Yes it IS a New year. This year Detroit will be born into flesh and spirit and we will have what we want finally. It’s been a long time acomin’, but it IS here. Yes. Last Friday night I was able to go out to a place of business (the Wisdom Tooth on Plum Street) and hear the Lyman Woodard Trio, playing its own music, and a joyful occasion THAT was. I mean it’s the first time anyone has HIRED a forward jazz unit for the public to hear, in Detroit, and that’s just ONE sign of what will come. Woodard’s trio includes the master himself on organ, alto saxophonist Charles Miles, and drummer Norman Roberts, who is really amazing. Norman plays regularly with the Temptations, and can handle ANY kind of music like he was born to it. He was. The Trio will be at the Wisdom Tooth every Friday and Saturday night after hours, that is from 2:30 to 6:00 a.m. The cover charge is $2.00, which is fine, as the money goes to the musicians. And they need it, just as you need them.
There is more music to be heard here too — the John Coltrane Quintet with Pharaoh Sanders and Rashied Ali will be in town for a George Wein-type money festival at Cobo Arena Sunday the 22nd of January, along with Miles Davis and some other historical figures. But the Coltrane band is thoroughly contemporary, and makes some of the most exciting music in the history of man. On the 21st, in Ann Arbor, the Andrew Hill Quartet (with Sam Rivers, tenor saxophone; Scott Holt, bass; and Teddy Robinson, drums) will perform in concert at the University of Michigan, presented by the University Activities Committee of the U. of M. The concert will be preceded by a panel discussion on The New Music with Andrew, Charles Moore, and this writer speaking for the music. The discussion will be at 4 p.m., the concert at 8.
Also in Ann Arbor, as part of the Creative Arts Festival, on the 15th of January at 2:30 p.m. in the Union Ballroom, the Charles Moore Ensemble will perform a series of compositions written for the occasion by pianist Stanley Cowell, formerly of the Detroit Contemporary 4 and now of New York City (where he has recorded with Marion Brown on THE PSYCHEDELIC SOUNDS OF MARION BROWN, on the Galliant label, and also with Brown for the Impulse label). Stanley’s composition is for a double sextet, including 2 pianos (Cowell and Kirk Lightsey) and will blow a lot of minds that day.
A community feast will be given by the 1967 Steering Committee at the Artists’ Workshop Sunday, January 22, at 4:00 p.m., in honor of the John Coltrane and Andrew Hill bands, with the musicians in attendance as honored guests. All are welcome—please bring some food to add to the feast, and rice and beverages will be provided. Anyone interested in working on the dinner in any way can contact Arlene Rosenfeld (831-0395), RoseAnne Mulkey (822-0041), or leave a message at the Workshop (831-6840). Starting Feb. 4th the dinners will happen every Sunday evening.
Detroit’s own SpikeDrivers were heard (and very happily) at the Living End for two weeks to start the year, and will be heard again in benefits for Detroit’s two newspapers this month: the first, to benefit the 5th Estate, will be Friday, January 20, at the Upper DeRoy Auditorium at WSU, where the band will be joined by a string ensemble. Indeed. And the second, well, let me start a new paragraph:
On Sunday, the 29th of January, 1967, the 1967 Steering Committee will present a benefit Dance/Concert for GUERRILLA at the Grande Ballroom, with music by the MC-5, the SpikeDrivers, Livonia Tool & Die, the Detroit Edison White Light band (formerly the Down-Home Tyrannosauraus of Detroit), the Lyman Woodard Ensemble, Joseph Jarman of Chicago, the Ron English-Bud Spangler Jazz Unit of Lansing; lights by the High Society AND the Bulging Eyeballs of Gautama; and poetry readings by Allen Van Newkirk, Jim Semark, Bradley Jones, Art Rosch, Gary Grimshaw, Jerry Younkins, Don Moye, this writer, and others, and a special appearance by BILL HUTTON, the madman from Birmingham who is now in residence in Buffalo, where he has recently opened his own ballroom, the Volkswagen Club -of America. Bill’s first book, THE STRANGE ODYSSEY Of HOWARD POW AND OTHER STORIES, will be published by the Artists’ Workshop Press at the end of the month. The GUERRILLA benefit will take place through the kind help and generosity of Uncle Russ, who loves you all.
More openings: Mixed Media, the book/record store we’ve all been waiting for all these years, will start a series of autograph parties featuring Detroit poets introducing new books from the Artists’ Workshop Press. The first will be held early in February and will have Bill Hutton and Jerry Younkins in attendance. More news of that later. Van Newkirk and I have started a new poetry seminar at the Workshop on Monday nights at 8:30 p.m., which is open to all interested parties. A new issue of The Journal, edited by Tom Abrams, is now available at the 5th Estate Bookstore and at Mixed Media—the magazine has work by Robin Eichele (his book of RUNES, intact), Ron Caplan, Joseph Jarman, Sherry Higgins, David Sinclair, Howard Weingarden, Jim Semark, Jerry Younkins, Doug James, Jackie Schatz, Tom Attridge, and my wife and I. The new issue of WORK is also available, with something like 75 different poets, from all over the country. Please look at it. Like everything else in this city, it was made just for you.