As part of my occasional series this spring looking back at the roots of the Parlando Project I've been writing about things I did back in the 20th century that led up to this.
The recording is about 25 years old, but I did what I could with the audio recorded onto cassette tape. You can read about the Parlando Project and listen to our nearly 700 more recent audio pieces combining various words (mostly literary poetry) with different styles of original music at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org
I still hear poet Kevin FitzPatrick's voice in my ear. That deep sustaining sound leads me to perform his poetry. This ode of his to midlife thoughts starts out with just acoustic guitar which is eventually joined by a string sextet.
Kenneth Patchen's touching poem performed as a song with acoustic guitar. For more about this and over 650 other combinations of various words (mostly poetry) with original music in different styles, go to our blog and archives at frankhudson.org
Kenneth Patchen's love poem in the dark performed in front of a three-guitar eccentric rock band. Eccentric/eclectic is essential to what this Project does, so be aware that I don't expect any listener to like everything we do.
What else do we do then? Visit our blog and archives at frankhudson.org where there are over 650 examples of a variety of words (mostly literary poetry) performed with original music in different styles.
Here's my musical performance of a poem from a video game. If that's not remarkable enough, it's a piece for May Day, The international workers day. Have I intrigued you?
The poem appears, spoken by a character in the game Night in the Woods and the presumed authors are Bethany Hockenberry and Scott Benson. The music is my own composition.
For more about this or to hear the more than 650 other combinations of various words and original music we've done, go to frankhudson.org
Langston Hughes ode to Jazz from his first collection of poetry The Weary Blues performed with a Jazz combo -- well, not exactly -- it's me doing my best to give this composition a bit of a Jazz feel.
April 30th is International Jazz Day and the last day of U. S. National Poetry Month, so it's appropriate that today's performance tips our hat to Jazz Poetry.
If you want to find out more about this, or sample the more than 650 combinations of various words (mostly poetry) with original music (in different styles) we've done, go to our blog and archives at frankhudson.org
Emily Dickinson's wistful speculation on the paths not taken performed with a folk-Jazz musical setting.
For more about this, and for more than 650 other examples of what we do: combining various words (mostly other people's literary poetry) with original music in different styles, visit our archives at frankhudson.org
Ralph Waldo Emerson was key in bringing elements of South Asian thought to the still forming U. S. culture. For an example, here's a poem of his from 1856 that's an American Transcendentalist appreciation of a Hindu godhead performed as a hymn with acoustic guitar.
For more about this, and for more than 650 other examples of various words (mostly poetry) with original music in different styles, visit our blog and archives at frankhudson.org
William Carlos Williams ambiguous poem about first-time parenthood performed. I had to choose as a performer: is he happy or seeking to be happy in this poem? I choose the later in this sorta-kinda shoegaze musical piece that's part of our National Poetry Month celebration this year.
Sandburg tells us about a Midwestern summer night in the Last Decade Called the Twenties. Can he paint the picture well enough that we can see it in ours? Let's see as I perform his poem in front of a rock quintet.
Want to read more about this, or hear more than 650 other combinations of various words (mostly poetry) with original music? Visit our blog and archives at frankhudson.org
Peruvian author César Vallejo wrote this Easter pastoral poem and I translated it from his Spanish to create this song. Some may wonder why this is an autumn-set poem speaking of Easter. Peru is south of the equator, Easter comes in the fall.
This should be considered the first Parlando Project song, words by Keith Hill, music written by myself as teenager in The Sixties. As part of National Poetry Month, I've been going over how the Parlando Project came to be in blog posts, where you can find more about that, this song, and the archives of over 650 other combinations of various words (mostly poetry) with original music.
A Carl Sandburg courting poem for his life partner Lillian Steichen, full of love, yearning, and admiration. Performed with original music in a way that wouldn't be too foreign to Carl the musician and singer: acoustic guitar and vocal.
For more about this an over 650 other combinations of various words (mostly poetry) with original music visit our archives and blog at frankhudson.org
Robert Frost's version of a weird tale he borrowed from William Butler Yeats is performed today with a folk-rock arrangement.
For more this, and more than 650 other combinations of various words (mostly poetry) with original music, visit our archives and blog at frankhudson.org
Edward Thomas, the honest and observant nature poet, finds signs of Spring in, well, bird poop. It's things like this that make him a cut above for me. Here's a rock band setting performance of his poem.
For more than 650 other combinations of various words (mostly poetry) with original music in several styles, and comments on our experience of the poems, visit our archives and blog at frankhudson.org
Others have set Anna Akhmatova's poetry to music effectively, but I decided to create and perform my own setting for this poem about lost connections.
For more than 650 other combinations of various words (mostly poetry) with original music in various styles visit our archives at frankhudson.org
This is Frank O'Hara's love poem of separation -- separation from the beloved, separation of the lovers from the world. In this performance of it I supply a rich and strange musical piece to accompany it.
For more about this and more than 650 other combinations of various words, mostly poetry, with original music that also varies, visit our archives at frankhudson.org
Sara Teasdale's meditation on change and not-change in wartime performed.
For more about this and over 650 other combinations of various words (mostly poetry) with original music, visit our archives at frankhudson.org
Here's an outwardly simple yet mysterious poem by Langston Hughes, published among other young Afro-American poets in the 1926 issue of Fire!! For more about this and more than 650 other examples of various words (mostly poetry, combined with original music, see our archives at frankhudson.org
Another Waring Cuney lyric used on the Josh White record of the state of the Black American nation in 1941. I recently performed it with my own music as part of our February observance of US Black History Month.
For more about this and over 650 other combinations of various words with original music check out our archives at frankhudson.org
Waring Cuney was one of the lesser-known young contributors to the 1926 Fire!! magazine. Later he contributed lyrics to an anti-Jim Crow Josh White recording. I used one of them again with my own musical setting today.
For more than 650 other examples of various words (mostly poetry) combined with original music, visit our archives at frankhudson.org
Resuming our encounter with the 1926 Harlem Renaissance publication Fire!! I present my performance of Waring Cuney's poem "The Death Bed." This musical setting uses a sample from the poem's contemporary, Blues/Gospel guitarist Willie Johnson.
Here's another performance of my poem about old love. For more than 650 other combinations of various words (mostly poetry) with original music visit our archives at frankhudson.org
A rambunctious country-blues ditty celebrating geezer-age love and desire. If you can't laugh on Valentine's Day, you aren't in love.
For more about this and more than 650 other combinations of various words (mostly poetry) with original music try our archives at frankhudson.org
Harlem Renaissance figure Helene Johnson wrote this cold pastoral more than a decade before the more famous song lyric "Strange Fruit." I've set it to music and performed Johnson's poem for today's piece.