Doggerel: An Evening with Reginald Dwayne Betts at Real Art Ways

Skip to main content
Doggerel: An Evening with Reginald Dwayne Betts
Join us on Monday, June 16, 6:00 pm for a reading and conversation with author Reginal Dwayne Betts to celebrate the launch of his new book, Doggerel. 

“Doggerel is an apt name for this lovely collection, with the canine hidden in plain sight in its title and coursing through so many of the poems. Betts manages to capture essences of memory, of hope or loss, of oft-overlooked everydayness—in a way that feels surprising and familiar at once.”—Dr. Alexandra Horowitz, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know

With his transcendent collection of poetry, Felon (Norton, 2019), Reginald Dwayne Betts became our foremost chronicler of the ways prison shapes and transforms American masculinity.

A 2021 MacArthur Fellow, Betts is also celebrated for his work as a lawyer and the founder and director of Freedom Reads, a first-of-its-kind organization that is radically transforming access to literature in prison.

Published on the twentieth anniversary of Betts’s release from prison, DOGGEREL is a majestic new volume of poetry that marks a transformative stage in his life and career. This resplendent tableau ruminates on dogs and the ostensibly trivial joys that transform us—peonies blooming, a “symphony” of wine glasses, father-son bike rides, basketball, seeing and being seen, surrendering to a lover’s touch. Channeling dogs both literally and metaphorically, these poems trace everything from the companionship of Betts’s own Jack Russell Terrier to the ways we are dogged by our deepest desires for connection, love, and repair.

On the volume’s title page, Betts offers two definitions of doggerel (DAW-guh-ruhl):

1. of verse: comic, burlesque, and usually composed in irregular rhythm. Also: (of verse or writing) badly composed or expressed; trivial.

2. nah, just a Black man writing poems about his dog, all the dogs he encounters on the street, how having an extra four feet changed his world, then he falls in love.

Betts’s poems then pull us into a revelatory lyrical world. Deploying the pantoum, ghazal, and canzone, he excavates companionship and what it means to bear witness.

This event is FREE to the public, but will require advance registration.

Books will be sold onsite by River Bend Bookshop, on the day of the event. Concessions will be open and available if guests want to purchase beverages, popcorn, and snacks.

Reginald Dwayne Betts is the author of three books of poetry, including the best-selling Felon. He is a poet, lawyer, and the founder and CEO of Freedom Reads.

(Photo courtesy of the publisher, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.)

 

Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber (Summer Concert)
BURNT SUGAR THE ARKESTRA CHAMBER’S first New England tour kicks off at Real Art Ways and supports their latest release, If You Can’t Dazzle Them With Your Brilliance Then Baffle Them With Your Blisluth Pt. Two, and their latest sonic “play pen,” The Burnt Sugar SmokeHouse!  Each Show of “Never Playing Anything the Same Way Once” will be special unto itself.

This concert is made possible with generosity from the Evelyn W. Preston Memorial Trust Fund, Bank of America, N.A.,Trustee.

“Burnt Sugar’s double live opus If You Can’t Dazzle Them With Your Brilliance Then Baffle Them With Your Blisluth, first released on two CD-Rs in 2005 and now available on Bandcamp, documents key portions of several gigs from spring and summer 2004, including one — from the Vision Festival, the group’s first appearance there — that I was actually present for. Dubbed “Himatsuri (Fire Festival)” on disc, it’s a roughly 45-minute, slowly evolving performance that balances horns, strings, and some unearthly vocalizing, and the lineup was absolutely stacked, including Matana Roberts on alto sax, Mazz Swift on violin, and Shahzad Ismaily on banjo and bass. It was easily the most exciting thing I saw at the VF that year.

Well, now they’ve released a second volume, which features performances recorded in Detroit and Ohio in 2022, plus some studio additions from 2024. Over the years, Burnt Sugar transformed from a genre-less improvising ensemble to a shit-hot funk-rock band with a wild streak. They did shows where they tackled the music of other artists, albeit never becoming a mere “cover band”, and there are versions of Steely Dan’s “Black Cow” and the Ohio Players’ “Pain” (here retitled “Back Pain”, because they’re playing it backwards) that couldn’t be anyone but Burnt Sugar. But it’s the original conduction/composition/improvisations here that prove that even in the absence of founder Greg Tate (bassist Jared Michael Nickerson is leading things now), they still sound like no one else.” – Phil Freeman/Burning Ambulance

“Electric Miles with soul, Maggot Brain with a PHD, the Hendrix Evans band of dreams, the underwater funk some hear in A.R. Kane.” – Robert Christgau

Burnt Sugar Arkestra Chamber is “a territory band, a neo-tribal thang, a community hang, a society music guild aspiring to the condition of all that is molten, glacial, racial, spacial, oceanic, mythic, antiphonal and telepathic.” – the late Greg Tate

“Listening/watching Burnt Sugar play live is an intense, amazing experience. A band of equals, where every single unique note is part of the game. If there existed a place where Sun Ra’s Arkestra would meet George Clinton’s Funkadelic/Parliament, it’s there that you will find Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber.” – Pino Saulo/Rai Radio

Playing on June 6th are:

Shelley Nicole – Vocals/Conduction

Miss Olithea – Vocals/Electronics

Bruce Mack – Vocals/Conduction

Lewis “Flip” Barnes – Trumpet

“Moist” Paula Henderson – Bari Sax

Leon Gruenbaum – Keyboards/Samchillian/Talk Box

Ben Tyree – Electric Guitar

Marque Gilmore Tha Inna Most – Trap Drums/Electronics/Conduction

Jared Michael Nickerson – Electric Bubble Bass

 

BSAC will be supporting their latest release – If You Can’t Dazzle Them With Your Brilliance Then Baffle Them With Your Blisluth, Pt. Two – and will include a “Burnt Sugar SmokeHouse” element in these June New England performances. The “SmokeHouse” is where you’ll find BSAC-member-led bands performing short sizzlin’ hot sets.

 

Coo Dank Off The Top of The Dome Conduction

Take a listen to more Burnt Sugar on Bandcamp: https://burntsugarthearkestrachamber.bandcamp.com

After Progress
Adam Viens
Real Art Ways presents After Progress, a solo exhibition by Adam Viens 

Viens is a mixed-media artist whose work delves into concepts of time, perception, memory, and philosophy. As a physical representation of intellectual and emotional processes, Viens’ work presents a combination of frantic, improvisational technique and slow, interpretive contemplation.  The result is admittedly abstract however, frequently edging in and out of vague spatial representation. 

After Progress is predicated on personal interpretation, explains Viens, “The work is not didactic, it is not a declaration. It is an invitation…Being an artist becomes a lens in which we see all of life and yet,  who we are in the wider world requires different ways of thinking; different ways of being.  These works explore some of those component parts within the variety of experiences and why there tends to be a disconnect between what we feel our lives should be and how we actually live them.  Numerous visual languages are used to create tension.   The works include both natural processes (the raw chemistry and elemental properties of the medium) as well as mark- making used in trade work, scrawling  done by the human hand, and large sweeping gestures.  This alludes to the conflict between thinking and feeling.”  

After Progress is curated by Peter Albano.

About the Artist

Viens is a mixed media artist from Connecticut.  Born in December, 1989, in Rockville, CT, Adam was raised one of five siblings to a single mother and grew up playing in the woods on their property amongst the refuse of what used to be an unofficial town dump.  Adam was initially self taught but did attend Manchester Community College in his early twenties where he fine tuned his skills and understanding with the help of the fantastic faculty at the time.  No fancy programs or degrees.  Adam continues pursuing a career as an artist in his converted barn studio in Middletown, CT.  In 2019 he started a contracting company, EarthSake Initiatives that specializes in design-driven, eco- renovations and in 2023 started a sister company, EarthSake Studios that utilizes reclaimed materials from job sites to make unique, bespoke furniture.  While still participating in exhibitions throughout New England, Viens art and furniture can be found at Monger’s Market in Bridgeport, CT.

