Jazz Articles about Benjamin Boone

About Benjamin Boone

Album Review

Benjamin Boone with the Ghana Jazz Collective: Joy

by Dan Bilawsky
March 8, 2020

When saxophonist Benjamin Boone took a sabbatical from his teaching position at California State University Fresno to travel to Ghana as a U.S. Fulbright Scholar, he envisioned a yearlong educational immersion in the music, arts and broader culture of the region. What he couldn't have imagined, which became reality, was connecting with a set of Accra-based musicians who would welcome him into the fold as a band mate. Eager to document this newfound partnership before he returned to America, Boone ...

Album Review

Benjamin Boone: The Poetry of Jazz

Read "The Poetry of Jazz" reviewed by Duncan Heining

by Duncan Heining
October 27, 2018

Lenny Bruce might have skewered it with his skit, “Psychopathia Sexualis." Mike Myers' mildly misogynist poet might have parodied it in the movie I Married an Axe Murderer (1993). It has been dismissed as a late-fifties fad associated with the Beats. And, yet, the desire of poets and jazz musicians to combine their art forms has proven surprisingly durable. Sometimes, the practice is just plain embarrassing and made worse by the reality that those involved, like the man ...

Album Review

Benjamin Boone: The Poetry of Jazz

Read "The Poetry of Jazz" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
March 20, 2018

Benjamin Boone's The Poetry Of Jazz could easily have been titled The Jazz of Poetry because of the almost interchangeable nature of the terms. The composer/saxophonist's vision to put music to the U.S. Poet Laureate Philip Levine's prose is a reminder to listeners that jazz was birthed by the common man, and is not to be kept in an ivory tower.Both professors at Cal State Fresno, Levine and Boone had performed together before, and the saxophonist had used ...

Album Review

Benjamin Boone: The Poetry of Jazz

by Mark Corroto
March 16, 2018

Benjamin Boone's The Poetry Of Jazz could easily have been titled The Jazz of Poetry because of the almost interchangeable nature of the terms. The composer/saxophonist's vision to put music to the U.S. Poet Laureate Philip Levine's prose is a reminder to listeners that jazz was birthed by the common man, and is not to be kept in an ivory tower. Both professors at Cal State Fresno, Levine and Boone had performed together before, and the saxophonist had ...