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First
Annual Jazz And Poetry Festival
Showcases Local Artists
By Junious Ricardo Stanton
About a year ago Warren Oree, a jazz musician
who in 1995 was one of the first to blend jazz and poetry in an
organized fashion in the city, and Graziella D’Amellio came up
with the idea to have a Jazz and Poetry Festival to spotlight
and honor the rich legacy of Philadelphia artists.
They put together a planning committee and
worked arduously to organize a first class festival that offered
something for everyone’s tastes that maintained the integrity,
dignity, and creative genius of the musicians, poets, and spoken
word artists. What is being billed as the first annual
Philadelphia Jazz and Poetry Festival was held this past weekend
at fourteen venues throughout the city on Friday, Saturday, and
Sunday.
Planning an event of this proportion is more
than a notion. Getting commitments, scheduling, booking venues,
and artists, securing sponsors and funding were just half the
battle.
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The other half was convincing people
that a festival blending jazz and poetry featuring
Philadelphia artists exclusively was a great idea worthy
of support. Once they accomplished that, the rest
fell in line. The organizers took advantage of
traditional venues and added new twists to planning a
festival. “We’ve
been working on this about a year,” explained Warren
Oree festival organizer, bassist and leader of the
popular Arpeggio Jazz Ensemble. “Around August
of last year me and my partner Graziella D’Amelio came
up with the idea and we went right to work.” |
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To pull off a venture of this
magnitude required the assistance and co-ordination of
numerous agencies and individuals. “The City has been
more than helpful not with actual money but in terms of
services and support that really helped us cut through a
lot of red tape and helped us promote the festival. We
had a press conference on August 5th at the
Municipal Services Building and we coupled that with
something similar to the Great Day in Harlem but we
called it the Philly Jazz Reunion and we had over a
hundred and eighty Philadelphia Jazz musicians out at
the MSB Plaza and the Mayor joined the shot. Just to get all the permits, the people in
the city were extremely helpful,” concluded Oree. The photo
was unveiled at the festival. Mayor John Street was on hand to
receive his personal copy. |
In addition to the city, they enlisted the
help of Temple’s radio station WRTI, the Philadelphia
Multicultural Affairs Congress, venues like Ortlieb’s Jazzhaus,
Chris’ Jazz Café, The Free Library, Sedgwick Cultural Center,
and entered into collaborative partnerships with support
services like Patrick Simione Photography, The Print Center, and
Color House Printing.
They were able to convince entities like UBS
Financial Services to underwrite the project financially as well
as secure in kind support from a host of professional services
and cultural organizations like The Avenue of The Arts and the
Greater Philadelphia Tourism and Marketing Council.
To promote the festival, musicians gave free
lunch time concerts in Love Park in Center City during the week.
The festival was intergenerational and specifically offered
venues to attract new devotees to jazz, poetry, and spoken word
artistry. Most of the venues and performances were free; the
ones that were not offered great bargains.
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For youngsters a free workshop in
poetry and jazz was held at the main branch of The Free
Library Friday morning. Wherever possible, jazz, poetry
and spoken word performances were blended together.
Both poetry and jazz share an openness and
inclusion best exemplified in musician jam, poetry slam,
and open mic sessions.
Photo right: John
Coltrane's legendary Cousin Mary Alexander who received
an award at the festival |
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The Philadelphia Jazz and Poetry Festival
incorporated this phenomenon by holding an open mic musician jam
session at the Rotunda on the campus of the University of
Pennsylvania Friday evening. “This open mic jam session is a
way for young college students who might not be familiar with
jazz but who enjoy spoken word to discover jazz,” explained
Stephanie Renee, a singer who organized a jazz vocal group
called The Vocal A Capella Ensemble and also one of the
festival planners and an MC of the jam session.
Oree is determined to succeed and make this
an annual event. “We didn’t want to start off with a week
long event this being our first one. We wanted to make it
manageable, find out what things we need to improve upon, what
things we need to tweak and work out in the future so when we do
expand we’ll have a little more seasoning.”
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One of Oree and D’Amelio’s major
challenges was to convince Philadelphians we should
honor our own. “I guess one of the detractors was when
we approached people about it they said, ‘We see
Philadelphia artists all the time’. But my point was
we’re not going to see them in this kind of setting
all the time. We’re creating a whole festival
atmosphere. Another thing is Philadelphia musicians need
to be recognized and supported in their own home town.
Philadelphia has always been a Mecca for innovative
musicians, the list goes on -- Coltrane, Dizzy
Gillespie, Benny Goldson, Lee Morgan -- so why not
celebrate Philadelphia musicians in their own home town.
Fortunately it seems like people are ready for
it.” Local mainstays like Sam Reed, Gerald Veasley,
Jamaladeen Tacuma, Denise King joined with poets and spoken word
artists Stephanie Renee, Pat McLean, The Unknown Poet, Wadud, Lamont “Napalm” Dixon and others to make the first annual
Philadelphia jazz and Poetry Festival a success. |
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