The Poets Are Gathering

Benjamin Boone's most ambitious recording yet... a superb arsenal of poets who unravel their works with razor-sharp conviction and clarity... wondrous... like engrossing short films, all of which demand concentrated engagement.
John Murph, DownBeat Magazine

The Poets Are Gathering is the third in a series of acclaimed recordings from saxophonist/composer Benjamin Boone that integrate the music & poems from some of America's leading jazz musicians and Poet Laureates, Guggenheim fellows and Pulitzer Prize winners. Where The Poetry of Jazz volumes offered the voice of the late U.S. Poet Laureate Philip Levine, here, notable contributors include Tyehimba Jess, Juan Felipe Herrera, Patricia Smith, T.R. Hummer, and Edward Hirsch, along with pianist Kenny Werner, guitarist Ben Monder and drummer Ari Hoenig, among many others. This recording possesses a visceral, in-the-moment force as the poetry responds to the roiling, insurgent energies against racism and other societal ills. The themes of immigration, racism, homelessness, poverty, abuse, protests, and war can overwhelm and distress, but through the voices of some of the world's great literary minds there are clues to be found to absorb the blows, summon the spirits, engage the moment and as Tyehimba Jess suggests, "murder the silence" that threatens to immobile us, to keep us away from the reasons to commit, to deal, to hope - and, above all, to imagine.

"Outrage over broken social contracts feeds the raw creative expression that Boone commands so masterfully... mesmeric spontaneous composition... meticulous word-craft. A forceful dialectic." Suzanne Lorge, DownBeat Magazine

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Track Listing

1. That's My Son There 3:32 Patricia Smith
2. Marooning 3:45 Patrick Sylvain
3. Against Silence 4:34 Tyehimba Jess
4. Poem By Poem 3:40 Juan Felipe Herrera
5. Deconstruction of Idols 8:21 Dustin Prestridge
6. Truths 5:25 Lee Herrick
7. The Poets Are Gathering 11:45 Juan Felipe Herrera
8. Song 2:37 Edward Hirsch
9. Spiral 3:40 Marisol Baca
10. The Sun One (Homage to Sun Ra) 2:45 T. R. Hummer
11. Your Man* 2:38 Patricia Smith
12. Impervious Blue 2:44 T. R. Hummer
13. Black Man 3:51 Donald Brown, II
14. Ports of Sorrow 4:29 Patrick Sylvain
15. Branch Library 1:55 Edward Hirsch
16. These Current Events* 6:07 Kimiko Hahn

*Contains Explicit Language (11,16)

All Poems © by the listed Poets
Music arranged and published by Benjamin Boone, Vester Music, ASCAP
1,3,5,7,9,10,15,16 by Benjamin Boone
2 by Benjamin Boone & Kenny Werner
4 by Craig VonBerg
6 by Benjamin Boone & Craig VonBerg
8,11,14 by David Aus
12 by Hashem Assadullahi & Peter Brendler
13 by Benjamin Boone with Donald Brown, II

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