 

Improvisations Now
Experience music imagined and created in real-time. This series runs from September 2024 to May 2025. Check out the full schedule here!
May 4 Performance:

Larry Ochs-tenor, soprano saxophone

Larry Ochs works on and breathes music. He composes. He plays saxophone. He looks for adventurous ideas to take on and for other artists – musicians and friends in other art mediums – to take them on with him.

Ochs is primarily found in the worlds of “avant-garde” or “improvised music.” That means that he composes music for “structured improvisation” in general, and in particular for musicians steeped in the art of improvisation, an art form that has really only come into its own in Western music in the past 50 years, primarily thanks to the development of jazz as influenced by the blues and then by Western art music, as well as to the increased exposure of Western musicians to the music of Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe.

But any artists in the visual arts or other performance-based arts that have an interest in taking chances are welcomed in. Thus, for example, he has worked with Shinichi Iova Koga and his dance group inkBoat; he and Rova have collaborated with We Players, a very cool theater company in the Bay Area, and has toured and recorded with Korean performance artist and vocalist Dohee Lee.

Learn more about Larry here.

 

Avram Fefer/Sean Conly/Michael Wimberly
Sound It Out NYC, November 10, 2018

Michael Wimberly-drums

Wimberly was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio during the civil rights era surrounded by the toxic fumes of steel mills buoyed by a sea of blue-collar workers. This is where Wimberly’s early beginnings in soul, funk, rock, jazz, and classical music began. Beating rhythms on the hoods of cars and boxes while dancing to the pulsating music of James Brown, Sly Stone, Funkadelic, and Aretha Franklin…the spirit of revolution was in the air.

It was during Wimberly’s undergraduate years at Baldwin Wallace University that the rhythms from the streets connected him to the rhythms of West Africa and 20th century contemporary music. During his graduate years at Manhattan School of Music, Wimberly broadened his musical palette studying electronic and improvised music. Music of the African Diaspora and improvisation has become key components of Wimberly’s musical excavations and explorations. These explorations connected him with master musicians from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, South America and Europe. He’s performed with funk legends George Clinton and the Parliament Funkedelic; The Boys Choir of Harlem; Paul Winter Consort; rock icons: Vernon Reid, Henry Rollins, and Blondie; R&B royalty: Dionne Warwick, Valerie Simpson, D’Angelo, Angie Stone and Alyson Williams. Wimberly has been a featured artist with Berlin’s Rundfunk Symphony, Vienna’s Tonkuntsler Symphony, Leipzig Symphony, and International Region Symphony Orchestra performing compositions of Daniel Schnyder, as well as his own orchestral compositions performed by Yakima Symphony Orchestra, and Sage City Symphony of Vermont.

As a composer and sound designer, Wimberly’s compositions have been performed by dance companies Urban Bush Women, Joffrey Ballet II, Alvin Ailey, Ailey II, Philadanco, Forces of Nature Dance Theatre, Joan Millers Dance Players, Complexions Contemporary Ballet, Ballet Noir, Alpha Omega, Purelements, and The National Song and Dance Company of Mozambique. Film scores include As An Act of Protest by Dennis Leroy Moore, and Atlantic City Lights by Brent Owens for HBO. Sound design for theatre includes Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream for the Classical Theatre of Harlem, Saint Lucy’s Eyes by Bridgette Wimberly for the Women’s Project & Cherry Lane Theatre, and Iced Out, Shackled and Chained for the National Black Theatre for which Wimberly received two Audelco nominations.

Wimberly’s percussion instruction book/DVD “Getting Started on Djembe” and “Getting Started on Cajon” have received outstanding reviews and is available from Hudson Music/Hal Leonard publications. His latest album, “Afrofuturism” on the Temple Mountain Record label (TMR) distributed on Warner Music Group/Level, can be accessed on all major streaming sources. Wimberly joined the Bennington faculty in Fall 2012, where the revolutionary spirit continues in his courses on black music by Sun Ra, Bill Dixon, and Milford Graves, and regenerates through courses on Funk, Improvisation, Composition for Dance, and global rhythms.

Learn more about Michael here.

 

Joe Morris-bass

Joe Morris is a composer/improviser multi-instrumentalist who plays guitar, double bass, mandolin, banjo, banjouke electric bass and drums. He is also a recording artist, educator, record producer, concert producer/curator and author. His is considered to be one of the most original and important improvising musicians of our time. Down Beat magazine called him “the preeminent free music guitarist of his generation.” Will Montgomery, writing in The Wire magazine called him “one of the most profound improvisers at work in the U.S.”

He is originally from New Haven, Connecticut. At the age of 12 he took lessons on the trumpet for one year. He started on guitar in 1969 at the age of 14. He played his first professional gig later that year. With the exception of a few lessons he is self-taught. The influence of Jimi Hendrix and other guitarists of that period led him to concentrate on learning to play the blues. Soon thereafter his sister gave him a copy of John Coltrane’s OM, which inspired him to learn about Jazz and New Music. From age 15 to 17 he attended The Unschool, a student-run alternative high school near the campus of Yale University in downtown New Haven. Taking advantage of the open learning style of the school he spent much of his time playing music with other students, listening to ethnic folk, blues, jazz, and classical music on record at the public library and attending the various concerts and recitals on the Yale campus, including performances by Wadada Leo Smith. He worked to establish his own voice on guitar in a free jazz context from the age of 17, drawing on the influence of Coltrane, Miles Davis, Cecil Taylor,Thelonius Monk, Ornette Coleman as well as the AACM, BAG, and the many European improvisers of the ’70s. Later he would draw influence from traditional West African string music, Messian, Ives, Eric Dolphy, Jimmy Lyons, Leroy Jenkins, Steve McCall and Fred Hopkins. After high school he performed in rock bands, rehearsed in jazz bands and played totally improvised music with friends until 1975 when he moved to Boston.

Learn more about Joe here.

The Generous Exchange Book Launch
Presenting in partnership with the Hartford Public Library…Please join us on Saturday, April 26, 4:00 pm for a conversation with author Dr. Maria Sirois to celebrate the launch of her new book, The Generous Exchange: How Attention to Beauty, Goodness, and Excellence Restores Us and Our World.

“Maria Sirois is a healer, of people and of communities. And when she turns her attention and voice to healing our global village, I feel more optimistic about what lies ahead. This profound book is a gift to you and to our shared future.” – Tal Ben Shahar, Ph.D, author of Happier, No Matter What

PROGRAM:

4:00 PM: Interview with the author
4:30 PM: Interactive audience activity
4:45 PM: Q&A
5:15 PM: Book Signing

This event is FREE to the public and requires advance registration.

Books will be sold onsite on the day of the event, courtesy of River Bend Bookshop. Concessions will be open and available if guests want to purchase beverages, popcorn, and snacks.

 

Maria Sirois, Psy.D. has spent more than three decades in the board rooms of businesses, the bedsides of the dying, and everywhere in between – to do one thing: offer the data, stories, tools and perspectives that enable us to cultivate resilience, health, wisdom and a greater capacity to lead ourselves and others well – no matter the strain or suffering of the moment. As a resilience expert, positive psychologist and international consultant, she is known for her authenticity, wisdom and compassion. She is the author of three books: the newly released, The Generous Exchange: How Attention to Beauty, Goodness and Excellence Restores Us and Our World, A Short Course in Happiness After Loss (And Other Dark, Difficult Times) and Every Day Counts.

Learn more about Maria Sirois here.

