The frigid wind whipping across Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal rendered Issue Project Room that much more inviting, as a throng of radicals, jazz heads, and literati poured in from the cold last Tuesday to experience an evening with Amiri Baraka and Henry Grimes. Part of the IPR’s Littoral Reading Series, which explores the intersections of music and language, Tuesday’s program paired two of America’s greatest living talents in a freeform encounter between poetry and jazz.
Baraka is a founder of the Black Arts Movement, a prolific poet, playwright, and essayist, and a godfather to America’s revolutionary left. A seasoned provocateur, he has courted controversy for decades with fiery political rhetoric and a stubborn refusal to self-censor. Baraka transcends the empty sloganeering practiced by many of his peers through a profound sensitivity to language; for him, the expression of a radical black aesthetic through music and literature is an integral part of the decolonial struggle.
Grimes is one of the world’s greatest living jazz bassists. A free-jazz pioneer and relentless innovator, he has played with everyone from Sonny Rollins, Charles Mingus, and Thelonius Monk to Don Cherry, Cecil Taylor, and Albert Ayler. In the late ’60s, at the zenith of his powers, Grimes disappeared. For nearly 35 years, the legendary musician was presumed dead — until he was discovered by a social worker in 2003, living in a tiny Los Angeles apartment with volumes of poetry and no bass.
Click here part two in this series, which features an in-depth conversation with Henry Grimes.
After the jump, find a detailed account of this rare meeting of minds, photographs of the performance, and our exclusive interview with Amiri Baraka.
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