One of the ten best releases of 2007 and the best vocal release of the year - Steve Smith, Time Out New York

Now available at New
Amsterdam Records

From Time Out New York, August 2-8, 2007

Sam Sadigursky
The Words Project

reviewed by Steve Smith

The notion of combining poetry and jazz calls to mind the decades-old image of a beret-bedecked, goateed beatnik reciting verse over smoky bop figures. That model may have worked for Jack Kerouac and Kenneth Rexroth, but it clearly wasn’t what Sam Sadigursky, a Los Angeles-born Brooklynite saxophonist-composer, had in mind when he conceived The Words Project, a new cycle of ten songs based on contemporary poetry.

Instead, Sadigursky took his lead from a handful of notable jazz artists - foremost among them Steve Lacy, Fred Hersch and Frank Carlberg - who fused poetry and music in a manner akin to that employed by classical-song composers for centuries. Rather than imagining music as a backdrop for the verses he selected, Sadigursky sought to fashion settings and performances that would reflect the shape and spirit conjured in the poets’ words.

The quiet mystery of Czeslaw Milosz’s “After Paradise” is echoed in vocalist Heather Masse’s deep timbre, poured out slowly over an angular piano melody embellished with purring accordion, rolling cymbals and breathy flute. Sadigursky evokes the snowy quiet of Paul Auster’s “Still Life” with fluttering soprano sax and Becca Steven’s light, clean voice. Monika Heidemann sings Marina Tsvetaeva’s “I’m Glad Your Sickness” with a compelling tone of ambiguity, and recites Sylvia Plath’s “You’re” without posturing. Noam Weinstein’s downbeat delivery of Maxine Kumin’s “After Love” ends the disc on a touchingly intimate note.



Created in 2006, The Words Project consists of poems set to musical compostion. Rather than have the poetry spoken over a musical background, the goal is to create actual songs from the poems, and to use these songs as forms for improvisation. Recorded in late 2006, the first CD features the vocals of Heather Masse, Monika Heidemann, Becca Stevens, and Noam Weinstein, along with Pete Rende (piano), Eivind Opsvik (bass), Tommy Crane (drums), and guests Nate Radley (guitar) and Robert Burkhart (cello). A second CD will be released in Summer or Fall of 2008.

To date, I have set work of the following poets to music: Donald Justice, Paul Auster, Czeslaw Milosz, Kim Addonizio, Marina Tsvetaeva, Mark Book, Osip Mandelschtam, Muriel Rukeyser, David Ignatow, Sylvia Plath, Fernando Pessoa, Anne Sexton, Langston Hughes, Sappho, Charles Simic, Dunya Mikhail, Anna Swir, Andrew Boyd, Mary Oliver, Audre Lorde, Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti, Bertold Brecht, Penelope Shuttle, Donald Hall, ee cummings, Frank Steele, William Carlos Williams, Martha Collins, Maxine Kumin, Michael Lally, Leon De Greiff, Han Dong, Spencer Reece, Dorothy Parker, and others.

To hear samples from the CD and to purchase, go to New
Amsterdam Records.

Sheet music of many Words Project compositions is available in PDF form. Please contact me for details.

Visit the MySpace page at www.myspace.com/thewordsproject.