 

A Community Gathering & Concert Celebrating Zaccai and Luques Curtis
Saturday, March 15, at 7 pm – Real Art Ways, in partnership with the Greater Hartford Arts Council, Hartford Jazz Society, Greater Hartford Festival of Jazz, Artists Collective, WWUH, Jackie McLean Institute at The Hartt School, and Hartford Public Library, presents a concert and community celebration featuring the Curtis Brothers & Friends!

On February 2, 2025, pianist-composer Zaccai Curtis, along with his bandmates Luques Curtis, Willie Martinez, Camilo Molina and Reinaldo De Jesus, achieved their first-ever GRAMMY® win for Zaccai Curtis’ album Cubop Lives! in the Best Latin Jazz Album category.

Released on Truth Revolution Recording Collective last May, Cubop Lives! is a vibrant homage to the Afro-Cuban Jazz and Bebop tradition, performed by the renowned rising star. This award represents a significant milestone in Zaccai’s career, and we are incredibly proud of these superb musicians.

 

Performing on Saturday, March 15, are:

Zaccai Curtis – piano

Luques Curtis – bass

Reinaldo De Jesus – percussion

Willie Martinez – timbales

Marcos Torres – percussion

Special guest Jeremy Bosch – flute

Damian Curtis & Friends:

Damian Curtis – piano

Benny Velasquez  – bass

Miguel Rios – drums

Nelson Bello – congas

Ray Gonzalez – trumpet

Anthony De Leon  – trombone

 

This event is made possible with generous support from the Greater Hartford Arts Council.

WWUH is the official media sponsor for the event.

 

 

     

Zaccai Curtis is an acclaimed recording artist and producer, recently honored with the 2025 Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album. He leads his own groups, the Zaccai Curtis Quintet and Sonido Solar, and after five successful releases, is set to drop his new album Sonoluminescence in 2025.

Together with his brother, Luques, Zaccai co-founded the record label TRRcollective, a collaborative space for musicians to produce and release their own music. He is proud to have produced the Grammy-nominated album Entre Colegas by Andy González (2016).

A native of Connecticut, Zaccai moved to New York City in 2005, where he has performed with renowned artists including Christian Scott, Donald Harrison, Santana, Cindy Blackman, Eddie Palmieri, Brian Lynch, the Mambo Legends, and Avery Sharpe. In addition to his performance career, Zaccai is a respected educator, teaching at the University of Hartford’s Jackie McLean Jazz Studies Division and Western Connecticut State University. He is also an author, having written two instructional books: Art of the Guajeo and Theory of the Common Voicing, which support students in their Jazz and Latin Jazz studies.

A three-time ASCAP Young Jazz Composer Award winner, Zaccai is a prolific composer and arranger for his own groups, as well as artists like Little Johnny Rivero, Steve Kroon, and Sonido Solar. His quartet was chosen by the U.S. State Department for the American Music Abroad (Jazz Ambassadors) program twice, touring South Asia in 2006. In 2007, he received the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism’s Artist Fellowship for original composition. In 2017, he was awarded the Chamber Music America’s New Jazz Works grant, and in 2020, he was named Rising Star in the DownBeat Critics Poll.

Luques Curtis was born 1983 in Hartford, CT. After having formal training on piano and percussion, he found himself wanting to play the bass. Luques studied at the Greater Hartford Academy of Performing Arts, Artist Collective, and Guakia with Dave Santoro, Volcan Orham, Nat Reeves, Paul Brown, and others. While attending high school, he was also very fortunate to study the Afro-Caribbean genre with bass greats Andy Gonzalez and Joe Santiago. With his talent and hard work he earned a full scholarship to the prestigious Berklee College Of Music in Boston. There he studied with John Lockwood and Ron Mahdi. While in Boston he was also able to work with great musicians such as Gary Burton, Ralph Peterson, Donald Harrison, Christian Scott, and Francisco Mela.

Now living in the New York area, Mr. Curtis has been performing worldwide with Eddie Palmieri, Stefon Harris, Ralph Peterson, Christian Scott, Sean Jones, Orrin Evans, Christian Sands, and others. He is the recent recipient of the 2016 Down Beat Rising Star Bassist on the Critics Poll and also received the Ralph Bunche Fellowship to complete his Masters Degree at the Mason Gross School of the Arts. He co-owns a record label called Truth Revolution Records along side his brother, Zaccai. They have five releases under “Curtis Brothers” with the most recent being “Algorithm.” Luques was also part of Brian Lynch’s Grammy-winning CD “Simpatico” and Grammy-nominated “Madera Latino,” as well as Christian Scott’s Grammy-nominated CD “Rewind That.” He also produced Grammy-nominated “Entre Colegas” by Andy Gonzalez. You can hear him on Eddie Palmieri’s “Sabiduria” and “Mi Luz Mayor;” Gary Burton “Next Generations;” Dave Valentin “Come Fly With Me;” Sean Jones’ “Im*Pro*Vise,” “Roots,””Kaleidoscope,” and “The Search Within;” Orrin Evans’ CD “Faith In Action.” As a sideman, Luques Curtis has participated in over 100 recordings.

 

North Sun Book Launch Party
Join us on Friday, March 14, 6:30 pm for a conversation with author Ethan Rutherford to celebrate the launch of his new book, North Sun, or the Voyage of the Whaleship Esther

“NORTH SUN is a deeply wonderful, strange and magnificent book. I swam through its unique pages with glee and horror and joy and came up for air gasping at what a deeply brilliant writer Ethan Rutherford is. The novel is completely exhilarating.”- Edward Carey, author of Little, The Swallowed Man, and Edith Holler: A Novel

“This book is bonkers and I loved every rollicking, awkward, solemn, gorgeously written, isolated, melancholic, beautiful moment I spent with Arnold Lovejoy, his thoughts, his crew, the unending ice, and the sea, the empty-not-so-empty sea. Ethan Rutherford’s NORTH SUN is a damn harrowing sorrowful delight.”—Manuel Gonzales, author of The Miniature Wife and The Regional Office is Under Attack!

“Haunting, hallucinatory, and unrelentingly gorgeous, NORTH SUN feels as real as a history and as strange as a myth. The depths of Rutherford’s imagination left me enraptured and unsettled. This is the kind of book that will keep talking to you long after you’ve finished reading.” – Jennifer duBois, author of The Last Language

“I don’t know how, but Ethan Rutherford did it: He wrote Moby Dick for our times.”- Emily Barton, author of Brookland and The Book of Esther

“The evocative first novel from Rutherford (after the story collection Farthest South) depicts the end of the whaling era in the late 1870s. Worn-out captain Arnold Lovejoy is tasked by whaling baron Mr. Ashley with retrieving his son-in-law, Benjamin Leander, who’s gone native on the Alaskan coast after his ship was crushed by the ice, leaving his wife Sarah and their frail child behind. Accompanying Captain Lovejoy aboard the whaleship Esther are two others with tasks of their own: mysterious passenger Edmund Thule and a presence unseen by most, a seabird-man spirit named Old Sorrel who
begins to haunt the crew halfway through the voyage.

As Lovejoy sails the Esther to the Chukchi Sea north of Alaska in search of Leander, his crew hunts whales for oil and sport. Chronicling in brisk and poetic prose their numerous travails, needless deaths, and hidden perversions, Rutherford plumbs the depths men will sink to in extracting what they desire from nature and their fellow man. This harsh and stark ballad of a bygone time will move readers.” – Publishers Weekly

PROGRAM:

6:00 – Doors Open

6:30 – 6:45 – Poet Clare Rossini will open the program

6:45 – 7:15 – Ethan will show a short presentation and read an excerpt from North Sun

7:15 – 8:00 PM – Book signing

Music courtesy of Sinan Bakir

This event is FREE to the public, but will require advance registration.

