Make Jazz Not War!
an affiliation of Citizen Artists
News, Performances, Shopping
Our website is back! Technical issues, health, etc. conspired to make us miss important events and our holiday sale. The sale will now be a New Year’s sale. We changed our name, but we still have a fair amount of JazzPoetry Ensemble branded merchandise. We need to sell it so we can get new Make...
News, Note, Poetry
TARGET PRACTICE During George Floyd Summer Blacks Lives Matter signs were planted in Glen Echo with almost the frequency of spring bulbs. Diversity and inclusion wafted on the summer breeze. Refreshing. Inviting. Chasing the burnt stench of yesterday, the sweet scent of tomorrow made cliches like sweet scents on a summer breeze fresh again. I...continue reading...
News, Note
It’s been a busy couple of weeks. Two Fridays back, we played a wonderful gig at Hot Times. Then, last Sunday, we shot for our new short docu-poem, “Target Practice”. I’ll talk about that real soon. Right now: Hot Times. Ten minutes before we went on, the tent was almost empty. Ten minutes later, The Governor struck his first note for a good small crowd. As we played, the crowd filled out inside and outside the tent in the beautiful evening air. It wasn’t stifling on the stage and the monitor mix was good. Everything clicked and the crowd knew......
News, Note, Poetry
Some appreciation has been coming in for sharing the words before this Friday’s show. So here’s another piece we’ll be performing at Hot Times. (This Friday, Sept 9, 6:45. Parsons and Main.) It’s based on Gil Scttt-Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”. We took off from that with our “The Repression Will Not Be Televised”. Then NOLA Resistance did “The Resistance Will Not Be Televised”. Now we’ve got: The Counter-Revolution WILL Be Televised C#7 Racists will speak openly of “Replacement Theory” While they gang-rape critical race theory Or any race theory except the master race All on cable TV.......
Note, Poetry
At Hot Times, We’ll be performing “F.O.P.”, our new-ish piece written in response to the murder of Casey Goodson. It seems appropriate to share it here on this Labor Day weekend just after the murder of another unarmed Black man by another Columbus F.O.P. member. F O P F-ed up Our Police!Say What? F O PF-ed UP Our Police!Say What? F O PF-ed up OUR Police!Say Wh? Wait a minute.Whatchu mean OUR police? Ain’t never been OUR police!Rich white people’s police – yeah.But never OUR police. Lot of ‘em started out slave-catchers.Most of the rest were Pinkerton or the likeThey......
News, Poetry
Our newest piece (below) premiered at Comfest in June. Here’s why we play it. I got tired of hearing about how to stop violence and the dire danger of gay and books and color and blame the teachers and how bad or lazy or self-absorbed this or that generation is and and and. I got tired of sactimoniass religionists and criminalistic demagogues telling us what we can do with bed, bath, and body while themselves behaving in egregiously horrific ways that would put the rest of us in jail. I got especially tired that they don’t understand the behavior they......
Poetry
It is always our goal to have our latest performance be our best so far. Sometimes it happens. Sometimes it doesn’t. At Comfest 2022, it did. It was a beautiful warm summer evening with a light breeze. The usual parade of diversity was standing in line for gyros and hot dogs or promenading the avenues...
News, Performances
Make Jazz Not War! @ Comfest 2022 Saturday, June 25, 8:00 pm Goodale Street Stage Being a Citizen Artist doesn’t get you a lot of gigs. I can name most of them from Poets Against War to “Debbie Does Armageddon” at a ‘90s Hiroshima/Nagasaki memorial. In the last few years, being a Citizen Artist actually became a hindrance to getting gigs. Again. A lot of places stopped calling back. I understood. We didn’t stop. And now we’ve landed a great spot at Comfest! Our best festival spot ever! Saturday night @ 8:00. Now I’m not saying Citizen Artist content got us......
Note
Why “Make Jazz Not War” rather than “Make Music Not War”? My great-nephew Henry’s father asked me that. My flip pat answer is to reel off Wagner, Sousa, Dixie, Uber Alles, fight songs, and any other reference to fascistic music that pops. Music is too broad a term for a contrast with war if only...
News
That’s the JazzPoetry Ensemble’s new name! Our name is changing because we’ve changed. We’re not just a band anymore! We’re a (loose) affiliation of Citizen Artists, dedicated to using our arts for our community. We’re video and audio and productions and performance art. We’re not just musicians. We’re videographers and audio producers and graphic artists and editors and photographers and more. And we’re out to change the world! Make Jazz Not War! JazzPoetry Ensemble was a good descriptive name for its time. We were developing our art form and aesthetic, honing our style and sound. The poetry ranged widely from......
