spoken word – Mitch's Muse

According to a news release, Arturo O’Farrill’s Grammy Award-winning ensemble, the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, will conclude its 10th Anniversary season with a celebration titled, “Música Nueva 5: Big Band Poetry Jam & Beyond” at Symphony Space in New York City.

Performance times are at 8 p.m. Friday, May 11, 2012, and 8 p.m. Saturday, May 12, 2012, at Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway at 95th Street in New York City.

The program will celebrate the Nuyorican Poetry movement and the Latino community, and the artists will mix the classic sound of mambo, boogaloo, and salsa with hip-hop, acid jazz, and alternative improvisation.

Additional guests for the evening include poet and curator Angel R. Rodríguez, Sr., as well as Tony Award winner Lin-Manuel Miranda and turntablist DJ Logic. Spoken word artists include Sandra María Esteves, Tato Laviera, Odilia Rivera Santos, Caridad “La Bruja” De La Luz, Circa ’95 (PattyDukes & RephStar), and Christopher “Chilo” Cajigas. The arrangers for the two-night engagement include O’Farrill, Todd Bashore, Adam Kromelow, Jason Lindner, Adam O’Farrill, Jay Rodríguez, and Bill Ware.

Founded in 2002 by O’Farrill to perform the full repertory of big band Afro Latin jazz and commission new works to advance this culturally rich genre, the ALJO was a resident orchestra at Jazz at Lincoln Center from 2002 to 2007. In 2007, the ALJO left Lincoln Center to pursue the twin goals of developing new audiences for big band Afro Latin jazz and of creating a robust educational program for young performers. O’Farrill founded the Afro Latin Jazz Alliance that same year to pursue both the performance and educational aspects of this uniquely pan-American art form.

The ALJO is currently in its fifth season in residence at Symphony Space, and it continues to tour nationally and internationally to critical acclaim, performing over the past several years at The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Boston Symphony Hall, the Newport Jazz Festival, The Joyce Theater (with Ballet Hispanico), Megaron Concert Hall (Athens, Greece), and the Taichung Jazz Festival (Taichung, Taiwan), among countless other venues. The ALJO received a Grammy nomination for its 2005 album, Una Noche Inolvidable (Palmetto), and in 2009 earned a Grammy for Best Latin Jazz Album for its release Song for Chico (Zoho). The Orchestra’s newest album, 40 Acres and a Burro (Zoho), was a 2012 Grammy nominee for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album.

Ruby Dee

The Dallas-based Black Academy of Arts and Letters (TBAAL) is presenting Ruby Dee at 5 p.m. EST on Sunday, May 13, 2012. Dee will perform in a special evening of spoken word at the historic Apollo Theater, 253 West 125th Street in Harlem, N.Y.

“Ms. Dee is a shining example of African American culture and history,” says TBAAL Founder and President Curtis King in a news release. “It excites me to see her still performing so masterfully, and I am certain the audience will be just as excited to be in the presence of one of our country’s foremost living legends.”

The legendary actress was raised in Harlem and began her career there as a member of the American Negro Theatre. Over the years, Dee has appeared in such stage productions as “South Pacific” (1943), “Anna Lucasta” (1944), “Purlie Victorious” (1961) and “Checkmates” (1989). However, it’s her 1959 portrayal of Ruth, the long-suffering, inner-city wife of Sidney Poitier’s character, in the original Broadway production of Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun” that made her a star. It ran on the great White Way for two years and was then made into a 1961 film for which Dee won a National Board of Review Award as Best Supporting Actress.

In the ’60s, Dee co-starred in several television series ranging from dramas to the primetime soap opera “Peyton Place” and the daytime soap, “Guiding Light.” In the years since, she (often with her late husband, actor Ossie Davis), has appeared in dozens of motion pictures such as Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” and episodic television shows like “Golden Girls.” She’s earned seven Emmy Award nominations, including a win for a 1993 performance on Burt Reynolds’ “Evening Shade” sitcom and for a 1991 role in the telefilm, “Decoration Day.” Dee’s 2007 role as Mama Lucas in the 2007 film, “American Gangster,” starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe, earned her an Oscar nomination as best supporting actress. In 2004, Dee and Davis were recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors, and she shared a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album with Ossie Davis for “With Ossie and Ruby: In this Life Together.”

Tickets are available online at www.Ticketmaster.com or by calling the Apollo Theater Box Office at (212) 531-5305.