LONDON: Jazz Verse Jukebox

Sunday, April 10th, 2011, doors open 6.30pm, show from 8pm, £7 (on the door only)

Upstairs @ Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club (Aka Ronnie's Bar),

47 Frith Street,
London
W1D 4HT
Tube: Tottenham Court Road
Web :www.jumokefashola.com 

Email: JazzVerseJukebox@me.com

 

Our April line-up will make all Easter eggs go green with envy . . . a chance to hear some legends and the poetic stars of the future . . . come & be dazzled by sublime lyricism, vocal dexterity & passionate verse

Compered by & with music from Jumoké Fashola

Featuring

Fran Landesman

The jazz world’s answer to Dorothy Parker, Fran Landesman is renowned as a poet and songwriter and one of the last living links to the Beat Generation. Her songs include classics like ‘Ballad of the Sad Young Men’, ‘Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most’ and ‘Scars’, and many of the world’s great singers have performed her work including Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald, Barbra Streisand, Miles Davis and Mabel Mercer. In a career spanning more than 50 years, Landesman has written songs with Tommy Wolf, Bob Dorough, Dudley Moore, Alec Wilder, Georgie Fame and Steve Allen. Her longest partnership has been with the celebrated composer and pianist, Simon Wallace and since 1994, they have written more than 300 songs together covered by Ian Shaw, Susannah McCorkle, Sarah Moule and Clare Teal among many others.
Landesman was born in New York City in 1927 and moved to St Louis with her husband, Jay, where he set up the legendary 1950s nightclub, the Crystal Palace. Part cabaret theatre, the club played host (early in their careers) to Woody Allen, Barbra Streisand and Lenny Bruce. It was with the club pianist, Tommy Wolf that Landesman first started writing songs including the classic ‘Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most’, and ‘Ballad Of The Sad Young Men’ from her 1957 Broadway show ’The Nervous Set’. Moving to London in the 1960s, Landesman teamed up with Dudley Moore, Georgie Fame and finally Simon Wallace to produce a catalogue of songs to rival anything in the Great American Songbook.

www.franlandesman.com

Indigo Williams is a writer and performance artist from South London who is generating a buzz on the UK spoken word scene-and if you have seen her live you will know why. She is a dynamic performer who commands the stage with gripping presence and powerful poetry. With both substance and passion her work is emotive and thought provoking. She has performed at The Big Chill festival, iTunes Festival, Camp Bestival, The RoundHouse, BBC Radio 4’s ‘Bespoken word’, The Royal Shakespeare Company and many more. She is an associate artist of The RoundHouse and has just released her debut E.P , ‘Growing Pains’. The young talent is gracing stages across the country and is fast becoming known as a name to watch out for.

www.accordingtoindie.wordpress.com

E Amato has been a featured performer in numerous venues from the U.S. to the U.K., rocking the mic in front of audiences of 1 to 1000. Her writing appears in anthologies, websites, and zines.. Wanderlust and the lure of new challenges led her to produce a show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2007. For two consecutive years, Down Home Presents PoeJazzi earned 5 star reviews at the Fringe Festival. In 2010, Zesty Pubs published her first poetry collection, Swimming Through Amber. She is an award-winning screenwriter, film and theater director, and seasoned indie film script supervisor.  Working behind the camera for more than a decade with over 20 features to her credit, she has shared sets with an incredible range of performers, from award-winning actors Don Cheadle, James Woods, and Faye Dunaway to music icons Snoop Dogg, Meat Loaf, and Tom Waits, on projects that have been darlings of the festival circuit from Sundance to Stockholm. As a director, she has completed 5 short films including Mona and Jake, starring Melora Walters as a love-challenged dominatrix.  The feature-length script she developed from the short received a Special Merits Award from the Long Island Film Festival Screenplay Competition and was a Saguaro Competition Finalist.  Her latest short film draws directly from her love of film and the spoken word.  Cop, was created specifically for Stories from the Edge, an evening of works by Brenda Petrakos, directed by E. Amato, and performed by Los Angeles poets and actors including Diane Gaidry (Loving Annabelle), Stosh Machek, and John Burton, Jr.

www.eamato.blogspot.com

Niall Spooner-Harvey offers poetry you probably won't see anywhere else. Surreal, funny, disturbing but oddly charming, awkward, angry and intense but oddly sensitive, this 28-year-old beardy weirdy and former slam champion's work has graced Scroobius Pip's Poetry Surgery on Radio 1 and Radio 3's The Verb. Niall performs regularly in and around London and has appeared alongside poets including Scroobius Pip and Attila the Stockbroker, as well as musicians like Jamie T, Emmy the Great and Jack Penate. He was part of the 'Utter!' Spoken Word team at the Edinburgh Festival in 2010. His book, 'Only Not Walking', is available from Smokestack Books.

David Bedella is currently starring as Billy Flynn in 'Chicago'.   He has worked in the theatre for thirty years. He spent 10 years in Chicago, then 11 years in New York, performing on Broadway and in U.S. National Touring productions, before making his London debut in 2002 creating the role of Warm Up Man/Satan in the legendary Jerry Springer - The Opera. It was performed first at the Edinburgh Festival, then had its London premiere at the National Theatre, before transferring to the Cambridge Theatre in the West End, where it was filmed for the BBC and subsequently released on DVD. He won the 2004 Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical. In 2008 he recreated the role in concert at Carnegie Hall in New York opposite Harvey Keitel, and most recently at the Sydney Opera House. After Jerry Springer, David played the title role in Hedwig and the Angry Inch and then went on to redefine the role of Frank-N-Furter in the 2006-2007 UK Touring and West End productions of The Rocky Horror Show, a role David reprised for a UK Tour in 2010. May 2008 saw David take on the role of Molokov in Chess in Concert at the Royal Albert Hall singing opposite Josh Groban and Idina Menzel. The Concert made its big screen debut on September 5th 2009 at cinemas throughout London, ahead of its DVD release. Film credits include Cadmos in Alexander, opposite Anthony Hopkins and directed by Oliver Stone; Maitre'D in Batman Begins with Christian Bale; and Trinny in Red Light Runners, once again opposite Harvey Keitel. Television credits include Quentin in Ben Elton's sitcom Blessed and Dr. Carlos Fashola in Holby City, both for the BBC. He is the voice of Victor in the new series of Thomas and Friends which debuts in September. David has recently released his first solo album - David Bedella: The Dean St. Sessions. www.davidbedella.co.uk

PLUS Jukebox Open Mic: 

Come & sing with our amazing house band or perform some poetry.