Jazz Poetry Superjam #1 at The Pheasantry at PizzaExpress

MICHAEL HOROVITZ with Special Guests GWYNETH HERBERT, CLARK TRACEY, ALEC DANKWORTH, BOBBY WELLINS, PETER LEMER, ADAM HOROVITZ and VANESSA VIE

In the words of William Blake “Art Is Religion, Religion Is Politics, Politics Is Brotherhood”. Join Britain’s pre-eminent Beat poet, Michael Horovitz, and a host of special guests, in a celebration of everything worth celebrating at Easter and Passover, plus his own 80th birthday on April 4th. Tonight's guests are award-winning singer/songwriter Gwyneth Herbert; jazz greats Bobby Wellins (tenor saxophone), Peter Lemer (piano), Alec Dankworth (bass), Clark Tracey (drums); poet Adam Horovitz, and singer-songwriter Vanessa Vie....

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MICHAEL HOROVITZ with Special Guests GWYNETH HERBERT, CLARK TRACEY, ALEC DANKWORTH, BOBBY WELLINS, PETER LEMER, ADAM HOROVITZ and VANESSA VIE

In the words of William Blake “Art Is Religion, Religion Is Politics, Politics Is Brotherhood”. Join Britain’s pre-eminent Beat poet, Michael Horovitz, and a host of special guests, in a celebration of everything worth celebrating at Easter and Passover, plus his own 80th birthday on April 4th. Tonight's guests are award-winning singer/songwriter Gwyneth Herbert; jazz greats Bobby Wellins (tenor saxophone), Peter Lemer (piano), Alec Dankworth (bass), Clark Tracey (drums); poet Adam Horovitz, and singer-songwriter Vanessa Vie.


MICHAEL HOROVITZ

An early champion of oral and jazz poetry, whose flamboyant performances have energised every kind of audience on both sides of the Atlantic, Michael Horovitz has been variously described as:

“an original poet, with an original voice” (Margaret Drabble);

“a Cockney, Albionic, New Jerusalem, Jazz Generation, Sensitive Bard” (Allen Ginsberg);

“a dreamer, a maverick … transmedial crusader” (Martin Amis).

In 1959, his final year at Oxford, he founded New Departures, an irregular periodical that was the first to publish the likes of Samuel Beckett and William Burroughs (including drafts of what would become 'Naked Lunch'). He was instrumental in organising the first International Poetry Incarnation at The Royal Albert Hall – the single largest poetry event ever in Britain – and would tail the 60s with the anthology Children of Albion.

Horovitz also founded the inimitable Poetry Olympics, an ongoing live poetry event that has included performances from both fledgling voices and the more illustrious likes of Patti Smith, Pete Townshend, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Kylie Minogue and Damon Albarn. “The thing I most admire about Michael is his spirit,” says Albarn, who has contributed mesmerising input to Poetry Olympics SuperJams. “The unique thing about his poetry is the way that it connects the electric to the mystic.”

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