Books will be sold onsite by River Bend Bookshop, on the day of the event. Concessions will be open and available if guests want to purchase beverages, popcorn, and snacks.

(Photo of Ethan Rutherford by Lou Russo)

Ethan Rutherford is the author of two story collections—Farthest South and The Peripatetic Coffin and Other Stories—and for these works has been named a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, a finalist for the John Leonard Prize and CLMP’s Firecracker Award, received honorable mention for the PEN/Hemingway Award, was a
Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and was the winner of a Minnesota Book Award.

North Sun, or the Voyage of the Whaleship Esther is his first novel.

 

The Neck: A Natural and Cultural History
Join us on Saturday, February 22, 4:00 pm for a conversation with author Kent Dunlap to celebrate the launch of his new book, The Neck: A Natural and Cultural History

“Attitude and attention, thought and speech, movement and sensation, air and sustenance, they all depend on the neck….Mr. Dunlap’s fascinating discourse travels through anatomy, paleontology, anthropology, the arts, the zoo, museums, medicine, murder and more.” – WSJ

A 300-million-year tour of the prominent role of the neck in animal evolution and human culture.

Humans give a lot of attention to the neck. We decorate it with jewelry and ties, kiss it passionately, and use it to express ourselves in words and songs. Yet, at the neck, people have also shackled their prisoners, executed their opponents, and slain their victims. Beyond the drama of human culture, animals have evolved their necks into various shapes and uses vital to their lifestyles. The Neck delves into evolutionary time to solve a living paradox—why is our neck so central to our survival and culture but so vulnerable to injury and disease?

Biologist Kent Dunlap shows how the neck’s vulnerability is not simply an unfortunate quirk of evolution. Its weaknesses are intimately connected to the vessels, pipes, and glands that make it vital to existence. Fun and far-reaching, The Neck explores the diversity of forms and functions of the neck in humans and other animals and shows how this small anatomical transition zone has been a locus of incredible evolutionary and cultural creativity.

PROGRAM:

4:00 – 4:30 – Refreshments

4:30 – 5:00 – Kent will be interviewed by Tema Kaiser Silk from New England Public Media

5:00 – 5:30 – Audience Q&A

5:30 – 6:00 – Book signing

This event is FREE to the public, but will require advance registration.

Books will be sold onsite by River Bend Bookshop, on the day of the event. Concessions will be open and available if guests want to purchase beverages, popcorn, and snacks.

Photo by Nick Caito

Kent Dunlap is a Professor of Biology at Trinity College in Hartford, where he teaches physiology and anatomy and researches the neurobiology and behavior of fish (animals without necks!). In the summers, he makes pottery and sculpts ceramic animals.

 

Distant Bystander
Priya N. Green
Real Art Ways presents Distant Bystander; a solo exhibition by Priya N. Green 

Priya N. Green’s work delves into the fragile interplay between sight, perception, and reality. Anchored in the relentless repetition of images from the 24-hour news cycle, Green’s paintings grapple with the tension between agitation and desensitization. This constant barrage of mediated visuals shapes her response: a search for emotional connection amidst the noise.

Rooted in large-scale oil paintings, Green’s recent series draws from found images of protests and crowds in India. As the daughter of Indian immigrants, Priya’s art has long been a way of tracing her ties to family and heritage. Yet, technology complicates these connections. Screens, paradoxically, bring us closer while magnifying a sense of distance. They serve as both portals and barriers, framing the world while distancing us from its immediacy.

During the pandemic, this dissonance became sharper, as life was filtered through glowing devices. Priya N. Green’s paintings are an exploration of this modern condition—our yearning for presence in an increasingly mediated reality.

Distant Bystander was curated by Peter Albano.

About the Artist

Priya N. Green (b. 1986 New Jersey) is an artist whose layered oil paintings explore ideas of reality and perception through the pervasive images found in the news. Green’s work forms a response to the phenomenological impact of abs orbing information and seeking truth through the screen. She uses the materiality of paint to address the veracity of the photographic images that have penetrated the twenty-first century psyche. As the granddaughter of a Bollywood screenwriter, Green believes her fascination with images is an inherited trait. By extracting and manipulating these images through paint, she forms an emotional connection to these events that are otherwise intangibly experienced through a screen.

Green received a BFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University and an MFA from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Green has shown her work nationally at many institutions including the Jersey City Museum, University Museum of Contemporary Art, Zimmerli Art Museum, and the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. In 2023, Green had her first museum solo exhibition at the D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts at the Springfield Museums in Springfield, MA. She has been recognized with numerous awards including the international Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant and a fellowship from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. In 2023, Green’s work was featured in John Seed’s book More Disruption: Representation in Flux, a poignant survey of forty-three internationally acclaimed painters whose works address issues of realism within contemporary painting. Green’s work is collected both privately and in public institutions such as the Springfield Museums, University Museum of Contemporary Art at UMass Amherst, Forbes Library, and Western New England University.

Green lives and works in Springfield, MA with her husband, artist Andrae Green, and their three children.

 

Thin Ice
Joseph Smolinski
Real Art Ways presents Thin Ice; a solo exhibition by Joseph Smolinski. 

Thin Ice, 2020

Digital animation, 6 min. 31 sec.

I was born in the 1970’s shortly after the Oil Embargo that brought our country to a halt. The period of 1975-1980 was a missed opportunity to learn from our unsustainable addiction to fossil fuels and embrace innovative new green technologies. In hindsight, this inaction has set us on a course of grave danger all while marketing campaigns from corporate entities steered popular culture away from the environmental movement of the time. I distinctly remember watching 80’s automotive commercials from Ford, Dodge and Chevrolet of rugged trucks ripping through the landscape and performing off-road feets in slow motion. Phrases like “Built Ford Tough” and “Like a Rock” were designed to perpetuate toxic masculinity with little regard to sustainability. These tropes come from a long line of colonial views of the environment in which a landscape must be tamed and conquered. Thin Ice is an animation project that draws from formulaic American truck commercials and my memories of growing up in Minnesota. Each Spring the nightly news would air reports of the latest automobile stranded and sinking through the thinning ice of area lakes. Fueled by automotive fetishism and masculine folly this moving image is a striking metaphor of the state of the environment.

-Joseph Smolinksi

Thin Ice was curated by David Borawski

About the Artist

Joseph Smolinski is a multidisciplinary artist and educator who lives and works in New Haven, CT. His practice questions the shifting roles of technology within communication networks, energy, and oil companies, and the industrial, agricultural infrastructure, which indelibly shape the so-called natural environment. Smolinski received his BFA from the University of Wisconsin (1999) and his MFA from the University of Connecticut, Storrs (2001). Group exhibition venues include Diverse Works, Houston, TX; MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA; Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, CT; McDonough Museum of Art, Youngstown, OH; Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT. Solo exhibitions include Mixed Greens Gallery, NY; Swarm Gallery, Oakland, CA; Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT; and ArtSpace, New Haven, CT. His work has been discussed in Art in America, The Boston Globe, The New York Times, and Art Papers. He is a recipient of the Connecticut Commission of the Arts 2012 Artist Fellowship, the 2014 Distinguished Visiting Scholar in the College of the Environment at Wesleyan University, and a 2012 Artist Resource Trust Grant from the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation. He has been an artist in residence at Wassaic Projects, 2021 and the Happy and Bob Doran Connecticut AIR Program at Yale University Art Gallery and Artspace, New Haven.

 

Real Wall
Bethani Blake
Real Art Ways presents artwork by Bethani Blake 

Blake translates a present day world which depicts personal nostalgia, recontextualizing appropriated and personal images. A first generation Black person in an immediate family of white Americans, she grew up surrounded by iconography and other paraphernalia specific to American culture and first-world consumption. Conflicting agency as a consequence of existing between contradictory circumstances, she chooses to acknowledge this connection which drives her to depict an experience in contemporary society with subject matter related to cultural movements specific to the turn of the twenty-first century and present day.

