Content Imagine – Indiana in
Music and Words by Indiana Poet Laureate Norbert Krapf and Monika Herzig, contains 15
tracks totaling 61+ minutes, including tributes to the late Hampton Sisters
(recited by NEA Jazz Master David Baker), various Indiana Avenue jazz
greats, and poet Etheridge Knight of Indianapolis, Hoagy Carmichael of
Bloomington, and the southern Indiana hill country, the setting of many of
Norbert’s poems. The CD also includes poems in response to work by John
Lennon, Paul Simon, and Bob Dylan. A 20-page booklet includes the texts of
all 14 poems on the CD, collages of color performance photos, and images
related to the subjects of the poems. Late jazz great Bob Berg can also be heard on a track dedicated to the trauma of losing an unborn
child. Herzig and Krapf think of what they are doing as a contemporary Indiana form of chamber music, an accessible combination of jazz and poetry. Some of what they do can be traced to Beat Poetry and jazz of the 1950s, but they take it in their own direction, with their individual sensibilities and everyday concerns shining through. At the core of their collaboration is a love of Hoosier heritage. Included are Beethoven’s “Für “Elise” and the German folksong “Frühling,” paired with the poem “Song of the Black Forest,” and “Lazybones Wannabe” meditates whimsically on the German work ethic. For a complete track listing, complete audio file of the first two tracks, and samples of the other tracks, go to MonikaHerzig.com. Click on “Performance Content” for the audio file of Norbert’s version of “On the Road with the Hampton Sisters.” For the text and complete audio file of “One Long Love Song,” go to https://www.krapfpoetry.net/xmascard.htm.” Other tracks can be heard at www.MySpace.com/imagineindiana. Purchase The CD is available in Bloomington, IN at Barnes & Noble, TIS Music Shop, Monroe County Historical Society Gift Shop, Waldron Arts Center Gift Shop, Wandering Turtle Arts Gallery, B-ton Visitors Center; in Indianapolis at The History Center Gift Shop, Luna Music, and Indy CD & Vinyl and soon at Barnes & Noble and Borders stores; in Jasper at the Gift Shop of the Dubois County Museum; and Online at MonikaHerzig.com and at Amazon.com (with a review). You can also send an order request to mherzig@indiana.edu or to ACME Records, 3375 E Old Meyers Rd, Bloomington, IN 47408 - costs for up to three CDs is $15 each plus $2 shipping and handling, after that add $1 s&h per CD. Reviews and Previews “Krapf and Herzig’s sound owes something to the best of the ‘50s and ‘60s-era collaborations between poets and jazz musicians, recalling, for instance, Hammond, In.-raised storyteller Jean Shepherd’s work with Charles Mingus on the 1957 track “The Clown,” or the inconsistent but always inspired musical experiments conducted by Allen Ginsburg that are collected on the box Holy Soul JellyRoll. But there’s a whole lot of other material from that period that hasn’t remained fresh, so it’s remarkable that Imagine avoids the pitfalls of unfocused improvisation and verbose, stream-of-consciousness poetry that plague those forgotten records.” Scott Shoger, NUVO, 1/9/08 Click to read entire feature “Monika Herzig, jazz pianist/composer, and Norbert Krapf, Pulitzer-nominated poet, have resurrected a form of the 1950s Beat poetry and jazz with a strong Hoosier flavor.” Chuck Workman, “Jazz Notes, NUVO, 9/28/07 “[Imagine is] lyrical and poetic, a love letter for Indiana and its roads unseen, unknown, everything from Etheridge Knight to Crown Hill to southern Indiana landscapes. Separately the poems and music stand strong; leaning on each other they are a gestalt larger than the sum of its parts, finding a distinctive rhythm in playing off each other.” Paul Pogue, NUVO preview, 9/20/06 Nuvo article on the Krapf-Herzig collaboration Interview with Norbert Krapf and Monika Herzig about their collaboration and Imagine CD Spotlight on Jazz and Poetry’s hour-long program on the CD Imagine Monika Herzig Bio Herzig has been performing as a professional jazz pianist for more than fifteen years and has completed a Doctorate in Music Education and Jazz Studies at Bloomington's Indiana University. Currently she teaches in the Arts Administration program at IU. As a touring jazz artist, she has performed at many prestigious jazz clubs and festivals, such as the Indy Jazz Fest, Cleveland=s Nighttown, Louisville=s Jazz Factory, the W.C.Handy Festival, Jazz in July in Bloomington and Cincinnati, Columbus= Jazz & Rib Fest, to name just a few. Groups under her leadership have toured Germany, opened for acts such as Tower of Power, Sting, the Dixie Dregs, Yes, and more. As a recipient of the 1994 Down Beat Magazine Award for her composition "Let's Fool One" and with several Big Band Arrangements published with the University of Northern Colorado Press, Herzig has gathered international recognition for her writing skills. More info and sound samples from her numerous releases at www.monikaherzig.com. Norbert Krapf Bio Krapf moved with his family to Indianapolis in 2004 after over 30 years of living and teaching in the New York area, where he directed the C.W. Post Poetry Center of Long Island University. His poetry collections include Somewhere in Southern Indiana, The Country I Come From, which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, Looking for God's Country, a recent collaboration with Darryl Jones, Invisible Presence: A Walk through Indiana in Photographs and Poems, and the forthcoming Bloodroot: Indiana Poems (IU Press). Since moving to
Indianapolis, Krapf has collaborated with singer-songwriters Kriss Luckett
and Greg Ziesemer at the Indiana Poetry Festival and at other venues. Winner
of the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America,
Krapf is emeritus Professor of English at Long Island University and serves
on the board of Etheridge Knight Inc.
Past Performances
Updated February 27, 2008 |
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