Hidden Figures: Jayne Cortez #WomensHERstoryMonth 25/28 (Patreon)

Hidden Figures: Jayne Cortez #WomensHERstoryMonth 25/28

Jayne Cortez (May 10, 1934 – December 28, 2012) was a Black American poet, activist, small press publisher and spoken-word performance artist whose voice is celebrated for its political, surrealistic and dynamic innovations in lyricism and visceral sound. Her writing is part of the canon of the Black Arts Movement. Jayne Cortez was born Sallie Jayne Richardson on an Army base in Arizona, on May 10, 1934. From a young age, she grew up listening to Bessie Smith, Duke Ellington, Sarah Vaughan, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Dinah Washington. Washington’s vocals would be influential to Cortez's spoken word style, which was usually written, chanted, and spoken in rhythmic repetition At the age of seven, her family moved to Los Angeles, where she grew up in the Watts district. She studied art, music and drama in high school and later attended Compton Community College. She took the surname Cortez, the maiden name of her maternal grandmother, early in her artistic career. In 1964, Cortez founded the Watts Repertory Theater Company, of which she served as artistic director until 1970. Active in the struggle for Civil Rights, she strongly advocated using art as a vehicle to push political causes, with her work being used to register black voters in Mississippi in the early 1960s. She traveled through Europe and Africa, and moved to New York City in 1967. In 1969 her first poetry collection, Pissstained Stairs and the Monkey Man's Wares, was published. Cortez went on to become the author of 11 other books of poems, and performed her poetry with music on nine recordings. Most of her work was issued under the auspices of Bola Press, a publishing company she founded in 1971. She presented her work and ideas at universities, museums, and festivals in Africa, Asia, Europe, South America, the Caribbean and the United States. Her poems have been translated into 28 languages and widely published in anthologies, journals and magazines. She cut her first album, Celebrations and Solitudes, at White Plains, New York, in 1974. The first Bola Press recording, taped in October 1979, was called Unsubmissive Blues. Cortez delivered her poetry backed by an electro-funk modern jazz group called the Firespitters. Cortez’ poetry, spoken word, and jazz renditions were all combined to form avant garde jazz recordings. Her album, Maintain Control, recorded in 1986, included tracks such as "No Simple Explanations," "Deadly Radiation Blues," and "Economic Love Song," which is a song built around repetition rituals and the words "Military spending, huge profits and death.” Other albums included Cheerful & Optimistic, released in 1994, Taking the Blues Back Home released in 1996, and Borders of Disorderly Time, which appeared in 2002. Her pieces expressly explored issues of race, gender, class, and politics. She appeared on screen in the films Women in Jazz and Poetry in Motion by Ron Mann. Cortez had a strong influence upon the development of spoken-word performance art during the late 90s and early 2000s, as she was an early adopter of confrontational political outspokenness and deadpan performance technique. Cortez died of heart failure in Manhattan, New York, on December 28, 2012. “Find your own voice and use it; use your own voice and find it." ~ Jayne Cortez #HiddenFigures #JayneCortez ****************** Merchandise! MAKE SURE U GETTA SHIRT!! https://www.teepublic.com/user/sssseren Follow me on social media! Instagram: @sensei_aishitemasu Personal Tumblr: http://sensei-aishitemasu.tumblr.com Tumblr for my work: https://sssseren.tumblr.com Snapchat: sssseren GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/tc5wh7q Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/seren_sensei ****************** Did you know I wrote a book? ☺️ 'So, About That... A Year of Contemporary Essays on Race and Pop Culture' Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/About-That-Contemporary-Essays-Culture-ebook/dp/B013V0CHK6 Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B013V0CHK6 Digital download (e-book): https://gumroad.com/l/IkUa ****************** Links: Jayne Cortez "Find Your Own Voice" (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-moyZ7Rld2w Jayne Cortez, "She Got He Got" (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h0qYZTXaiI 'There It Is' by Jayne Cortez: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/90805/there-it-is Jayne Cortez: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/jayne-cortez 'On Cortez's Poetry:' http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/cortez/poetry.htm Jayne Cortez: https://lannan.georgetown.edu/2010/02/jayne-cortez 'Jayne Cortez, revolutionary poet, dies at 78:' http://amsterdamnews.com/news/2013/jan/11/jayne-cortez-revolutionary-poet-dies-at-78/ Jayne Cortez: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/jayne-cortez Jayne Cortez - AMERICAN POET: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jayne-Cortez Jayne Cortez (Wikipedia): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayne_Cortez