Jazz Poetry 2025: Thumbscrew plus poets Mahogany L. Browne, Oleksandr Frazé-Frazénko, Camille Rankine at Alphabet City, Northside - Thursday night Jazz

Mary Halvorson: guitar; Mike Formanek: bass; Tomas Fujiwara: percussion

May is Jazz Poetry Month - Each Jazz Poetry program begins with a full set from a live jazz band, followed by a collaboration with local and international poets. In these collaborations, poets share their work alongside the musicians, the two art forms melding to create that signature Jazz Poetry improvisational style that offers something exciting, new, and unique with each individual performance. 

The 21st annual Jazz Poetry festival kicks off with “One of the most spellbinding trios in contemporary improvised music” (Echoes magazine). Jazz trio Thumbscrew travels to Pittsburgh to launch their latest album, Wingbeats, which germinated during the band’s last trip to Pittsburgh in 2023. Joining the trio on stage for a series of unique, improvisational collaborations are poets Mahogany L Browne, a Kennedy Center’s Next 50 fellow and author of the collection Chrome Valley; Oleksandr Frazé-Frazénko, a filmmaker, writer, and musician from Ukraine and City of Asylum Writer-in-Residence since 2023; and Camille Rankine, whose chapbook, Slow Dance with Trip Wire, was selected by Cornelius Eady for the Poetry Society of America’s New York Chapbook Fellowship. 

In Person - and online stream -