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SONG OF BAOBAB
by Vernon Frazer with Guest Artist Thomas Chapin


SONG OF BAOBAB


COMPACT DISC

Vernon Frazer with Guest Artist Thomas Chapin

BOOKLET NOTES BY VERNON FRAZER

Price: $15.00

Recorded 1993, released 1997

{PLEASE NOTE -- THIS ITEM TAKES ONE WEEK TO SHIP}
VFCI Compact Disc's


Distributed on the World Wide Web by Echolalia Press





VFCI Compact Disc's has released SONG OF BAOBAB, a new recording of poetry and music by poet-bassist Vernon Frazer and the acclaimed saxophonist- flutist Thomas Chapin. It is Echolalia Press' fourth poetry project by the prolific Frazer, who was diagnosed at age 48 with Tourette Syndrome, a year or so after this Compact Disc was recorded. Having taken three years to find a record label, it is now available for the first time.

Frazer and Chapin, whose collaboration produced "Put Your Quarter In and Watch the Chicken Dance," a poetry- music fusion piece scheduled for inclusion in a jazz and poetry compilation co-produced by the VILLAGE VOICE and the KNITTING FACTORY, create an exhilarating performance of poetry fused with music on SONG OF BAOBAB. (See link under resources for the knitting factory under Vernon Frazer web page.)

From the opening lampoon of poets at a San Francisco reading, Frazer's biting verse punctures the pretenses he sees around him, from the subterranean literary circuit to the white-collar world -- anywhere surface appearances pass for depth.

SONG OF BAOBAB balances Frazer's acid wit with poignant, even harrowing pieces that view Cancer through the sympathetic eyes of a survivor, challenges standard assumptions of what constitutes sanity through the surly but caring voice of a narrator with Tourette Syndrome, and satirize the generation of the sixties that reluctantly seats itself on the gray side of the generation gap.

Chapin enhances Frazer's pointed texts and purposeful basslines with a variety of saxophones and flutes, as well as an exotic array of "little instruments" that add a world music flair to the jazz core of the work. Chapin's phrases envelop Frazer's words with an empathy that often becomes identification.

Frazer and Chapin bring out the best in each other. On SONG OF BAOBAB their fusion of poetry with music renders a heightened reality that exorcizes pretense, allowing passion and compassion to surface at the core of what is real.



WHAT THE CRITICS SAY ABOUT
SONG OF BAOBAB

SONG OF BAOBAB is "...an engrossing, often unsettling mix that's too seamless to be regarded as merely poetry backed by music.

Chapin . . . deploys an imposing arsenal of doodads (alto sax, jaw harp, whistles, zither, all manner of flute) to augment or extend the turbulent emotions evoked by the poetry. Frazer's word portraits of people in varying stages of pain, recovery or folly are by turns caustic and introspective, declamatory and haunting.

For a corollary, try to imagine what 1950's "word-jazz" performer Ken Nordine would sound like if his intimate approach was juiced by an avant-garde saxophonist and the mordant belligerence of a gangsta rapper."

-- Gene Seymour
-- Newsday, New York
-- April 7, 1997


"As our fourth project we have distributed through Echolalia Press by gifted poet - acoustic bassist - spoken word performer Vernon Frazer, we are pleased to offer our first Compact Disc selection. With material from both his books DEMON DANCE and A SLICK SET OF WHEELS, as well as Thomas Chapin's world reknowned intrumentation, this set completes Frazers's pre-diagonosis of Tourette Syndrome projects. His article in our on-line magazine and a future collaboration with Echolalia Press will focus on his Tourette syndrome focussed pieces. His style merges 'beat/jazz' poetry with a ironic and Tourettic wit."

-- Adam Ward Seligman
Publisher Echolalia Press.



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