by Julie D Andrews
| Take the narrow staircase down to the basement at Cornelia Street Café in Greenwich Village and you end up at a door. Open it and enter the tiny, dimly lit room. Past the bar at the right, some six small, round tables sit facing a stage that is barren except for a microphone. It’s the kind of place where space is so tight you're likely to sit with strangers whose appendages yours are bound to brush against as you lift a glass or cross a leg.It was the third Thursday of the month, the night designated for Po’ Jazz. Founded by Golda Solomon, poet and adjunct professor at Manhattan College, it’s an event in which spoken word and music coalesce. “Older people like to be with younger people, “says Golda, “and this is a good way to do that.” |  | | On this night, there is a lineup of student poets from Manhattan College accompanied by jazz saxophonist Saco Yasuma and jazz guitarist Ila Cantor.
With eyes beaming, Golda gets on stage and with a wink introduces her poetry students one at a time.
The tension in the air is palpable. Young poets chew nails and twist locks of hair wondering who will be called into the spotlight first. Solomon, their professor, sits front and center, a beaming fan.
Students, one by one, take the short walk to the microphone. The first reader has a smooth, melodic voice. He does not shy away from his words. “Do you love me?” he asks, glaring piercingly from the stage. Another student poet approaches the mic, meek and eager to complete her first-time-on-stage experience. Her eyes dart down, gluing to the words on the crumpled-up piece of paper in between her fingertips. The words tumble from her mouth soft and fast. When she stops reading, applause ripples through the room. A smile forms to her face -- one more genuine than I have seen in a while. She did it. Good for her. Some students ramble through their work nonplussed, while others look near mortified.
Then, amateur hour ends as the seasoned troubadours climb the stairs to the stage. The first of the trio, Frank Simone, is a native of Sugar Hill and recipient of a purple heart. He infuses his poems with jarring images. The Vietnam battlefield strewn with debris juxtaposes a bed nestling a lover’s sleeping body. His eyes are squinting. He is exasperated, then calm. He is bearing all in this spare room and the crowd is absorbing him whole. With uncanny passion, the lines flow from his mind, his heart.
Next up is Golda, her voice, poetry, stance, a blend of Maude (think 70s feel-good flick Harold and Maude) and Anne Sexton. Her voice rises and falls, peaks and slumps. It flows like a melody that has the audience hanging on to every word. The saxophone notes sway or jumble together depending on the tone of the text. I wonder how the saxophonist knows how to play which way when. Playful with her words in Ghana Gold and Old Woman Blues, Golda takes risks her students do not.
The last to speak for the evening is Joseph Lennon, professor of English at Manhattan College and poetry editor of The Recorder, the journal of the American Irish Historical Society. There he stands with his hand on his hip, turning crisp yet tender turns of phrase. “Walls wept” in his poems. Whereas Golda’s reading was spirited, almost theatrical, Lennon spoke in a measured, subdued voice, carefully dropping words and injecting long pauses between phrases.
There are few things Solomon, a 60ish woman of enviable energy, doesn’t do. After dabbling in a career as a speech therapist, the Brooklyn native became a communications professor. She discovered poetry in her 40s after a divorce. “Poetry,” she says “is my white horse.” About ten years ago, she had an idea to start the JazzJaunts -- a business that designs individualized jazz venue excursions for groups of four to six people -- with a travel agent friend. Two weeks before the project was to begin, her business partner backed out. But, Solomon’s plans didn’t crumble. She’s been running JazzJaunts ever since. When making arrangements for a JazzJaunts -- which spans four hours and costs $150 plus the cover charge for the club -- she caters to the tastes of her clients. She admits, though, to relishing the music joints that are a little “out there” and off the trodden path most. After a show, she’ll introduce her guests to the musicians or take them back stage if she knows the performers well.
Over dinner at a French bistro at Broadway and 85th, Solomon tells me about the new jazz clubs opening in Harlem, and how delighted she that one in particular has just reopened. She talks about the artist residencies in Tribeca (buildings I never knew existed) and an avant-garde performance called Chorus of Poets for which she’s rehearsing. There’s the cd she’s produced, Jazz Tonight: Downstairs at Cornelia Street (among others), and the book of poetry she wrote, Flatbush Cowgirl. Then, there’s the book she has coming out next spring Never More than a Borough Away, Brooklyn Bops.
As we part ways, she’s torn. What to do: The jazz show at the club under the Brooklyn Bridge? Or, the club at Avenue C and Houston? One thing is clear. The “medicine woman of jazz” knows her stuff. She lives it.
Sharing Secrets ... here are Golda’s top picks for jazz venues in the city:
Jazz Standard
Village Vanguard
The Stone
Minton’s
Lennox Lounge |
| JazzJaunts
Individualized jazz excursions for 2-6 people
$150 for excursion plus cover charges
$100 for a designer itinerary of a jazz jauntE-mail |
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