Amiri Baraka: Poet, Author, Dramatist, Political Activist

Amiri BarakaAmiri Baraka, a Professor Emeritus at SUNY Stony Brook is artistic director of the Newark Music Project, a Newark-based arts group archiving Newark's historic contributions to jazz. He founded the New Arkestra, a big band working to produce a living archive of this music.

Baraka has published many articles on the music in magazines and anthologies all over the world and has produced some 13 volumes of poetry, two books of fiction and nine non-fiction works, including the classic study of African-American music, Blues People which has been in print for over 30 years. His Black Music was the first look at the wave of musicians in the 1960s, including Pharaoh Sanders, Archie Shepp, Wayne Shorter, Sun Ra, Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler and others who would set innovative standards for the next generation and make a major impact on the music industry.

His play Dutchman won the OBIE award in 1964 for Best American Play. He has written for DownBeat, Metronome, The Jazz Review, Jazz (FR). Blues People and Black Music have been translated into German, Spanish, Japanese, French, and Italian. A Scottish edition of Blues People was published in 1994.

With his wife, Amina, Baraka, edited Confirmation: An Anthology of Afro American Women, and published, The Music: Reflections on Jazz & Blues, a catalyst for the out pouring of poetry, stories and jazz based programming that followed in the 90s. He has been widely credited with sparking the general renaissance in jazz in the 90s with his critical works and poetry. His most recent publications are Wise Why's Y's: The Griot's Tale (Third World, 1995); Transbluesency: Selected Poetry 65-95 (Marsilio, 1996); Funklore, recent poetry (Littoral, 1996); and Eulogies, a collection of eulogies he has delivered since 1965 (Marsilio, 1997). In Fall 1998, Third World will publish a collection of essays, Black People and Jesse Jackson.

Baraka founded the Black Arts Repertory School in Harlem in 1965 and the Spirit House in Newark in 1966, both of which were cultural catalysts in the 60s Black arts movement. Baraka's work at the Black Arts Repertory Theater School in Harlem in 1965 brought the most innovative jazz groups to Harlem, after the removal of the music from the communities that created it in the 40s and 50s.

He was chairman of the Committee For Unified Newark and the Congress of African Peoples in the late 60s and led a drive which elected Newark's first African American mayor, Kenneth Gibson.

Amiri and Amina Baraka founded and direct Kimako's Blues People, a multimedia arts space, from a small theater in their home in Newark. He founded the jazz/poetry ensemble Blue Ark, which has played at the Berlin Festival, and throughout the US. His Jazz opera Money, with Swiss composer, George Gruntz was performed in part at the George Wein's New York Jazz Festival in the early 90s and Primitive World, with music by David Murray, was performed at Sweet Basil, the Nuyorican Cafe and the Black Drama Festival in Winston Salem, North Carolina. His Bumpy: A Bopera with music by Max Roach was performed in 1991 at Newark Symphony Hall and at San Diego Repertory.

Amiri and Amina Baraka, have been married 30+ years and have five children including the late Shani Baraka.