Lyrical Miracle: Homage to the Great American Songbook

Lyrical Miracle: Homage to the Great American Songbook celebrates the Great American Songbook as our boldest ambassador on the road to freedom, a 32-bar Bill of Rights lyrical miracle, an e pluribus unum forging individual genius in collective improvisation. Inspired by Walt Whitman’s barbaric yawp and his Democratic Vista, Kirpal Gordon draws on 48 of America’s most enduring jazz, pop, rock and blues classics to weave his long-lined prose poetry into their song forms so that they fit exactly into the time and tempo of the tune. “A poet with unstoppable chops, Kirpal Gordon is a spewer of jewels with the baddest ear in the hemisphere and an unbelievably well-hung mother tongue…. His voice is wed to the energy of a singly hearted ensemble,” Mikhail Horowitz, The Blues of the Birth. “His work swings with around-the-corner wit, but also with real gravitas, with a ludicrous tragic craziness that’s at once wild and frighteningly familiar. He chooses tunes that are sweet and heartfelt but also elegant and formally graceful—his voice levitating rich and smooth and right on the rhythm. I’ve never heard the marriage of music and the spoken word done with greater harmony,” William Seaton, director, Poetry on the Loose. “Hearing Gordon’s poetry with his jazz band at Sweet Rhythm is like seeing Salvador Dali’s paintings: he’s a shape shifter of the first order,” Lara Pellegrinelli, National Public Radio. “Precise of word and rhyme and ready of wit, his pairing poems with pearls of jazz and his erudition in world lit (licks from Eliot, Yeats and the Upanishads flit by like Dexter Gordon’s quotes) add further dimensions to his verbal inventions; at poetic peak he’s internally rhyming, eternally scheming, keeping this hot band dancing on the point of Cleopatra’s needle,” Fred Boucher, All About Jazz. “The only lyricist I know who can recite free verse so that the bridge of the tune has relevance to his recitation, Kirpal Gordon differs from most jazz poetry in two unique and wonderful ways: his ear is tuned to the jazz vocal tradition and his musicians interpret a repertoire that incorporates bop, swing, pop and classical standards with a musical freshness that corresponds to the vigor of his language,” Vernon Frazer, Soundzine. “Having graced our stage many times with his spoken word collaborations, we call Kirpal Gordon our poet laureate at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola,” Todd Barkin, proprietor, Dizzy's, Jazz at Lincoln Center.“If you think the notion of mixing jazz and poetry is hopelessly old-fashioned, let his swinging scansion and vivid imagery relieve you of that perception. Gordon swings,” Steve Smith, Time Out New York. “Kirpal Gordon is one of my very favorite spoken word performers, not just in New York City but anywhere. His work is wise and jazzy and poised and fun, and whether alone or accompanied, he never fails to bring it on stage in a manner that few can even approach,” George Wallace, editor, Poetry Bay.“Lotsa people go at it, but it’s Kirpal G who IS it—the Real Deal, the Chilly Willy, the Absolute Rootin’ Tootin’est Poet Qua Non—like the rain out of the blue. When my life is through and the angels ask me to recall the thrill of them all, I will tell them I remember Kirpal!” Bob Holman, proprietor, Bowery Poetry Club.