Her practice involves the systematic curation of information which is accessed through the Internet and interpersonal communication. From music to video games, fandom, and social issues, she creates visual work which investigates her relationship to the imagery. Blake is most interested in the collapsing of time, how information intersects conceptually, and the irony of her position in the work she is investigating.

 

About the Artist

Bethani Blake (b. 1999) is an artist, curator, and educator based in Hartford, CT. She received her B.F.A in Painting and Performing Arts at the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2021 and has exhibited work in Connecticut. Georgia, and Ohio. Blake is currently the Amistad Associate Curator for the African Diaspora at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art where she organizes exhibitions and heads an artist residency.

 

 

Seven Secrets to The Perfect Personal Essay: Book Talk
Join us Sunday, January 19, at 6 pm for an evening of readings and conversation with author Nancy Slonim Aronie to celebrate the launch of her new book, Seven Secrets to the Perfect Personal Essay: Crafting the Story Only You Can Write.

Nancy will be joined by fellow writers who will each share their own personal essays:

TONY SHALHOUB (UPDATE: Tony will not be able to attend the event on Sunday 1/19.)

GLENN BERGENFIELD

KATE FEIFFER

KATE TAYLOR

STEVE KEMPER

JULIA KIDD

SUZY TROTTA

BRAD HAMERMESH

TERRY MCGUIRE

LINDA PEARCE PRESTLEY

GERRY YUKEVICH

$35 General Admission (includes purchase of the book; books will be distributed the night of the event by our bookstore partner, River Bend Bookshop.)

If you’re planning to attend as a couple or household and do not want to purchase multiple copies of the book, we can offer you a $10 admission for the 2nd person.

Nancy Slonim Aronie is the author of Writing from the Heart; Finding the Power of your Inner Voice (Hyperion). She has been a commentator for National Public Radio’s All Things Considered and was a Visiting Writer at Trinity College in Hartford, CT. Aronie wrote a monthly column in McCall’s magazine and was the recipient of the Eye of The Beholder Artist in Residence Award at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Nancy was recognized for excellence in teaching for all three years she taught with Robert Coles at Harvard University.

She is the founder of The Chilmark Writing Workshop on Martha’s Vineyard and teaches Jumpstart your Memoir; Write it from the Heart at Esalen, Kripalu, Omega Institute, Open Center in NYC and Blue Spirit in Costa Rica.

Her column, From The Heart, appears biweekly in The Martha’s Vineyard Times. She is the author of WRITING FROM THE HEART, FINDING YOUR INNER VOICE, (HYPERION)  MEMOIR AS MEDICINE: The Healing Power of Writing Your Messy, Imperfect, Unruly (but gorgeously yours) Life Story, (New World Library) and THE PERFECT PERSONAL ESSAY: Crafting The Story Only YOU Can Write.

 

 

Improvisations Now
Experience music imagined and created in real-time. This series runs from September 2024 to May 2025. Check out the full schedule here!
April 13 Performance:

Matt Mitchell on keyboard

Matt Mitchell-piano

Matt Mitchell is a pianist and composer interested in the intersections of the various strains of acoustic, electric, and composed and improvised new music. He currently composes for and leads several ensembles featuring many of the current foremost musicians and improvisers, including Tim Berne, Kim Cass, Kate Gentile, Miles Okazaki, Ches Smith, Tyshawn Sorey, Anna Webber, and Dan Weiss.

Learn more about Matt here.

 

Kim Cass-bass

Kim Cass is from an island off the coast of Maine, where he was introduced to bass playing at age 10. He quickly developed a unique style on the electric bass and began playing the upright bass at age 13. Developing this instrument in a jazz context became Kim’s passion, as did composing music featuring his upright playing.

When studying at the New England Conservatory of Music, Cass received personalized instruction from several virtuoso musicians, including George Garzone, Ran Blake, Joe Morris, and Joe Maneri. Cass currently resides in New York City. He has been featured in a wide variety of ensembles, executing music that is ever-challenging and beautifully mysterious.

Cass has performed with the likes of Matt Mitchell, Tyshawn Sorey, John Zorn, and Bill McHenry. The solo album KIM CASS, released on Table and Chairs, is a showcase of Kim’s upright bass playing and compositions.

Learn more about Kim here.

 

man strumming a guitar

Joe Morris-guitar

Joe Morris is a composer/improviser multi-instrumentalist who plays guitar, double bass, mandolin, banjo, banjouke electric bass and drums. He is also a recording artist, educator, record producer, concert producer/curator and author. His is considered to be one of the most original and important improvising musicians of our time. Down Beat magazine called him “the preeminent free music guitarist of his generation.” Will Montgomery, writing in The Wire magazine called him “one of the most profound improvisers at work in the U.S.”

He is originally from New Haven, Connecticut. At the age of 12 he took lessons on the trumpet for one year. He started on guitar in 1969 at the age of 14. He played his first professional gig later that year. With the exception of a few lessons he is self-taught. The influence of Jimi Hendrix and other guitarists of that period led him to concentrate on learning to play the blues. Soon thereafter his sister gave him a copy of John Coltrane’s OM, which inspired him to learn about Jazz and New Music. From age 15 to 17 he attended The Unschool, a student-run alternative high school near the campus of Yale University in downtown New Haven. Taking advantage of the open learning style of the school he spent much of his time playing music with other students, listening to ethnic folk, blues, jazz, and classical music on record at the public library and attending the various concerts and recitals on the Yale campus, including performances by Wadada Leo Smith. He worked to establish his own voice on guitar in a free jazz context from the age of 17, drawing on the influence of Coltrane, Miles Davis, Cecil Taylor,Thelonius Monk, Ornette Coleman as well as the AACM, BAG, and the many European improvisers of the ’70s. Later he would draw influence from traditional West African string music, Messian, Ives, Eric Dolphy, Jimmy Lyons, Leroy Jenkins, Steve McCall and Fred Hopkins. After high school he performed in rock bands, rehearsed in jazz bands and played totally improvised music with friends until 1975 when he moved to Boston.

Learn more about Joe here.

Improvisations Now
Experience music imagined and created in real-time. This series runs from September 2024 to May 2025. Check out the full schedule here!
March 16 Performance:

Korean woman playing a gayageum

DoYeon Kim-gayageum

DoYeon Kim is a traditionally trained Korean artist who plays the gayageum, a traditional Korean string instrument, and has developed a uniquely broad approach to music, incorporating Korean music, jazz, and improvisation, among other influences. Notably, she introduced the gayageum into the improvisational music scene worldwide. Her recent collaborative projects have broadened to include dancers, actors, and visual artists.

During her traditional Korean training, she won numerous international competitions for her gayageum performances, including the Dong-A Ilbo Traditional Music Competition (Gold Prize, 2009), and the On-Nala Korean Music Competition (Gold Prize, 2011). DoYeon is also a graduate of the Contemporary Improvisation Department at the New England Conservatory of Music, where she was the first student ever admitted to the school playing any kind of Korean traditional instrument. She joined the faculty at her alma mater (2022). She also holds graduate degrees from Berklee’s Global Jazz Institute.

She has worked with numerous composers, performing several world premieres, and has been an invited guest lecturer for gayageum and Asian music at Franz Liszt Academy of Music, Universidad Nacional De Colombia, Dartmouth College, and many other universities. The Gyeonggi Sinawi Orchestra, a traditional music orchestra in Korea, has invited her as a music director (2021), and improvisation conductor (2023). DoYeon makes an effort to share a new and broader approach to music, drawing from Korean traditional music, improvisation, and development of original playing techniques.

