Caught in the Rhythm

...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.
DownBeat

For a decade now, saxophonist, composer, and Fulbright scholar Benjamin Boone has artfully merged the works of vital, contemporary poets with the in-the-moment creations of astute, innovative jazz musicians, first through his two critically acclaimed recordings with U.S. poet laureate Philip Levine, and most recently with 2020's The Poets Are Gathering, providing a striking platform for the spoken word. The dance of imagery and rumination set in motion by Patrick Sylvain's "Caught in the Rhythm" supplies a running theme for this exploding kaleidoscope of diverse voices, with Ambrose Akinmusire, Greg Osby, Kenny Werner and Ben Monder being a few of the interacting musical voices, offering an aural front page of dispatches, reveries, declamations, and narratives from past and present. Leave it to music, melding with shadow and light, to make the case for poetry. That's what this album—and its varied supplications to the muse—are for.

"...important poetic works in the context of sound and emotive playing. There is no line of demarcation, only artistic unity afloat in a solution of truth."
All About Jazz

Click here to listen to the album

Track Listing

1 Mississippi 1955 Confessional 6:52 (T. R. Hummer)
2 HoodWitches [Redux] 4:10 (Faylita Hicks)
3 Caught in the Rhythm 6:40 (Patrick Sylvain, feat. Ambrose Akinmusire)
4 Art Pepper 4:30 (Edward Hirsch, feat. Greg Osby)
5 We Bring the Soul to It* 4:22 (Faylita Hicks)
6 Poem 836 (Emily Dickenson) | The Diviner* 6:49 (Kimiko Hahn)
7 The Case Against Poetry 1:33 (Edward Hirsch)
8 Anger Management 3:27 (T. R. Hummer)
9 ASMR Sleepcast: The Night After Being Released from the Rural County Jail* 4:08 (Faylita Hicks)
10 Olivia Suggests All the Women in Class Imagine Male Sexuality 2:33 (Kimiko Hahn)
11 Mercy 4:05 (Tyehimba Jess)
12 Dawg, What the Fuck Ima Do With a $20?* 4:00 (Faylita Hicks)
13 You'll Be Sorry 2:34 (T. R. Hummer)

*Contains Explicit Language (2,5,6,9,12)

---