Friday, September 9 - Robert Gibbons and Melissa Slocum
/We are thrilled to present our FOURTH EVENT -
A vibrant evening of jazz and poetry, with
ROBERT GIBBONS
- AND -
MELISSA SLOCUM
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2016 8:00 pm
South Oxford Space
138 South Oxford Street Ft Greene, Brooklyn, NY $15 for all
ROBERT GIBBONS is a poet living in New York City. He is originally from Belle Glade, Florida and has been in the City since 2007 in search of his muse -- Langston Hughes. He is published in Brooklyn Poets Anthology; Paragram; Promethean; Turtle Island Quarterly; Deep Water Literary; Killer Whale; and Suisun Valley. He is presently pursuing a MFA in Poetry at the City University of New York. His first collection, Close to the Tree, was published in 2012 by Three Rooms Press. Information about the book can be found at http://www.threeroomspress.com/
Bassist MELISSA SLOCUM has been performing worldwide since 1982 and has worked with such legends as Art Blakey, Lionel Hampton, Cab Calloway, Clark Terry, Wynton Marsalis, Woody Shaw and Hank Jones. Comfortable in genres ranging from duo to big band, traditional to avant garde, she has performed and recorded with Charli Persip and Superband, Ralph Peterson and the Fo'tet, Avery Brooks with Craig Harris, Howard Johnson and Gravity, Dakota Staton, Kevin Mahogany, the Firey String Sistas and the all woman big band DIVA, among many others. She has worked with bandleaders Eddie Chamblee, David "Fathead" Newman, Frank Wess, Hamiet Bluiett, Don Byron, Jay Rodriguez, Frank Lacy and Nioka Workman; pianists Walter Davis, Jr., James Williams, John Hicks, Kirk Lightsey, Cyrus Chestnut, Roy Merriwether, Henry Butler, James Weidman and Darrel Grant to name a few. She has played for numerous vocalists including Dee Dee Bridgewater, Nnenna Freelon, Michelle Lee, Maurice Hines, Jeannie Bryson, Leon Thomas, Jon Hendricks, Michelle Hendricks, Ann Hampton Callaway and Dianne Reeves. Television appearances include Newport Jazz Festival 1999, Kennedy Center 25th Anniversary Gala, BET Interview, CBS Sunday Morning, CNN with the Kevin Mahogany Quintet and CBS News with Lionel Hampton. Ms. Slocum holds a Master of Music in Jazz Studies from the Manhattan School of Music. She studied jazz bass with Lisle Atkinson, Stafford James, Milt Hinton, Rufus Reid and Ron Carter. She received an NEA grant for jazz study in 1986.