Amiri Baraka with The Howard Wiley Trio

November 09, 2009

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Amiri Baraka, born in 1934, in Newark, New Jersey, USA, is the author of over 40 books of essays, poems, drama, and music history and criticism, a poet icon and revolutionary political activist who has recited poetry and lectured on cultural and political issues extensively in the USA, the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe.

With influences on his work ranging from musical orishas such as Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Thelonius Monk, and Sun Ra to the Cuban Revolution, Malcolm X and world revolutionary movements, Baraka is renowned as the founder of the Black Arts Movement in Harlem in the 1960s that became, though short-lived, the virtual blueprint for a new American theater aesthetics. The movement and his published and performance work, such as the signature study on African-American music, Blues People (1963) and the play Dutchman (1963) practically seeded “the cultural corollary to black nationalism” of that revolutionary American milieu.

Other titles range from Selected Poetry of Amiri Baraka/LeRoi Jones (1979), to The Music (1987), a fascinating collection of poems and monographs on Jazz and Blues authored by Baraka and his wife and poet Amina, and his boldly sortied essays, The Essence of Reparations (2003).

The Essence of Reparations is Baraka’s first published collection of essays in book form radically exploring what is sure to become a twenty-first century watershed movement of Black peoples to the interrelated issues of racism, national oppression, colonialism, neo-colonialism, self-determination and national and human liberation, which he has long been addressing creatively and critically. It has been said that Amiri Baraka is committed to social justice like no other American writer. He has taught at Yale, Columbia, and the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Somebody Blew Up America & Other Poems is Baraka’s first collection of poems published in the Caribbean and includes the title poem that has headlined him in the media in ways rare to poets and authors. The recital of the poem “that mattered” engaged the poet warrior in a battle royal with the very governor of New Jersey and with a legion of detractors demanding his resignation as the state’s Poet Laureate because of Somebody Blew Up America’s provocatively poetic inquiry (in a few lines of the poem) about who knew beforehand about the New York City World Trade Center bombings in 2001.

The poem’s own detonation caused the author’s photo and words to be splashed across the pages of New York’s Amsterdam News and the New York Times and to be featured on CNN--to name a few US city, state and national and international media.

Baraka lives in Newark with his wife and author Amina Baraka; they have five children and head up the word-music ensemble, Blue Ark: The Word Ship and co-direct Kimako’s Blues People, the “artspace” housed in their theater basement for some fifteen years.

His awards and honors include an Obie, the American Academy of Arts & Letters award, the James Weldon Johnson Medal for contributions to the arts, Rockefeller Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts grants, Professor Emeritus at the State university of New York at Stony Brook, and the Poet Laureate of New Jersey.

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Howard Wiley is the type of person who exemplifies the word “character” from both sides of the spectrum…by having it, and by being one.  Always willing to take the music or the conversation to the next level, it’s rare to end the music, or the conversation, without a smile on your face. 

Born in Berkeley, California, Howard Wiley displayed the seeds of his musical talent at a very young age.  Wiley found himself playing in the most nurturing of all environments for young African American musicians; the church.  Throughout the history of jazz, the church has been root and center of the community, giving musicians, worshipers, and preachers alike the freedom and comfort to express themselves in the celebration of life.  Wiley’s music is a direct reflection of his youth which gives his music a level of simplicity, honesty and integrity.  He has developed into a very complete artist in the sense that he possesses a great awareness of the past while he continues to make statements and ask questions into the future. 

Wiley has recorded and performed with the likes of Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, Dayna Sean Stephens, Lavay Smith, and Norman Brown as well as receiving numerous awards and accolades from the Thelonious Monk Institute, including MVP honors for the Grammy All-American Jazz Band and the Berklee College of Music Scholarship Award.  At the age of 15, Wiley released his first c.d. as a leader, signaling the arrival of the San Francisco Bay Area’s newest diamond in the rough.  Wiley has since released his second c.d. titled “Twenty First Century Negro”, and is currently in the studio working on his third outing.

On experiencing Wiley in a live setting, journalist Drew Foxman writes, “With a debonair, untailored stroll, Howard Wiley stepped on stage, donning a freshly pressed peach suit.  He befitted this dignified presence by displaying his deep reverence for the musicians with whom he was collaborating, unmasking the persona of an unassuming leader.  This is a musician who understands his place, not only in an ensemble, but in the history of music.  This humility, though, translates into downright explosiveness on the bandstand.”

As a member of Lavay Smith’s band, and gigging in the New York scene, Howard Wiley has been seen and heard all over the country.  The Los Angeles Times writes, “The soloing from Howard Wiley is first rate.”  Dan Quolette of Down Beat Magazine says, ““Much has been written about the twenty-something crew of musicians heralded as the new keepers of the jazz flame.  Well make way for a representative of the next generation”.  And Lavay Smith adds, “Howard Wiley is the future of jazz...he knows the history of jazz and uses his knowledge to create his own unique and exciting style.”

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