DoYeon has performed throughout the world leading the Kim Do Yeon Band, and alongside many improvisers, including Tyshawn Sorey, Joe Morris, Agusti Fernandez, Tony Malaby and Anthony Coleman. Her first album, GaPi (2017), intimately combined traditional Korean music and jazz, and was nominated for a 2018 Korean Grammy Award in the crossover album category. The same year, DoYeon released the free improvisation album Macrocosm with Joe Morris, and performed on Jim Snidero’s Korean themed jazz album Project-K (2020), alongside Dave Douglas, Orrin Evans, Linda Oh and Rudy Royston. DoYeon Kim was recognized by Grammy.com as one of 7 Musicians Pushing Ancient Asian Instruments Into The Future (2021), and is performing projects at Roulette as a Van Lier Fellow (2023).

Learn more about DoYeon here.

 

man playing instrument

Dan O’Brien-saxophone, clarinet, flute

Dan O’Brien is a woodwind player (alto sax, flute, clarinet) who was quite active in the early Contemporary period prior to the pandemic. He performed with Leap of Faith, The Leap of Faith Orchestra & Sub-Units project at Third Life Studios in Somerville, 3 of the 6 Graphic Scores for the full Leap of Faith Orchestra, Mekaniks, and Turbulence. He came to our scene along with Zach Bartolomei, also a reed player, and they performed together on most of the sets.

Learn more about Dan here.

 

man playing upright bass

Brad Barret-bass

“A true virtuoso of the double bass with unlimited abilities. The possibilities of Free Music afford him the challenge to operate on the frontier of music, while his great technique grounds him with precision and musicality.” – Joe Morris

Brad Barrett is a bassist, improviser, and educator. His practice engages the tools of improvisation and southern musical traditions to interrogate the complex interplay between freedom and structure. The Jazz Times has described Barrett’s style as “diced bits of Derek Bailey skronk” infused with “Delta blues twang,” and the Free Music Collective has lauded his playing as “singularly rhythmically genius.” In 2019, his first album, Cowboy Transfiguration—featuring Joe Morris on guitar and MacArthur Fellow Tyshawn Sorey on percussion—garnered critical acclaim for its distinctive sonic landscapes and virtuosity. Unlike conventional approaches to composition that place decision-making authority in the hands of a single composer, the compositional frameworks in Cowboy Transfiguration challenge players to maximize their creative freedom while adhering to rules for shared leadership. Over the past decade, Barrett has worked as an in-demand freelance musician; has performed with jazz luminaries such as Jason Moran, Sheila Jordan, Julian Lage, Evan Parker, Jerry Bergonzi, George Garzone, Taylor Ho Bynum and Rakalam Bob Moses; and has appeared on several noteworthy albums. In addition, Barrett is an award-winning educator whose innovative teaching practice has been consistently supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Barrett holds a DMA in Contemporary Improvisation and a MM in Jazz Performance from the New England Conservatory.

Learn more about Brad here.

 

Man standing in front of drum set

Joe Morris-percussion, electronics

Joe Morris is a composer/improviser multi-instrumentalist who plays guitar, double bass, mandolin, banjo, banjouke electric bass and drums. He is also a recording artist, educator, record producer, concert producer/curator and author. His is considered to be one of the most original and important improvising musicians of our time. Down Beat magazine called him “the preeminent free music guitarist of his generation.” Will Montgomery, writing in The Wire magazine called him “one of the most profound improvisers at work in the U.S.”

He is originally from New Haven, Connecticut. At the age of 12 he took lessons on the trumpet for one year. He started on guitar in 1969 at the age of 14. He played his first professional gig later that year. With the exception of a few lessons he is self-taught. The influence of Jimi Hendrix and other guitarists of that period led him to concentrate on learning to play the blues. Soon thereafter his sister gave him a copy of John Coltrane’s OM, which inspired him to learn about Jazz and New Music. From age 15 to 17 he attended The Unschool, a student-run alternative high school near the campus of Yale University in downtown New Haven. Taking advantage of the open learning style of the school he spent much of his time playing music with other students, listening to ethnic folk, blues, jazz, and classical music on record at the public library and attending the various concerts and recitals on the Yale campus, including performances by Wadada Leo Smith. He worked to establish his own voice on guitar in a free jazz context from the age of 17, drawing on the influence of Coltrane, Miles Davis, Cecil Taylor,Thelonius Monk, Ornette Coleman as well as the AACM, BAG, and the many European improvisers of the ’70s. Later he would draw influence from traditional West African string music, Messian, Ives, Eric Dolphy, Jimmy Lyons, Leroy Jenkins, Steve McCall and Fred Hopkins. After high school he performed in rock bands, rehearsed in jazz bands and played totally improvised music with friends until 1975 when he moved to Boston.

Learn more about Joe here.

Improvisations Now
Experience music imagined and created in real-time. This series runs from September 2024 to May 2025. Check out the full schedule here!
February 16 Performance:

 

William Parker-bass, flutes, n’goni

William Parker is a bassist, improviser, composer, writer, and educator from New York City. He has recorded over 150 albums, published six books, and taught and mentored hundreds of young musicians and artists.

He has been called “one of the most inventive bassists/leaders since [Charles] Mingus,” and “the creative heir to Jimmy Garrison and Paul Chambers…directly influenced by ‘60s avant-gardists like Sirone, Henry Grimes and Alan Silva.” The Village Voice called him, “the most consistently brilliant free jazz bassist of all time.” Time Out New York named him one of the “50 Greatest New York Musicians of All Time.”

Parker’s current active bands include the large-band Little Huey Creative Orchestra, the Raining on the Moon Sextet, the In Order to Survive Quartet, Stan’s Hat Flapping in the Wind, the Cosmic Mountain Quintet with Hamid Drake, Kidd Jordan, and Cooper-Moore, as well as a deep and ongoing solo bass study. His recordings have long been documented by the AUM Fidelity record label and on his own Centering Records, among others. He also has a duo project “Hope Cries For Justice” with Patricia Nicholson Parker, which combines music, storytelling, poetry, and dance

Over the decades, Parker has developed a reputation as a connector and hub of information concerning the history of creative music, recently culminating in two hefty volumes of interviews with over 60 avant-garde and creative musicians, Conversations I & II.  He is also the subject of an exhaustive 468-page “sessionography” that documents thousands of performances and recording sessions, a remarkable chronicle of his prolificness as an active artist.

He has been a key figure in the New York and European creative music scenes since the 1970s and has worked all over the world.  He has performed with Cecil Taylor, Don Cherry, Peter Brotzmann, Milford Graves, Peter Kowald, and David S. Ware, among many others.

William Parker works all over the world, but he always returns to New York’s Lower East Side, where he has lived since 1975.

Learn more about William here.

 

Taylor Ho Bynum-cornet, flugelhorn

Taylor Ho Bynum is a musician, teacher, and writer, with a background including work in composition, performance, interdisciplinary collaboration, production, organizing, and advocacy.

His expressionistic playing on cornet and other brass instruments, his expansive vision as composer, and his idiosyncratic improvisational approach have been documented on over twenty recordings as a bandleader and over a hundred as a sideperson. Bynum enjoys playing with friends in collective ensembles like his duo with Tomas Fujiwara, Illegal Crowns (with Fujiwara, Benoit Delbecq, and Mary Halvorson), and Geometry (with Kyoko Kitamura, Tomeka Reid, and Joe Morris), and as a sideperson in Fujiwara’s Triple Double and Shizuko, Reid’s Stringtet and Septet, Jim Hobbs & the Fully Celebrated Orchestra, and Bill Lowe’s Signifyin’ Natives.

Learn more about Taylor here.

 

man drumming on stage

Jerome Deupree-drums, percussion

Jerome Dupree is an American musician, based in Massachusetts. He is best known as the original drummer in the alternative rock band Morphine.

