2010 Jazz Poetry Concert Highlights

For the 3rd time in 4 years the City of Asylum/Pittsburgh’s Jazz Poetry Concert has been named the “best jazz concert of the year” by one or more Pittsburgh newspapers. “It was the best jazz concert I’ve seen in years,” Michael Machosky wrote in his annual roundup in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

At the 2010 Jazz Poetry Concert, Yusef Komunyakaa, Horacio Castellanos Moya, Khet Mar, Huang Xiang, Hinemoana Baker, and Maryia Martysevich read their work to the musical accompaniment of a 16-piece ensemble led by jazz legend Oliver Lake.

This video shows highlights of the event, which the poet Yusef Komunyakaa described as “Everyone was digging each other—wordsmiths and musicians—listening closely. If any ghosts of the Beats were hanging around the New Hazlett Theater that night, they were finally learning something about how music and words can reach an unbelievable register of bittersweet truth that’s unforgettable.”

This year the Jazz Poetry Concert will take place on September 10 at 7:30 pm on Sampsonia Way. Tar Baby will be headlining with guest Oliver Lake.