Howl: Jazz and Poetry

Late in 2008, I came across a Craigslist posting that caught my eye. Moving from the "Erotic Service" board to "Musicians," I found another, saying "I've memorized Alan Ginsburg's poem Howl and and want to perform it with music."

The poster, Andoni Bundros, had some apt initial ideas about how to approach the three-section poem, and the more I thought about it, the more intrigued I felt. I spent the next couple of months analysing the the poem and roughing out a performance arc that I thought would work, and in April 2009, we got FivePlay and Andoni together for a walkthrough. To quote the Matadors, I think it's gonna work out fine. We hope to perform it in Novemeber 2009.

God help me, I've decided to blog about the project here: The Howl Blog. It's the most ambitious thing I've undertaken, and it'll be interesting, for me at least, to track the progress and process. I'll post preview snippets.