Sunday, Sept 14, 2025 Akua Dixon, Cellist with Betty Neals, Poet

Akua Dixon is a trailblazing Cellist-Composer-Conductor-Educator who has been at the forefront of improvising string players since 1973. The first cellist ever to win the Downbeat Critics Poll, she is a multi-laureate of the National Endowment for the Arts and has been hailed as “amongst the treasures of contemporary jazz” (New Jersey Star Ledger). A world-touring artist, Akua has performed with legends including Duke Ellington, Max Roach, Ray Charles, and Lionel Hampton, while her string arrangements can be heard on Lauryn Hill’s five-time Grammy Award-winning The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill and Aretha Franklin’s Grammy-nominated A Rose Is Still a Rose.

Betty Neals, celebrated poet and truth-teller, captures pivotal moments of history through verse career. Her powerful portrayal of the Historic 1970 Vote — a turning point for justice and civil rights — was published in her acclaimed collection Spirit Weaving. With language that blends resilience, memory, and vision Neals honors the voices of the past while weaving them into the fabric of contemporary struggles for equality and hope.

Sunday LIVE & LIVESTREAM Sept 14, 2025 Akua Dixon, Cellist with Betty Neal, Poet

Soapbox Gallery, 636 Dean Street, Brooklyn, NY

$20 suggested donation for Live or Livestream. Click the button below for tickets

Sunday LIVE June 08, 2025 Ahmed Abdullah's Diaspora

Join us on June 8th at the Soapbox Gallery, as we celebrate the 10th Anniversary of  One Breath Rising and two people who have helped to shape Ahmed Abdullah's life and who have had a major impact on the world, namely Sun Ra and Malcolm X.!  Sun Ra's 111th Arrival Day is May 22nd and Malcolm X's Centennial is May 19th.

Featuring: vocalist/poet Monique Ngozi Nri, saxophonist Don Chapman, pianist D.D. Jackson, bassist Norbert Marius, multi-percussionist Warren "Trae" Crudup with the leader on trumpet/flugelhorn and vocals

$10 Suggested Donation

Sunday LIVE April 13, 2025 E.J. Antonio & Friends: An afternoon of Jazzoetry

E.J. Antonio received fellowships in Poetry from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Hurston/Wright Foundation, and the Cave Canem Foundation.  She’s appeared as a featured reader and performer at venues in the NY tri-state area, including Arts Westchester; the Stone; the Hobart Festival of Women Writers, The Vision Festival, Langston Hughes House, the Blue Door Art Gallery, the Untermyer Park Arts Center, and the David Rockefeller Creative Arts Center at the Pocantico Center.  Her work has been published in various journals, magazines, and anthologies, including: the Encyclopedia Project, African Voices Literary Magazine, Black Renaissance Noire, The Mom Egg, Killens Review of Arts & Letters, Taint Taint Taint Magazine, About Place Journal, and arriving at a shoreline an anthology .  E.J. is the author of two chapbooks, Every Child Knows (Premier Poets Chapbook Series 2007) and Solstice (Red Glass Books, 2013), and a solo jazzoetry cd Rituals in the marrow: Recipe for a jam session.  E.J. is a founding Board Member of the non-profit Arts organization One Breath Rising, and a founding member of the improvisation group, The Jazz & Poetry Choir Collective, which released its debut cd We Were Here in April 2020.

Featuring:

JD Parran - wood winds

JD Parran is a multi-instrumentalist and composer, who has mastered a wide variety of woodwind instruments (from the familiar tenor saxophone to the rarely heard alto clarinet, E-flat contrabass clarinet, bass saxophone and bamboo flute). He has appeared on more than 50 recordings over the last three decades, including collaborations with The Band, Anthony Braxton, Don Byron, Anthony Davis, Julius Hemphill, New Winds, Yoko Ono, Bill Dixon, Andrew Hill and Stevie Wonder among many others. His previous releases are, Kokopilau (duo CD with poet Michael Castro on Freedonia Music), and also JD Parran & Spirit Stage featuring the poetry of Shirley LeFlore and Omegathorp: Living City (co-led with Mark Deutsch) both available on the Y'All label. He is also a veteran educator who lectures at City University of New York (CUNY) and teaches clarinet and saxophone at Harlem School for the Arts. In addition to his teaching and performing careers, he has been commissioned as a composer by organizations such as the National Endowment for the Arts, Meet the Composer, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Jerome Foundation and the Helen W. Buckner Foundation.

Christopher Dean Sullivan - Bass

The critically acclaimed Chicago Ill born, Pittsburgh Pa raised bassist Christopher Dean Sullivan is well traveled throughout the U.S. and abroad. Christopher started his career in Pittsburgh, PA.  While in Pittsburgh he honed his craft as a bassist during his time with the Jazz Workshop Inc., under the direction of Harold Young Sr, and the Archives, located in the Hill district, developed by Errol “Mobutu” Reynolds. 

Chris went on to become the bass and music theory instructor, for the Jazz Workshop Inc., and the Archives. During his time span in Pittsburgh, Christopher Dean Sullivan produced and hosted, along with Visions business partner, songwriter/vocalist, Aubrey Bruce, the first Warner Communication Award winning television show The Tree of Arts Alive. The award was presented for the best in culture and arts programming.  The Tree of Arts would later become a component of The Jazz Workshop Inc. Mr. Sullivan continues to work and collaborate with the 46+ years old Jazz Workshop Inc. 

