The Hollywood Muse Masked Ball

Bird and Beckett Bookstore
653 Cheney
San Francisco, Ca
415-586-3733
www.birdbeckett.com
Poet, Tony Seymour
Violinist, India Cooke
Piano, Bill Crossman

The Hollywood Muse Masked Ball:
Seymour & Cooke+Crossman
When
Sun, October 17, 7:00pm – 8:30pm
Description
Exclusive Limited TEN Person LIVE Audience. $40 per ticket. Make your paid reservation in advance with the bookstore to guarantee a seat. (415-586-3733)

Live stream contribution of $20 requested for those unable to attend in person. (www.birdbeckett.com
Or You Tube

Everyone attending the live performance must show proof of vaccination; seats will be spaced six feet apart. We request that the in-person audience observe be 100% masked at the Hollywood Muse Masked Ball tonight!

In the Hollywood Muse Masked Ball, poet Tony Seymour takes a deep dive into an extended work inspired by his “Hollywood Muse,” enlisted for strictly inspirational purposes at a juncture when he desperately needed to get his creative juices flowing again, in a time when beautiful sunsets, swaying palms, laid back locals and planeloads of tourists weren’t nearly enough. Seymour adds that “Essentially it starts on a love theme then expands into a poetic overview of how social structures have been the bane of civilization. It then ventures into taking all the myth out of dying and then formulating a strong sense of self as a human goal……to go beyond the ways of subconscious indoctrination.”

Seymour was the publicist for Black Panthers Huey Newton and Erica Huggins POETRY in the early 70’s via City Lights Books. He’s seen it all, and has always had plenty of words to sling. For years now, however, he’s been languishing in Hawaii. No real paradise in his eyes. Now, for a minute, he’s flying back to the Bay Area to re-engage with the world that made him, and he’s induced his long-time friend, the violinist India Cooke to bring to his epic recital the stellar musical interplay of Cooke+Crossman, fully masked for the occasion. Cooke+Crossman comprises India and pianist Bill Crossman in a duo they have had going for a dozen years.

Cooke, violinist, composer, and educator, performs improv, jazz and classical. She has performed with Pharaoh Sanders, Peter Kowald, Sun Ra, Cecil Taylor, Pauline Oliveros, George Lewis, Joelle Leandre, Amiri Baraka and many others. She has also been a featured soloist with the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. India has performed in Bay Area symphony and opera orchestras, chamber ensembles and Broadway shows. As one of California’s most respected contract artists, she has performed with the Louie Bellson Orchestra, Sarah Vaughn, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and many others. India has recorded sessions for Atlantic, Fantasy and Stax records. As a featured recording artist she can be heard on Leo Records with Sun Ra and his Arkestra, Black Saint Records and Hat Music’s “Nomadic Winds,” Plainisphares’ “African Roots of Jazz” and Sparkling Beatnik Records “The Circle Trio~Live at the Meridian.” She recorded, and released to critical acclaim, her Grammy nominated debut cd as a leader, “Music and Arts’ India Cooke~Redhanded.” India is currently on the Mills College Music Department Faculty, Ensemble Directors & Lesson Instructors roster, and teaches at her private studio – India’s Music Room.

Crossman, jazz/world-music pianist, composer, and educator, is an innovator in freely-improvised jazz piano. He has performed with some of the world’s greatest jazz musicians and has appeared in performance venues and festivals from coast to coast and internationally. For over a dozen years, Bill has played with jazz violinist India Cooke in the India Cooke-Bill Crossman Duo, now renamed COOKE🔸CROSSMAN on their 2018 CD “Infinite Dimensions”. Bill can also be heard on The Troublemakers Union’s recent CD “Fight Back.” Bill’s jazz-styled musical “John Brown’s Truth,” focusing on the last year of the famed anti-slavery abolitionist’s life, has been staged throughout northern CA and in New York City. See website www.johnbrownstruthmusical.com. A poet himself, Bill’s jazz piano has accompanied poetry readings by Al Young, Genny Lim, David Meltzer, and others. He taught jazz & blues piano for years at Oakland Public Conservatory of Music (OPCM) and also led an innovative monthly free-jazz improv open-mike session there