Category: News

SAT 15 AUG Dissident Arts Festival (Raymond Nat Turner)
El Taller Latino Americano
PS 109 Arts Space 215 E. 99th Str btwn 2nd & 3rd Av
New York, NY
THE 10th ANNUAL DISSIDENT ARTS FESTIVAL schedule:
Day One: Saturday August 15, 7pm – 11:30pm
El Taller Latino Americano
PS109 Arts Space 215 East 99 street, between 2nd and 3rd avenue (212) 665-9460

7PM- Raymond Nat Turner- Remembrance of the Victims of Racist Police Violence
7:20-Sumari, “other-world” art music
8:05-Sana Shabazz, poetry
8:20-The Red Microphone, “liberation jazz”
9-Steve Dalachinsky, free jazz poetry
9:45-Bernardo Palombo, nueva cancion
10:30- The 12 Houses Orchestra, 15-piece expansive jazz ensemble led by Matt Lavelle

Day Two: Sunday August 16, 7pm – 10:30 PM
ShapeShifter Lab
18 Whitwell Pl, Brooklyn, NY 11215 (646) 820-9452

7:00-Trudy Silver & “Where’s the Outrage?”, improvisational music, poetry, performance art
7:45-Safiya Martinez, poetry
7:55-John Pietaro’s Literary Warrior Project, spoken word and improvised music
8:35-Patricia Nicholson-Parker with ensemble TBA, dance with improvisational music and spoken word
9:15-Chris Butters, poetry
9:30-Dissipated Face featuring Daniel Carter, no wave/hardcore music

*This year’s Festival is dedicated to the struggle for unity & the memory of Ornette Coleman*
—————————-
Ensemble Personnel:
DAY 1-
RAYMOND NAT TURNER
Raymond Nat Turner: spoken word

Aug 16, Dissident Arts Festival representing NY Chapter of National Writers Union (NWU).

Comments from the Dissident Arts Festival:

A jazz and spoken word ensemble from San Francisco, Upsurge, blew the audience away with their powerful music and lyrics, which condemned Wall Street and the greedy banks. The leader of the group, Raymond Nat Turner, said, “This is a perfect showcase for what we’ve been doing for 20 years in the Bay Area.” This was the group’s first performance at the festival. Summing it up, festival organizer John Pietaro said, “This is the second year of the festival in New York City. People we get each year have a following. Kevin, who was with us last year, Gwen Laster, who performed at Obama’s inauguration, Upsurge, from San Francisco.”

—People’s World

UPSURGE! came all the way from San Francisco to bring the crowd to its feet. Led by jazz poets Raymond Nat Turner and Zigi Lowenberg, the ensemble presented a finely confounded emulsion of modern jazz and spoken word, at once recalling the Beat poets, John Coltrane, Gill Scott-Heron and Amiri Baraka. The end result could serve to bring the Hip Hop generation straight to jazz! They have performed their
call-to-arms smorgasbord of sound at multiple progressive gatherings in recent years and if they can arrange to travel across country each summer, they’d be a welcome part of future Dissident Arts Festivals.
Ensemble members included Tony Jones on tenor saxophone, Rudi Mwongozi on piano, Bryce Sebastian on upright bass and Larry Johnson on drums (a very hip shining kit of Gretsch drums, I might add).

—John Pietaro, Founder Dissident Arts Festival, NYC
The arts ARE a weapon for social change…….

THU 30 JUL Poets House Members-only Open Mic (Zigi Lowenberg; Raymond Nat Turner)
10 River Terrace, New York, NY 10282 Tel: (212) 431-7920 Map & Directions

SAT 25 JUL NYC Poetry Festival Governors Island, Colonel’s Row
For directions to Governors Island, click here. Zigi Lowenberg; Raymond Nat Turner)

Auburn, N.Y. — “Pick six words. Any words,” says poet Raymond Nat Turner. He had the students of Booker T. Washington Community Center afterschool program at Auburn High School write them down. Next he told them to pass them to someone else and he gave them six of his own words: Jazz, rainy, splash, Blues, running and brothers.

Click for More Information 

The unassuming apartment complex at Seventh and Allston doesn’t look much like the cradle of a creative movement, but for spoken-word artist Raymond Nat Turner the West Berkeley locale provided everything he needed to launch UpSurge!

Click for more

Zigi Lowenberg has poem published in Rabbit and Rose
Issue 09, an online poetry journal
www.rabbitandrose.com

Whynot Jazz Room’s
Why Not Experiment? Series
Presents UpSurge!
A potent brew of poetry, politics
In jazz—creating a scene 2015!
Ken Filiano, bass/Lou Grassi, drums/Marshall Sealy,
French Horn/Zigi Lowenberg, poetry/Raymond Nat
Turner, poetry
7pm Sunday 8 February
14 Christopher St @ Gay St NYC 10014
$10 cover CASH ONLY

“An ensemble that earns its exclamation point with dynamic performances” —Contra Costa Times

“TOUGH FUN” —Holly Near

“blew the audience away with their powerful music and lyrics, which condemned Wall Street and the greedy banks”
—People’s World