Quincy Troupe and Kelvyn Bell

Sound Art: A Performance
As part of our ongoing series Jazz and the Visual Arts, The Nu-Art series proudly presents SoundArt, a performance by Quincy Troupe & Kelvyn Bell on Saturday, February 19, 2011, at 2:30 p.m. Multi-instrumentalist Hamiet Bluiett will also perform as a guest artist. The performance takes place at the Nu-Art Series' Metropolitan Gallery, 2936 Locust Street, St. Louis MO 63103. Admission $10.00.

SoundArt is a new dialogue in the conversation between music and poetry that integrates the explosive poetic voice of Quincy Troupe with the rhythmic guitar and intriguing vocal styling (blues, funk, jazz, ballads) of musician Kelvyn Bell. SoundArt delivers a dynamic, refreshingly funky, feisty sound that haunts the listener long after the set is over.

Kelvyn Bell
Kelvyn Bell is a composer, singer and guitarist, known for his associations with Arthur Blythe's most provocative ensembles in the 1980s, his collaborations with trombonist/vocalist Joseph Bowie in the New York-based jazz-funk band Defunkt, and his pivotal experience with acclaimed avant garde drummer Charles "Bobo" Shaw. Recognized as an innovator early in his career with his funk, jazz, blues, energy, improvisation and rhythms, he started his own band called Kelvynator. “Arthur Blythe was my jazz teacher, Defunkt was the preacher and Kelvynator is my own church." Says Bell about his musical development. In 2009 he won an Audelco Award for Outstanding Musical Direction of Archbishop Supreme Tartuffe, and since 2002 has been Composer-in-Residence for The Classical Theatre of Harlem. Having studied music theory at The University of Missouri - Columbia, and classical guitar at Southern Illinois University, Kelvyn Bell has written original music and arrangements for numerous other theatrical productions, has been director of The Harlem School of the Arts Jazz Ensemble, and has garnered an international reputation playing and recording with such greats as James Brown, Maceo Parker, Fred Wesley, Ronnie Burrage, Hamiet Bluiett, Lester Bowie, Oliver Lake, Living Colour, Steve Coleman, Cassandra Wilson, Geri Allen, and James Carter, among many other world-class musicians. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Kelvyn Bell lives in Harlem, New York.

Quincy Troupe
Quincy Troupe is an award-winning, best-selling author of seventeen books that include eight volumes of poetry. His most recent volumes of poetry, The Architecture of Language (2006) and Transcircularities: New and Selected Poems (2002), were respectively, winner of the 2003 Milt Kessler Poetry Book Award and named one of the 10 best books of poetry published in 2002 by Publishers Weekly. Troupe co-wrote The Pursuit of Happyness, which was made into a major motion picture starring Will Smith; the definitive biography of trumpeter Miles Davis, Miles: The Autobiography; and a memoir, Miles & Me, soon to become a major motion picture starring Samuel Jackson and Laurence Fishburne. A professor emeritus at the University of California, San Diego, Troupe was the first official poet laureate of the State of California. He has performed and recorded with numerous musicians including Ron Carter, Arthur Blythe, Billy Bang, Hamiet Bluiett, Oliver Lake, Julius Hemphill, Phil Upchurch, Donal Fox, George Lewis, and many others. In 2010, he received the Lifetime Achievement American Book Award. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Quincy Troupe lives in Harlem, New York .

Hamiet Bluiett
Hamiet Bluiett is recognized as one of the finest baritone saxophonists of the modern era, and his recordings during the 1970s and 1980s led to the instrument's resurgence in jazz. Bluiett began his musical career by playing clarinet for barrelhouse dances in his native Brooklyn, Ill., before joining the Navy band in 1961, where he developed his astonishingly high register by playing alto parts on the baritone. He returned to the St. Louis area in the mid-1960s and led the Black Artists' Group big band during 1968 and 1969. After moving to New York in fall 1969, Bluiett performed with a host of jazz greats as a member of groups such as the Charles Mingus Quintet and the Sam Rivers large ensemble. He released several critically acclaimed solo saxophone albums in the late 1970s and co-founded the World Saxophone Quartet along with fellow BAG alumni Oliver Lake and Julius Hemphill. Soon leading jazz publications such as Down Beat had dubbed Bluiett "the most important baritone player to come along since Harry Carney"— the illustrious Ellington band member who had pioneered the instrument's use. He has since formed several other single-instrument ensembles, including the Clarinet Family and Baritone Nation. During the 1990s, Bluiett began recording and supervising sessions for Mapleshade Records. He returned to his hometown of Brooklyn in 2002.

The Nu-Art Series is a Not-for-Profit Arts Organization.