Jerome started playing drums at the age of six, with the help of his two older brothers. In the early 1970s, he formed a band with his brother Jesse. After high school, he moved to Bloomington, Indiana, where he got to record for the first time. After a few years he again relocated to Santa Cruz, California, where he played with Humans, who toured with Squeeze and opened for Patti Smith and Iggy Pop.

In 1981 he moved to Boston, and has lived there since. His early Boston projects included stints in Sex Execs and Either/Orchestra.

Learn more about Jerome here.

 

man strumming a guitar

Joe Morris-guitar, banjouke

Joe Morris is a composer/improviser multi-instrumentalist who plays guitar, double bass, mandolin, banjo, banjouke electric bass and drums. He is also a recording artist, educator, record producer, concert producer/curator and author. His is considered to be one of the most original and important improvising musicians of our time. Down Beat magazine called him “the preeminent free music guitarist of his generation.” Will Montgomery, writing in The Wire magazine called him “one of the most profound improvisers at work in the U.S.”

He is originally from New Haven, Connecticut. At the age of 12 he took lessons on the trumpet for one year. He started on guitar in 1969 at the age of 14. He played his first professional gig later that year. With the exception of a few lessons he is self-taught. The influence of Jimi Hendrix and other guitarists of that period led him to concentrate on learning to play the blues. Soon thereafter his sister gave him a copy of John Coltrane’s OM, which inspired him to learn about Jazz and New Music. From age 15 to 17 he attended The Unschool, a student-run alternative high school near the campus of Yale University in downtown New Haven. Taking advantage of the open learning style of the school he spent much of his time playing music with other students, listening to ethnic folk, blues, jazz, and classical music on record at the public library and attending the various concerts and recitals on the Yale campus, including performances by Wadada Leo Smith. He worked to establish his own voice on guitar in a free jazz context from the age of 17, drawing on the influence of Coltrane, Miles Davis, Cecil Taylor,Thelonius Monk, Ornette Coleman as well as the AACM, BAG, and the many European improvisers of the ’70s. Later he would draw influence from traditional West African string music, Messian, Ives, Eric Dolphy, Jimmy Lyons, Leroy Jenkins, Steve McCall and Fred Hopkins. After high school he performed in rock bands, rehearsed in jazz bands and played totally improvised music with friends until 1975 when he moved to Boston.

Learn more about Joe here.

Improvisations Now
Experience music imagined and created in real-time. This series runs from September 2024 to May 2025. Check out the full schedule here!
January 19 Performance:

Jacqueline Kerrod-harp

Described as ‘exceptionally virtuosic and sensitive,’ South African harpist Jacqueline Kerrod is perfectly at home across multiple genres and performs throughout the United States and Europe.

Most recently, she has been touring internationally with composer and multi-reedist Anthony Braxton, both in duo and as part of his ZIM music ensemble. She was a founding member and co-songwriter of the pop duo Addi & Jacq, who were winners of NYC’s Battle of the Boroughs in 2015, and recently toured her show, ‘Harps Uncovered’ featuring vocalist Hannah Sumner through 12 states of the US. Currently, she is working on a solo project further exploring her love of improvisation, songwriting, and the use of electronics to augment and manipulate sound.

As a champion of contemporary music, Jacqueline has performed with the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), the Argento Chamber Ensemble, Talea Ensemble, Wet InkAlarm Will Sound, and Metropolis Chamber Ensemble. As a native South African, she is passionate about commissioning and performing music written by South African composers and has performed over a dozen works written for her. She has also performed with elite chamber groups such as the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players.

Described as an ‘eclectic harpist’ by Lucid Culture, her discography includes a recently released duo with Anthony Braxton on the ‘dischi di angelica’ label. Recorded live on May 27th, 2018 at the AngelicA, Festival Internazionale di Musica at the Centro di Ricerca Musicale / Teatro San Leonardo, Bologna, Italy. Available on Bandcamp.Contemporary music, 3 self produced albums with Addi & Jacq, Greg Spears’ Requiem (New Amsterdam Records), Robert Paterson’s Star Crossing and Book of Goddesses (American Modern Recordings), and MAYA – In The Spirit(Perspectives Recordings). Other notable recordings that feature Jacqueline include Tristan Murail’s Winter Fragments (AEON), Anthony Braxton’s Trillium J, and the single Crazy in Love by Antony and the Johnsons (Secretly Canadian/Rough Trade Records). Her recording, “Candlelight Carols” with Grammy®-nominated vocal ensemble Seraphic Fire debuted at #11 on the Classical Billboard charts.

She has performed with Kayne West, Antony & the Johnsons, Jane Birkin, Rufus Wainwright, Santigold, Jónsi & Alex, to name a few.

Learn more about Jacqueline here.

 

Joe Morris-guitar

Joe Morris is a composer/improviser multi-instrumentalist who plays guitar, double bass, mandolin, banjo, banjouke electric bass and drums. He is also a recording artist, educator, record producer, concert producer/curator and author. His is considered to be one of the most original and important improvising musicians of our time. Down Beat magazine called him “the preeminent free music guitarist of his generation.” Will Montgomery, writing in The Wire magazine called him “one of the most profound improvisers at work in the U.S.”

He is originally from New Haven, Connecticut. At the age of 12 he took lessons on the trumpet for one year. He started on guitar in 1969 at the age of 14. He played his first professional gig later that year. With the exception of a few lessons he is self-taught. The influence of Jimi Hendrix and other guitarists of that period led him to concentrate on learning to play the blues. Soon thereafter his sister gave him a copy of John Coltrane’s OM, which inspired him to learn about Jazz and New Music. From age 15 to 17 he attended The Unschool, a student-run alternative high school near the campus of Yale University in downtown New Haven. Taking advantage of the open learning style of the school he spent much of his time playing music with other students, listening to ethnic folk, blues, jazz, and classical music on record at the public library and attending the various concerts and recitals on the Yale campus, including performances by Wadada Leo Smith. He worked to establish his own voice on guitar in a free jazz context from the age of 17, drawing on the influence of Coltrane, Miles Davis, Cecil Taylor,Thelonius Monk, Ornette Coleman as well as the AACM, BAG, and the many European improvisers of the ’70s. Later he would draw influence from traditional West African string music, Messian, Ives, Eric Dolphy, Jimmy Lyons, Leroy Jenkins, Steve McCall and Fred Hopkins. After high school he performed in rock bands, rehearsed in jazz bands and played totally improvised music with friends until 1975 when he moved to Boston.

Learn more about Joe here.

 

2024 Annual Holiday Jazz & Latin Jazz Parranda: Papo Vázquez and the Mighty Pirates Troubadours
Poster for 2024 Holiday Parranda
Saturday, December 7, at 7 pm – Real Art Ways welcomes trombonist, composer and arranger Papo Vázquez for our annual concert and holiday parranda. Bring an instrument and get in free! Otherwise, general admission is $10.
Parranda de aguinaldo (Christmas folk music), is an Afro-Indigenous musical form played during the holidays in various Caribbean and Latin American countries including Puerto Rico, Cuba, Trinidad, and the coastal area of the states Aragua and Carabobo in Venezuela.

Papo Vázquez is a trombonist, composer, and arranger with over 40 years of a career spanning Jazz, Latin, and Afro-Caribbean music. Papo is a National Endowment for the Arts Master Artist and Grammy Nominee and was featured in the 2020 NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll.

“En fin, Vázquez junto a sus Mighty Pirates Troubadours e invitados exponen un proyecto exquisito y cadencioso que se transforma en un banquete para los amantes del género.” – El Vocero, 2020
(In short, Vázquez along with his Mighty Pirates Troubadours and guests present an exquisite and lilting project that becomes a banquet for lovers of the genre.)

