LAKE HUNTINGTON  — The Delaware Valley Opera will host “Confluence of Dreamers,” a performance of improvisational piano and spoken word poetry by Jazz artist Kazzrie Jaxen and poet Eric Baylin, on Saturday, September 13. This is the newest installment of a concert series in the Arts Nest at Delaware Valley Opera curated by musician Kathy Geary. Saturday’s performance will be the first collaboration between Jaxen and Baylin, who both have lived a lifetime in the arts. 

“When I was four years old, I started improvising,” said Jaxen, whose father played classical violin/viola and used to tape record her singing. When she was five years old, her father bought a small grand piano with piano rolls, a ‘player piano,’ and she would listen to the piano rolls for hours and sing along. She had an awareness of the rhythmic feeling of the music at a young age and started taking classical piano lessons and performing recitals in Manhasset, Long Island, “and that was the beginning,” said Jaxen.

Despite her classical studies, she always knew that she wanted to play jazz, but there was no one teaching it in her community. In a serendipitous way, jazz came to her: “my father became friends with [jazz pianist] George Shearing… George was doing a concert at Jones Beach, and my father picked him up from the airport and brought him back to the house.” Shearing played for young Jaxen, and, “It was amazing, it was magic, right in my living room.” At this moment Jaxen thought to herself, “I wanna do this.”

Jaxen went to Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she began studying with Harvey Diamond. “At that point, everybody was into Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans, but especially Chick- everyone was going into the modal thing. My other teacher, Ray Santisi, had figured out the formula and was giving [Berklee students] the formula of how to play that way, and that just wasn’t my way,” said Jaxen. One night, she and her friends went out to hear Diamond play, and “Harvey blew me away; Harvey didn’t sound like anybody…. His feeling on the piano- I get goosebumps thinking about it now- he just was into every note and he had his own beautiful way.”

Diamond taught Jaxen the concepts that he had learned from jazz pianist Lennie Tristano, whose approach to improvisation involves playing very slowly so the feeling of each note is felt deeply within the body; this method was worlds apart from Berklee’s technically demanding pedagogy. “That was a meditation,” and in combination with singing along with Charlie Parker and Billie Holiday records, Jaxen had found an approach to develop her musical imagination. She began studying with Tristano, who Jaxen described as a modern-day Bach that swings. 

Jaxen then moved to New York City, where she became immersed in the jazz scene and played with musicians in Tristano’s inner circle, including Lenny Popkin and Connie Crothers. 

Alongside this trajectory, Jaxen began practicing mediation and declared to herself: “my spiritual path is music.” At some point she dropped the formality of meditating because she understood that it was happening when she played piano: “My feeling always was that there is an improvising universe and if I can learn about improvising, then I am aligning with the creation of the universe.”

Jaxen said nature influences her music “in every possible way. Nature is the ultimate improviser.” When Jaxen’s life in the city was interrupted by chronic fatigue syndrome, she moved to Callicoon, and, “the river became the teacher, the healer.” 

When asked about the connections between music and Qigong (“Chi gong”), which she teaches, Jaxen said, “’Chi’ is energy, or life force, ‘gong’ is practice. [In improvisation], you are becoming a beautiful, open channel for the music to come through you.” She learned from Tristano how important it is to be relaxed when you play so your body becomes a conduit through which the energy can flow; wherever a blockage may exist- in your arms, your fingers, or your mind- it will stop the energy and obstruct artistic expression. 

“[Improvisation and qigong] are both about energy, they are both about being very loose and open so that the energy of the universe is producing the music through you, that’s the power- not forcing a separate technique that’s a mechanical thing.” Jaxen said that’s why practicing slowly was so important: “I never practiced technique when I was with Lenny [Tristano], because it just arose naturally from singing with records, from working with the chords; everything slow, so that you weren’t separated from your feeling, and your listening, and your being. It was all about whole being, and Qigong is whole being.” 

Spoken Word Poetry

Jaxen’s performance this Saturday will feature the performance of spoken word poetry by Eric Baylin, who explained how the collaboration arose: “Some of my poetry began to be more like music- it was more rhythmic, it was more musical in nature, so I started reaching out to Kazzrie and other musicians to see what would happen if we put it together.” Baylin described a magical nexus that was created by combining his words with music: “They begin to flow together, and I love the rhythms of music as a complement to the words, and I ride with those rhythms when I’m reading or speaking, so it’s quite wonderful- I don’t know if I can go back to speaking without the music,” he said laughing. 

Baylin said the poems in the upcoming show were chosen for their synergy with spirituality and, “are grounded in real questions we have about our lives and how these [spiritual] experiences may inform our lives.”

“Kazzrie and I have discovered over our friendship in the last year and a half that there are many convergences in our interests, and one of them is a spiritual foundation- I’m also a longtime meditator and have my own spiritual practice, and that informs everything I do.”

Baylin said some of the poems he will be reading are influenced by ancient mystic poets Rumi and Hafiz. “Here are two poets from hundreds of years ago whose words are just completely alive- they speak to who we are today. I think Rumi is one of the most widely read poets in the world. Hafiz is very funny and outrageous, but he’s always grounded in this absolute sense of this deep and expansive love, which he would call divine love. When I read his poems, I always want to start writing because it stirs things up.” 

In addition to poetry, Baylin is a sculptor, songwriter, and was a visual arts teacher for 50 years before retiring. Baylin decided to view this next chapter of life as a reinvention, and in this reinvention, he has discovered the vital connection between music and rhythmic poetry: “What I’m drawn to now is collaborating with other artists, and poets, and musicians, and seeing what happens when we put our work together.” 

Baylin said meeting Kazzrie was part of this whole reinvention, and to witness what happens when they combine their energies, you are invited to attend “Confluence of Dreamers,” their performance this Saturday, September 13, at 7pm, at the Arts Nest at Delaware Valley Opera in Lake Huntington.