Jazz and Poetry: A Tribute to the Beat Generation with Elisabetta Antonini

On February 19, John Cabot University welcomed jazz singer and composer Elisabetta Antonini for a lecture/performance entitled "Jazz and Poetry: A Tribute to the Beat Generation." The event was organized by the Department of Modern Languages and Literature in collaboration with the Department of English Language and Literature. The performance was accompanied by well-known Italian pianist Alessandro Gwis.

The Beat Generation was a literary and cultural movement that started in the U.S. in the 1950s and consisted of college students, poets, and novelists hungry for new experiences, devoted to endless philosophical musings and mysticism induced by drugs and alcohol, living "on the road" as a means of self-discovery and above all, passionate about jazz.

Elisabetta Antonini's album The Beat Goes On (Candid Records, 2014)recounts the dreams of this visionary generation through both original and well-known music. All of the tracks, either composed or arranged by Antonini, revel in dreams of journeying, hallucinations, ecstasy, mystic contemplation, cosmic love, refusal of conventions, and especially jazz music. The Beat Poets looked to jazz musicians for inspiration and tried to emulate their expressive energy. The voices of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, William Burroughs, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti are featured on most of the tracks as the common thread throughout the whole work, making them the real protagonists of the album in a creative and original dialog with the music.

The album received praise in the press, and subsequent live performances in Europe, Japan, and India were enthusiastically received by audiences. "The central idea behind The Beat Goes On was inspired by words from poems, novels, lectures, and readings of the Beat authors. When I listened to their voices, I found them so charismatic and full of power that I wanted to use the voices in my music," explained Antonini.

In introducing Antonini, Professor Paolo Prato, who organized the event, said, "Representatives of the Beat Generation (certainly Ginsberg and Corso) were often hosted by author and translator Fernanda Pivano, who lived just across the street from the Guarini Campus, in Via della Lungara 3, a building that houses some JCU offices. It is as if, some 40 years later, their voices and words resonate again, set to music, in a familiar place."

Antonini began by singing her composition "New York Blues," inspired by Allen Ginsberg's poem of the same name. In the squalor of a New York apartment full of bed bugs and junkies in the hallways, the tenants are still happy living a simple life, spending hours talking about philosophy and literature.

She later performed a piece by bebop icon Horace Silver. Antonini explained that there was a strong connection between bebop, the jazz of the 1940s and 50s, and the Beat writers, particularly Jack Kerouac, who said that he wanted to be considered "a jazz poet who plays a long blues during a Sunday afternoon jam session."

Antonini then welcomed internationally known saxophonist Michael Rosen who joined her in performing a piece dedicated to Gregory Corso's "Marriage." The poem describes marriage in an original way, illustrating its hypocrisies, contradictions, and absurdities.

Despite their provocative attitude and rejection of conventions, most of the Beat Generation's poems are filled with a great sense of mysticism and spirituality. An example of this is the poem "Holy" by Allen Ginsberg, which evokes the sacredness that can be found in the simplicity of any existence. Antonini combined "Holy" with her rendition of Joni Mitchell's "Woodstock" (1970), the iconic song of the antiwar movement.

When the famous bebop saxophonist Charlie Parker died suddenly in 1955, Gregory Corso wanted to celebrate this great musician and wrote "Requiem for Bird Parker." Antonini performed her adaptation of this poem, called "Requiem for Bird Charlie Parker."

Next, Antonini sang "On the Road," inspired by Jack Kerouac's famed 1957 novel, considered the manifesto of the Beat Generation. "This piece is based on the last page of the novel, and I didn't change anything, since it is music, it is real jazz," said Antonini.

She then invited Michael Rosen to join her again to perform the Beats' most famous poem, "Howl" (1956) by Allen Ginsberg. Antonini told the story of how in Italy the publisher and the translator Fernanda Pivano were sued because the content of the poem was considered to be obscene. But this ended up being a fortuitous thing because they won the lawsuit and the poem immediately became famous. "As Allen Ginsberg said, 'it is a kaleidoscope of apocalyptic images,' which describes another kind of America that no one had ever described before, an America that was alienated, exhausted, confused, compressed, distorted, desperate, and exasperated," said Antonini.

Biography of Elisabetta Antonini
A sophisticated singer, as well as a talented composer and arranger, Antonini is highly active on the jazz scene, participating in shows and festivals throughout Europe, Asia, and South America, and performing a varied repertoire that ranges from the American Songbook to original works and contemporary jazz. She has collaborated with many internationally acclaimed musicians, including Kenny Wheeler, Paul McCandless, Paolo Fresu, Javier Girotto, Francesco Bearzatti, Jim Rotondi, Dado Moroni, Roberto Gatto and Enrico Pieranunzi.

She has performed in important international jazz festivals such as: Umbria Jazz, Festival Internacional de Jazz de Madrid, Tel Aviv Jazz On The Boulevard Festival, Rio Harp Festival in Rio de Janeiro, Mumbai Jazz Festival, Enjoy Festival at Swetzingen, Torino Jazz Festival, Roccella Jonica, Casa del Jazz, Teatro Sistina, Auditorium Parco della Musica, Villa Celimontana Festival, Festival Internazionale di La Spezia, Tuscia In Jazz, Roma Summer Jazz Festival and countless others. Antonini is also a sought-after Jazz Educator of singing and vocal improvisation, teaching at a number of Italian and European Conservatories as well as at various jazz workshops around Italy. She is professor and chair of Jazz Singing at the Francesco Morlacchi Conservatory in Perugia.

(Berenice Cocciolillo)

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