Chris quickly became known for his own unique approach to playing the bass. He formed local commercial groups that would go on to open-up concerts for such bands of notoriety as the Ohio Players, The Bar-Kays, New Birth, The Tavares, and others. Chris currently lives and performs extensively in the New York City area.

Michael T.A. Thompson - Percussion

Drummer, producer, composer, educator Michael TA Thompson is an anomaly. TA’s palate encompasses an abundance of sound colors. He hears everything and plays with it in a way that’s very inventive and perceptively responsive. Thompson plays as he breathes. That’s why he has toured/recorded with a wide variety of musical giants including Charles Gayle, Oliver Lake, Henry Grimes, Kidd Jordan, Joe McPhee, Dennis Gonzales, William Parker, Mathew Shipp, Vinny Golia, Nels Cline, reggae artist Owen Brown,Calypso artist The Mighty Sparrow as well as artists from classical to rap and beyond.

 Michael attended Berklee College of Music, where he did intense studying of Jazz Composition and Arranging.

 TA Thompson continues to brand himself within the direction of “Improvisation /Free Music.”

 Mr. Thompson also has an extensive background in teaching music to students of all ages. He teaches music theory and composition while encouraging his students to express themselves fully from where they are.

Michael Wimberly - Percussion

Cleveland-born Michael Wimberly studied the rhythms of West Africa and 20th century contemporary music at Baldwin Wallace University and then, during his graduate years at Manhattan School of Music, Wimberly broadened his musical palette studying electronic and improvised music. These explorations connected him with master musicians from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, South America, and Europe. He has performed with artists as varied as George Clinton, Dionne Warwick, Charles Gayle, Berlin’s Rundfunk Symphony, Vienna’s Tonkuntsler Symphony, and Steve Coleman. His compositions have been performed by dance companies all over the world. His film scores include As an Act of Protest by Dennis Leroy Moore, and Atlantic City Lights by Brent Owens for HBO and he has produced sound design for several major theatre companies. In 2002, he joined the faculty of Bennington College as the hand-picked successor of improvised music percussion pioneer Milford Graves.

Sunday ZOOM March 09, 2025 Lauren K. Alleyne

Lauren K. Alleyne is the author of two collections of poetry, Difficult Fruit (2014), and Honeyfish (2019); two chapbooks, Dawn in the Kaatskills (2008) and (Un)Becoming Gretel (2022); as well as co-editor of Furious Flower: Seeding the Future of African American Poetry (2020). Her work has appeared in numerous publications including the New York Times, The Atlantic, Ms. Muse, Tin House, and The Caribbean Writer, among others. Her most recent honors include a nomination for the 2020 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Poetry, the longlist for the 2020 Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, and the shortlist for the 2020 Library of Virginia Literary Awards. Her poetry was selected for the 2021 Best American Poetry anthology, the Academy of American Poets Poem a Day (2018, 2020, 2021, 2022), and was a finalist for 2019 Best of the Net.

Alleyne was born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago. She earned a BA in English from St Francis College in Brooklyn, NY, an MA in English and Creative Writing from Iowa State University respectively, and an MFA in Poetry from Cornell University. In 2022 Alleyne was recognized by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, with a 2022 Outstanding Faculty Award for her work at James Madison University, where she serves as a professor of English and executive director of the Furious Flower Poetry Center.

Sunday ZOOM February 9th, 2025 Cornelius Eady

Cornelius Eady is the author of several books of poetry, including the critically acclaimed Hardheaded Weather, which was nominated for an NAACP Image Award, Victims of the Latest Dance Craze, winner of the 1985 Lamont Prize from the Academy of American Poets, The Gathering of My Name, which was nominated for the 1992 Pulitzer Prize, and his most recent collection The War Against the Obvious. With poet Toi Derricote, Eady is cofounder of Cave Canem, a national organization for African American poetry and poets. He is the recipient of an NEA Fellowship in Literature, a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry, a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship to Bellagio, Italy, and The Prairie Schooner Strousse Award. Eady has been a teacher for over twenty years and is currently the Chair of Excellence in the English Department at the University of Tennessee Knoxville.  His latest recording, Don't Get Dead, will be released early Spring 2025. 

Sunday ZOOM January 12, 2025 Carolyn Joyner

Carolyn Joyner, a Washington, DC poet, uses contemporary and traditional form to examine life’s themes. Her work has been featured in various literary magazines and anthologies, among them, Revise the Psalm: Work Celebrating the Writing of Gwendolyn Brooks, Pleiades, Obsidian, Gathering Ground, Full Bleed, ArLiJo, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Plume Poetry 10, and Little Patuxent Review. She is a former WritersCorps instructor, volunteer poetry workshop leader for the DC Public Library and the River of Words community project, and has a Master of Arts degree in creative writing from The Johns Hopkins University. She is a Cave Canem and Hurston-Wright Foundation fellow, and has been awarded artist fellowship grants from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA).  Her debut collection, Imagine His Mother Witnessing, is forthcoming in 2025.

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