AvantRetro

Bio:

AvantRetro (Charlie Rossiter & Al DeGenova) is a Chicago-based performance poetry duo that uses a variety of techniques and tools including store-bought and home-made musical instruments, audience participation, and unorthodox vocalizations to present their original poetry that gets at the essence of what it means to be human. Al plays saxophone and flute. Charlie plays conga and other hand percussion instruments. . . . . . . . Since joining poetic forces in 1998, they have been featured performers at Printers Row Book Fair; Around the Coyote Arts Festival; the Detroit Opera House; and major poetry venues around Chicago and the Midwest. They are frequent guests on Rick Kogan's Sunday morning program on WGN radio. Back Beat, their co-authored book of memoir and poetry, has been praised by such poets as Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jimmy Santiago Baca and Maria Mazziotti Gillan. They were among the handful of poets selected to be featured at the 2005 Chicago Blues Festival and were also among those who performed at Chicago Artists for Dean during the primaries for the last presidential election. An enlarged 2nd edition of, Back Beat, has just been published by Fractal Edge Press (2006). . . . . .. CHARLIE ROSSITER--is known for his dynamic poetry performances at places like the Dodge Poetry Festival in NJ; Bowery Poetry Club and Nuyorican Poets Cafe, NYC; the Green Mill, Chicago; the Newport Beach Literary Series, in Oregon and NPR's "The Poet and the Poem." He also hosts the audio website, poetrypoetry.com, is a co-founder of Poetry World Radio, a web-based 24/7 poetry radio station, and has organized numerous poetry readings for peace and justice. . . . . . . . AL DEGENOVA's years as an editor at Downbeat magazine inform the sensibility and rhythm of his blues-based poetry. He is the founder, publisher and co-editor of After Hours, a journal of Chicago writing and art. He has published and performed widely as a poet and has played tenor sax with such Chicago blues legends as Lefty Dizz, Sugar Blue, Sunnyland Slim, and Valerie Wellington. . . . The four posted poems are available from itunes. The album AvantRetro is available at cdbaby.com/avantretro... Contact A/R Hotline: 708-660-9376 avantmail: charlie.rossiter@poetrypoetry.org

Member Since:

October 02, 2006

Members:

Charlie Rossiter and Al DeGenova with sometimes special guests Cole DeGenova (keyboard) and Jack Rossiter-Munley (percussion).

Influences:

Beat writers Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and Lawrence Ferlinghetti as well as poets like Kenneth Rexroth, Gary Snyder and the great lyric and surrealist poets of yesteryear. Also, songwriters Tom Waits and Warren Zevon.

Sounds Like:

AvantRetro's work might remind you of Ferlinghetti or Rexroth's work with combining poetry and jazz.

Record Label:

see AvantRetro at CD Baby