Month in Canada” (2013)!
Co-winner of Honourable Mention at the Paris Book Festival, 2014.
Sound Off Sound Recording
Below are nineteen recordings of poems (WMA files) from my upcoming book, Sound Off:
- Anat Fort
- Bill Frisell
- Bobby Previte
- Bobo Stenson
- Brad Mehldau Trio
- Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber
- Jaco Pastorius
- Jakob Bro
- Jean Luc Ponty
- Julia Hulsmann
- Marc Mommaas
- Mathias Eick
- Miles Davis
- Nils Petter Molvaer
- Pat Metheny
- Stefano Battaglia
- Stephan Crump’s Rosetta Trio
- Todd Sicafoose
- Wayne Horvitz
Below are ten selected poems from Stephen Bett’s forthcoming book of poems, Sound Off: a book of jazz, a book of 76 poems, each poem “riffing” on the music of contemporary jazz musicians — no jazz expertise required by reader!
Stefano Battaglia / Michele Rabbia
Pure loveliness
(& throwing in Rilke, too,
Sonnets to Orpheus)
We have been
here before
But isn’t that
Jarrett shadowing
the trail?
Alright, The Anxiety
of Influence
—gottcha
And lovely
still
Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber
crusty…tectonic funk of Miles Davis’
Dark Magus and Agharta bands
Bill Milkowski
Not Brown Sugar
—a band with something
to say
Lean into tone conversations
the ensemble echo chamber
Splashes of argot color, triple-X
axes, rhythm section,
horns & voices
(bells & whistles
squeaks & squawks
in the risible ark)
Rollick on a groove
soul-infused funk
—all the way over
improv-pure sprawl
to “Eno-meets-Teo”
laptop sound-
scape
(I don’t know
what I’m doing
neither do we)
Listen up!
Yup, we’re thinking
Sun Ra
right back to our
unrisen, easy
gone youth
Miles Davis
from bebop through hard bop, cool, third
stream, modal, funk, fusion, and doo bop>
Richard Stevenson
Just repeating ourselves:
Genius is a word
to be respected
(here)
We started so very
long ago kind
of blue
But it really started
with the cool, pure
tones sketched in
Spain
Nothing wasted
nothing left of that
freakish, frenetic
cartoonish
bop
—bebop to freebop
to “minimalist”
playing around
in a silent
milky way
Record by record
tracking toward that
fuse thing you do
(your discursive
period)
Exquisite interjections
into blank space
That full round tone
& sound bites
that can break
the heart in
every
single
groove
Mathias Eick
1.
Play it again
We’re just re-
peating
ourselves
Off the track
2.
Stopped Dead at The Door
Mathias Eick,
sometimes
your horn
is so
mini-
mal-
ist
you’re just
blowing
long puffs
of smoked
air
right out of
the heart
And right
back in
Choking
up
3.
We said (many
times already)
gorgeous
gorgeous
on my
mind
& sits there
still
Still breathing
still (simply)
blowing us
away
Bill Frisell
Don’t know anyone
who can play chords
like you
—so dangerously
alive
(In the moment’s
edge
Otherwise, voracious
explorer
Top drawer
And top draw-er, too,
at the local
Jazz Festival
When dreaming the blues
how could anyone
do better?
(Truly picking raw
steel off
the soul,
sir
Julia Hülsmann Trio
A little ponderous, yes
—but in a totally good
way
a Manfred Eicher way
an ECM way
a Zen less-is-more
way
Like the chorus—
strophe, then
anti-strophe
Here / There
in confident measure
Wander into each corner
to hear how
it sounds
Beauty will ponder
itself
That’s what it
does best
—& in good
measure
Pat Metheny
Another Mr. Popularity
(& for good reason)
Profoundly sad &
sweet
alternating
joyous & sweet
(ad infinitum…)
Nice & easy
Easy is nice, too
Warm summer evenings
windows rolled down
Meth (lite) cranked up
Ride us to the town
called love
(it’s in the pink)
No tip, you know
better than that
The pleasure was always
both of ours
And don’t wait outside,
we’ll be up late
listening to it all
bleach out
white silence
Highly produced, yes
(Mr. Popularity, &
for good reason)
Nils Petter Molvær
Nils Petter Molvær (NPM), Norwegian trumpet player, composer
and producer, takes multiple music styles—jazz, ambient, house,
electronic and break beats, as well as elements from hip hop, rock
and pop music—and effortlessly reshapes them into unique and
dramatic soundscapes of deep intensity.
nilspettermolvaer.com
Mind-blower on albums
mind-Bender in concert
Soundscapes that deconstruct like this:
Miles meets Godspeed You Black Emperor
meets 28 Days Later meets shape-
shifting sonic set of ears
Blowing through both ends
of his horn
…can look gimmicky
Playing trumpet with one hand
computer dial electronica
with the other
…can look nu-age flakey
That’s look, not sound (no)
Add unrelenting driving throbbing
electric bass (w/ feedback bite)
& concussive percussion—
Some of the most transformative
(& freaking)
freeflow sound (not free “blowing”)
you’ll ever be fortunate enough
to hear
This man has dangerously arrived
(ready to stun)
Listener, caught in the headlights
Todd Sickafoose
Here is jazz for 2008: thoroughly original,
endlessly creative, unabashedly modern
without being iconoclastic.
Steve Greenlee
Take a Previte &
a Zappa
ramp down the frenetic
edges (the hysteric)
add subtlety… or just
ironic self-reflection
& you have the expansive
(hello slow twilight!)
compositions of this
Brooklyn Sickafoose
So much from so
many (in good order)
comes to a still center
to groove on
outward
If Bill Frisell played
in an ensemble jam-band
they’d probably sound
like this
There’s a disparate sound here
that coheres, that is
considerably accomplished
Seriously whimsical
composition—
“postcards from the
bent edge of jazz”*
—indeed
* Jeff Simon, The Buffalo News
Bobo Stenson
The cliché is true in this case. A new recording
by Bobo Stenson is an event. Since 1979, he
has made only six albums as a leader for ECM.
They constitute one of the important piano trio
canons in modern jazz.
Thomas Conrad (Nov., ‘08)
Manno manno, the most gorgeous
contemporary jazz is, like, happening
from disparate & often dark solitudes:
Norway & Israel
OK, so this Nordic pianist
is Swedish (a technicality?)
but the “gorgeous” still stands
Probing & melodic
Poised & delicate
Austere, poignant, ascendant—
words critics use
to approximate
this music
As in… such ascendancy
it is as if his right hand
finds a way to keep climbing
even when the keyboard ends*
This keyboard that does end
restrained in its certain beauty
beautiful in its restrained certainty
These Nordic jazzer guys…
Remember the golden rule
that goes Miles—
Don’t overplay
(let silence
have its say
* Ditto epigraph