•Musical Director for the National Puerto Rican Day Parade Orchestra, (NYC/WABC) 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019
•Commissioned by Wynton Marsalis to compose music for Jazz and Art series, conducted and performed with J@LC orchestra, CD release August 2019
•New York Pops Education, Board of Education certified, 2018 and 2019
•Commissioned new music for Afro Latin Jazz Alliance for “Nueva Musica” concert series
•Grammy nominated for Papo Vázquez’ Mighty Pirates, Marooned/Aíslado, 2008

Papo was deeply moved by jazz at a young age. His appreciation and knowledge of the indigenous music of the Caribbean provides him with a unique ability to fuse Afro-Caribbean rhythms with freer melodic and harmonic elements of progressive jazz.

Learn more about Papo by visiting his website.

Real Art Ways le da la bienvenida de regreso al trombonista, compositor y arreglista Papo Vázquez a nuestro concierto anual y parranda navideña.

Parranda de aguinaldo (música folclórica navideña), es una forma musical afro-indígena que se toca en temporada de vacaciones en varios países del Caribe y América Latina, incluidos Puerto Rico, Cuba, Trinidad y la zona costera de los estados de Aragua y Carabobo en Venezuela.

Band of Pirates:

Papo Vázquez – Trombone, Leader

Jose Mangual Jr. – Vocals

Ivan Renta – Sax

Rick Germanson – Piano

Carlos Mena – Bass

Willie Martinez – Drums

Carlos Maldonado – Percussion, Vocals

Reinaldo Dejesus – Percussion, Vocals

 

 

Shadows Taller Than Our Souls
Christa Whitten
Real Art Ways presents a solo exhibition by Christa Whitten. 

Cairns have long served as way-finding constructions in terrain where the trail may become unclear. These carefully stacked rock piles act as navigational aids and are trusted to guide the way in critical conditions, such as when dense fog or storms obscure the path. They provide direction in uncertain times. These cairns are offered as places to pause and reflect, reminding us to focus on the waypoints in the storm and move with them. When we act in line with a purpose, the resulting shadows are long and contain a multitude of ripples.

Shadows Taller Than Our Souls is curated by David Borawski. 

About the Artist

Christa Whitten is a visual artist known for vibrantly colorful, evocative work, often utilizing paper in two-dimensional and sculptural applications. Her work’s intention is to provide an opportunity to access the intangible inner landscapes we carry within and explore their relationships to wider contexts. She has exhibited throughout New England, including the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, Silvermine Art Center (where she is a guild member), ArtWalk Hartford, and the Anchor House of Artists in Northampton, MA. In addition, she enjoys collaborating with other artists to produce work for publication, such as ‘snffbx press’ artist books and illustrations for a children’s book entitled “Reach for the Stars.” She lives and works in northern Connecticut. 

 

 

Improvisations Now
Experience music imagined and created in real-time. This series runs from September 2024 to May 2025. Check out the full schedule here!
December 15 Performance:

Darius Jones-saxophone

“Today, there isn’t a saxophonist with a purer and more astonishing tone, one of authority and humanity.” – PopMatters

Darius Jones has created a recognizable voice as a critically acclaimed saxophonist and composer by embracing individuality and innovation in the tradition of Black music. Jones has been awarded the Van Lier Fellowship, Jerome Foundation Artist-in-Residence and Commission, Western Front Residency and Commission, French-American Jazz Exchange Award, Robert D. Bielecki Foundation Award, and Fromm Music Foundation Commission from Harvard University. Jones has received acclaim for his studio albums featuring music and images evocative of Black Futurism and his commissioned work as a composer throughout the United States and Canada.

Learn more about Darius here.

 

Nasheet Waits-drums

NASHEET WAITS, drummer/music educator, is a New York native. His interest in playing the drums was encouraged by his father, legendary percussionist, Frederick Waits. Over the course of his career, Freddie Waits played with such legendary artists as Ella Fitzgerald, Sonny Rollins, Max Roach, McCoy Tyner, and countless others.

Nasheet’s college education began at Morehouse in Atlanta, GA, where he majored in Psychology and History. Deciding that music would be his main focus, he continued his college studies in New York at Long Island University, where he graduated with honours, receiving his Bachelor of Arts in Music. While attending Long Island University, Waits studied privately with renowned percussionist, Michael Carvin. Carvin’s tutelage provided a vast foundation upon which Waits added influences from his father, as well as mentor Max Roach. It was Max that first gave Nasheet’s formidable talent international spotlight, hiring him as a member of the famed percussion ensemble M’BOOM. One highlight of Nasheet’s tenure with M’BOOM was the live concert performance of M’BOOM with special guests Tony Williams and Ginger Baker.

Learn more about Nasheet here.

 

Adam Lane-bassist

By combining a disparate set of influences into a unique improvisational voice, Adam Lane has become recognized as one of the most original creative voices in contemporary jazz. His 2006 recording New Magical Kingdom, was recently featured in the Penguin Jazz Guide 1001 Best Records Ever Made, and his most recent recording, Ashcan Ranting received a myriad of critical praise including four stars in Downbeat.

His current projects include his Full Throttle Orchestra, a nine piece ensemble formed to realize his extended jazz orchestral compositions, The Adam Lane Trio, featuring legendary reedist Vinny Golia, Four Corners, a co-lead ensemble with reedist Ken Vandermark, and an ongoing solo project that combines unique processed double bass improvisations with Lane’s original story telling. As a sideman he has performed with an eclectic mix of musicians, from tenor great John Tchicai, to alto iconoclast Richard Tabnik, to rock legend Tom Waits. Lane’s compositions have been praised for their audacity and originality.

Learn more about Adam here.

 

Joe Morris-guitar

Joe Morris is a composer/improviser multi-instrumentalist who plays guitar, double bass, mandolin, banjo, banjouke electric bass and drums. He is also a recording artist, educator, record producer, concert producer/curator and author. His is considered to be one of the most original and important improvising musicians of our time. Down Beat magazine called him “the preeminent free music guitarist of his generation.” Will Montgomery, writing in The Wire magazine called him “one of the most profound improvisers at work in the U.S.”

He is originally from New Haven, Connecticut. At the age of 12 he took lessons on the trumpet for one year. He started on guitar in 1969 at the age of 14. He played his first professional gig later that year. With the exception of a few lessons he is self-taught. The influence of Jimi Hendrix and other guitarists of that period led him to concentrate on learning to play the blues. Soon thereafter his sister gave him a copy of John Coltrane’s OM, which inspired him to learn about Jazz and New Music. From age 15 to 17 he attended The Unschool, a student-run alternative high school near the campus of Yale University in downtown New Haven. Taking advantage of the open learning style of the school he spent much of his time playing music with other students, listening to ethnic folk, blues, jazz, and classical music on record at the public library and attending the various concerts and recitals on the Yale campus, including performances by Wadada Leo Smith. He worked to establish his own voice on guitar in a free jazz context from the age of 17, drawing on the influence of Coltrane, Miles Davis, Cecil Taylor,Thelonius Monk, Ornette Coleman as well as the AACM, BAG, and the many European improvisers of the ’70s. Later he would draw influence from traditional West African string music, Messian, Ives, Eric Dolphy, Jimmy Lyons, Leroy Jenkins, Steve McCall and Fred Hopkins. After high school he performed in rock bands, rehearsed in jazz bands and played totally improvised music with friends until 1975 when he moved to Boston.

Learn more about Joe here.

 

Improvisations Now
Experience music imagined and created in real-time. This series runs from September 2024 to May 2025. Check out the full schedule here!
November 17 Performance:

 

Jeb Bishop-trombone

 

Nate McBride-bass

 

Kelly Bray-trumpet

 

 

Joe Morris-drums