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This month at Unlikely 2.0 we present two jovial, mutable tracks by Vernon Frazer, who uses jazz and spoken word poetry to dip through moods, laughter, self-depreciation, and the seeming throes of psychotic rage. In these sophisticated tracks, we hear stories as complicated as a novel, told with the sparsest of words and the most layered of sounds. At the same time, it's very clear that when the Vernon Frazer Band is playing, they are playing: fun and self-mockery are an essential part of this musical and poetic journey. These tracks remind us that poetry and music are both arts, and art always has the opportunity to be an ecstatic process. —JP
Vernon Frazer’s poetry and fiction have appeared in Café Review, First Intensity, Jack Magazine, Lost and Found Times, Massacre, Moria, Shampoo, Sidereality and many other literary magazines. He has written six books of poetry. He introduced his longpoem, IMPROVISATIONS (I-XXIV), at The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church in Manhattan. Frazer has produced five recordings of poetry with free jazz accompaniment and appeared on several recordings with the late jazz saxophonist Thomas Chapin, including their duo release, Song of Baobab. Frazer’s collection of short fiction, finished as a finalist in the 1996 Black Ice/FC2 Fiction Contest. His most recent novel is Relic’s Reunions. He recently finished editing an anthology of Post-Beat poetry for publication in the People’s Republic of China. His newest books are Avenue Noir and IMPROVISATIONS. You can learn more about him at VernonFrazer.com.
The music of Vernon Frazer remained on Unlikely 2.0 for one year, then was removed for reasons of space and copyright.
This is a .wma, or Windows Audio, file. If you are using Windows and have difficulty running the file, try updating your Windows Media Player. If you aren't using Windows, it's probably not going to happen. Sorry.