Café
Bohemia hosts West Village Word’s Neo-Beat experience
New York, NY: West Village Word, a
monthly curation at the legendary Cafe Bohemia by poet and jazz journalist John
Pietaro, launches Wednesday, February 26. This month’s artists, featured in
45-minute sets, are downtown perennials Puma Perl & Friends and rising
stars Lindsey Wilson & the Human Hearts. Pietaro’s duo SHADOWS will play a
brief opening to each set. The series, planned for the last Wednesday of each
month, will present integrated spoken word and music, conjuring Greenwich
Village's underground arts past while exploring today’s unique JazzPoetry, Neo-Beat
and Post-Punk poets.
Café Bohemia was a favorite 1950s haunt of jazz
legends such as Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Art Blakey and Cannonball Adderly as
well as the original Beat Generation writer, Jack Kerouac. The club, recently
re-opened in its original address, is already being touted as a space for a creative
community displaced by ever-rising costs. “The heritage of this place is built
into its foundation”, Café Bohemia manager Christine Santelli states. “You can
feel it. Between 1955 and ’60, most every jazz great played here and many
recorded live on the club’s stage”. The space’s history goes back to the 1940s
when, as the Pied Piper, it hosted stride piano pioneer James P. Johnson and traditional
jazz trumpeter Max Kaminsky.
With live music scheduled seven nights per week—from
the “cool” progressive and trad “hot” jazz schools, rollicking blues and folk,
and a new residency by noted singer-songwriter Michelle Shocked, the club’s
promise has quickly been realized. “All that was missing was performance
poetry”, said West Village Word curator Pietaro. “Hey, the Beats walked these
quarters”.
West Village Word
February 26, 8PM
and 10PM sets (see below)
Admission: $20 per
set
Café Bohemia 15
Barrow Street, New York NY CafeBohemia.com
-8PM: PUMA PERL & FRIENDS: This
Village poet and writer has five solo collections in print, most recently, Birthdays
Before and After (Beyond Baroque Books, 2019.) Her band paints musical portraits
behind the words: Joff Wilson, guitar; Walter Steding, violin; Danny Ray,
saxophone; Joe Sztabnik, bass; Dave Donen, drums. Pumaperl.blogspot.com
-10PM: LINDSEY WILSON & THE HUMAN
HEARTS: The singer-songwriter, poet, actress
and guitarist is a performer steeped in story-telling, social justice and the
liberation of creativity. The band includes Reggie Sylvester, drums and Michael
Trotman, bass. lindseywilsonmusic.com
