UFQ

Avant jazz & poetry for time travelers in love From the San Francisco underground comes the voice of poet Robert Anbian, backed by electronic percussionist E. “Doc” Smith and Bay Area sax legend Charles Unger, plus keyboardist Sam Peoples and bassist Mike Shea. UFQ makes its own magic drawing on the music of Miles Davis, Thelonius Monk, and Bobby Hutcherson, with infusions of Brian Eno, the Grateful Dead, and something else. Notes Anbian: “I call the post-fusion, world beat jazz these guys play ‘acid-bop’ – it’s got more possibilities for poetry than the typical verse-chorus cadences of popular music.” Known for his lyrical-epic “WE” series, and such topical effronteries as “Haikus for the White House,” Anbian has been described by fellow poet Richard Hack as “a passionate virtuoso steeped in these times and deep with tradition” [whose] “poetry crackles with currency – hiply linguistic turns of natural originality, rhythmically brimming with a tempestuous taste of ecstasy, reason, and love.” Dusty Dog Reviews declared him “a genius or a Venusian.” Anbian and UFQ join a jazz and poetry revival led most recently by Laurie Anderson, Jean Girono and William Burroughs, and rooted in the ’50s jazz poetry of Rexroth, Patchen, Kerouac, and Ferlinghetti. “Don’t forget ol’ Charles Cros in Paris in the 1880s,” says Anbian. “Rexroth cited his cabaret poems as inspiration for his own performances at the Black Cat in San Francisco back in the day.” “Of course, we’re after something a little peculiar, our own mix for the re-mix century….”

-Robert Anbian

Robert Anbian and the UFQ: The Unidentified Flying Quartet, is available via Edgetone Records.