Jazz Appreciation Month and National Poetry Month come together April 10-14 on Trinity University’s radio station for Jazz Poetry Week.
Each day from noon-1 p.m. on KRTU 91.7 FM, San Antonio National Poetry Month coordinator Jim LaVilla-Havelin will present a range of jazz poetry from the 1940s to today, drawing a line from Langston Hughes to outgoing San Antonio poet laureate Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson.
Well-known as a poet, singer and songwriter, Sanderson will join LaVilla-Havelin live in the studio on Monday, her last day as poet laureate, with Nephtali De León scheduled to be sworn in during an evening investiture ceremony at City Hall.
Other San Antonio-based studio guests will include “neo-Beat” jazz poetry scholar Catherine “Jazz Cat” Lee on Tuesday, songwriting musician Bett Butler will visit Wednesday, followed by Fernando Esteban Flores of poetry group Voces Cósmicas on Thursday.
LaVilla-Havelin said longtime local jazz bassist George Prado plans to visit the studio during the week, and Prado’s pianist son Aaron might pop in as well to add to the lineup of live performances. Eduardo Garza of Jazz Poets of San Antonio might also stop by, LaVilla-Havelin said.
Live performances are “part of the essence of jazz poetry,” he said. “Though we play a lot of recordings, it’s a whole lot stronger, better, richer and more textured when it’s live.”
Planned recordings will feature stalwarts of jazz poetry history including Beat poets Allen Ginsberg and Kenneth Patchen, Austin poet Raúl R. Salinas, Brazilian jazz singer and composer Luciana Souza, and recent U.S. poet laureate Joy Harjo, who also plays the saxophone.
Saxophonist Richard Oppenheim, perhaps best known in San Antonio as president of the American Federation of Musicians union Local 23, will join the lineup with selections from the 2004 album A Mumbai of the Mind recorded with vocalist Katharine Cartwright, combining Western jazz with Indian instrumentation and rhythms.
Jazz Poetry Week will also pay tribute to two San Antonio poets who died within the past year, Wendy Barker and Rosemarie Catalocos, said LaVilla-Havelin.
The broadcasts are part of the Department of Arts and Culture’s National Poetry Month San Antonio programming, and LaVilla-Havelin is proud of the prominent local presence on KRTU.
“It is a very interestingly homegrown week,” he said, with a “powerful, funny, rich mix of work. I think anybody who listens will hear something that they can find of interest.”
This story has been updated to reflect the Department of Arts and Culture’s sponsorship of National Poetry Month San Antonio.
