AUDIO

Life Is a Saxophone: 28th Anniversary Edition

by S. Pearl Sharp
color & b/w. 58+ min. , www.aSharpShow.com. 2013. DVD ISBN 9780936068183. $25; acad. libs. $100; home version $15. POETRY/JAZZ
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"My typewriter is a machine gun aimed at a lie pointed at the descendants of book burners." So begins Life Is a Saxophone, a documentary about poet and "word musician" Kamau Daáood. Filmed in 1984, when the poet was 34, the production is a rich collection of recitals from "an oral poet in an electronic age," and it includes a live concert at the Watts Towers Arts Center in Los Angeles with interpretations of Daáood's work by musicians Billy Higgins, Roberto Miguel Miranda, Dadisi Komolafe, and Nirankar Singh Khalsa; dancer Lula Washington; martial artist Dadisi Sanyika; and portraitist Gale Fulton Ross. As a bonus, director Sharp includes a 14-minute film that fills in a bit of what has happened to the principals and crew in the ensuing 28 years.
VERDICT A fascinating and timeless collection of the work of a revered poet whose spoken word is jazz.
Reviewed by Bill Baars, Lake Oswego P.L., OR , Mar 15, 2014
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