Tracie Morris, Bob Gluck, Denice Franke, Bruce Katz
By Seth Rogovoy

(GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass., March 23, 2001) - For performance poet Tracie Morris, working with music is not a way to emphasize her poetry’s innate musicality. Rather, it’s a way of highlighting the meaning in the music.

“I hear poetry working with music as conversation,” says Morris, who performs with her band, Sonic Synthesis 2, in a program called “Soundscapes” at Mass MoCA in North Adams tomrrow night at 8.

“I think that the instruments are being poetic more than I’m being musical,” said Morris, who will be joined by guitarist Marvin Sewell, drummer Val Jeanty, and Doug Wimbish, whose powerful bass licks have powered recordings and performances by Living Colour, Tackhead, Grandmaster Flash and the Rolling Stones, among others.

“I hear everything as words,” said Morris, in a phone interview from her Brooklyn apartment earlier this week. “In the more traditional sense, I see words as sounds that are constructed to convey specific, articulated meaning, and I certainly see music functioning in that way.

“Sometimes people think that I’m singing, but I consider it all poetry. When I think about the music, I’m hearing it as a poetic discussion.” Since 1991, Morris has collaborated with musicians in all genres, including classical Indian, Japanese, African and European music as well as contemporary musicians from all these places. In particular, the list of avant-garde musicians she has worked with reads like a downtown New York all-star team, including Uri Caine, David Murray, Greg Osby, Donald Byrd, Butch Morris, Vernon Reid, Elliot Sharp, Leon Parker and Graham Haynes. Morris says she prefers working with jazz musicians because of the combination of highly refined technique and openness to experimentation that they bring to the bandstand.

“I need to be able to have a conversation,” she said. “My preference is for jazz musicians because they have a wonderful combination of really well-grounded technique but are also open to improvisation. “The jazz musicians I work with are definitely cutting-edge. They might have a jazzy background, but they work with electronics, loops and samples. They are very technologically influenced.

“That’s what I’m looking for: someone who can hear sound as expansive as possible. Because I like to play, and I like people who like to play.” The Grand Slam Champ at the Nuyorican Poets Café and the 1993 National Haiku Slam winner, Morris has collaborated with choreographer Ralph Lemon on the multimedia “Geography Project” and is the author of a number of books, including “Intermission.”

Bob Gluck’s interactive soundscape

Electronic composer Bob Gluck premieres “Sounds of a Community,” his new “interactive sound installation,” tomorrow night at the Woodstock Jewish Congregation, in Woodstock, N.Y., from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m.

Gluck, formerly a rabbi in Great Barrington, has designed the installation so that viewers interact with sculptures in the form of Jewish ritual objects, shaping sounds previously recorded on site.

Among the “instruments” participants will “play” are a prayer shawl the participant dons. As he moves his body, he shapes the sounds it makes. Likewise, as a viewer moves a pointer across a page resembling sacred text, different sounds are heard, and change in response to how the pointer is moved.

Gluck’s exhibition raises questions about the ways musical performance is like religious ritual -- and also how religious ritual is like participatory musical performance.

Club Helsinki

Guitarist Johnny A is the headliner tonight at Club Helsinki, but you might want to arrive early to be sure to catch opener Denice Franke. Franke’s new CD, “Comfort” (Certain), is a winning blend of bluesy folk-pop. Texan Franke has long been known as a backup singer for the likes of Lyle Lovett, Nanci Griffith, Robert Earl Keen, Tom Russell and John Gorka, but on “Comfort” the singer-songwriter steps out front and showcases her rich alto and songcraft, ranging from the early Joni Mitchell-like balladry of “Kindred Skin” to the jazzy, soulful “Indifference” to the country-gothic “Hard Comin’ Home.”

Part of Franke’s success on “Comfort” is knowing when to hold back and let pauses and silences say as much as words. By letting words like “indifference” in the song of that title breathe, Franke fixes them in a listener’s mind. It’s a small but crucial bit of songcraft that more singer-songwriters need to learn.

There’s no vocalist in Bruce Katz’s blues band, but on his new CD, “Three Feet Off the Ground” (AudioQuest), Katz’s Hammond B-3 organ certainly sings its way through the 11 soulful, jazzy tracks, ranging from the slow blues of “Way Down Time” to the gospel-inflected title track. The Boston-based Katz, who teaches at Berklee College of Music and who performs tomorrow night at Helsinki, spent five years in the mid-‘90s touring with Ronnie Earl and the Broadcasters, and has performed or recorded with the likes of Duke Robillard, Debbie Davies, Big Mama Thornton and Jimmy Witherspoon. Local folk-rocker Eric Underwood replaces the previously-scheduled bluesman Johnny Bassett at Club Helsinki next Thursday night. Underwood’s set will be recorded for an upcoming live album.

Next month looks to bring another eclectic array of performers to Helsinki, including blues artists, party bands, folksingers and a few ringers including modern-jazz ensemble Living Daylights (April 19) and guitarist Gary Lucas (April 20). But the big names on April’s schedule include country-swing artist Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks (April 21) and venerable jazz-blues singer Mose Allison (April 28).

Also featured next month at Helsinki are singer-songwriter Vance Gilbert (April 5), Grammy-nominated blues belter Shemekia Copeland (April 6), singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier (April 7), blues keyboardist Ron Levy (April 12), zydeco artist Chris Ardoin (April 25), and Vikki True and Bobby Sweet (April 26). More performers are expected to be announced soon.

Backstage bits

Pianist Andy Jaffe brings his jazz trio to Castle Street Café, Great Barrington tonight. Tomorrow night there’s a change of pace from Castle Street’s regular jazz menu when bluegrass outfit Beartown Mountain Ramblers entertain the crowd.

This year’s Labor Day jazz weekend at Tanglewood is being booked by an experienced, Boston-area jazz producer, leading to hopes that the programming for the annual event might be a little more imaginative than it has been in past years. The Beat has learned that jazz-pop singer/guitarist John Pizzarelli, a frequent performer at the festival, will appear on September 1.

[This column originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on March 23, 2001. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 2001. All rights reserved.]