Like movies and popcorn, jazz and poetry go hand in hand. On April 3, in honor of Jazz Appreciation Month and National Poetry Month, the 4-Star Theater tips its hat to both arts with a screening of Fire Music: The Story of Free Jazz, a film by Tom Surgel (2021) and a set of poetry by San Francisco Poet Laureate, Tongo Eisen-Martin, with friends

Fire Music takes on the origins of free jazz, also known as avant garde jazz.  Misunderstood at the time its creators like Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra, Albert Ayler and John Coltrane took a chance on reshaping their sounds, today, they and the other ‘50s and ‘60s artists of the underground are the considered giants of experimental music and any hybrid genre that incorporate rhythm, harmony, melody and dissonance with free style and abandon. Combining archival footage with commentary, Fire Music is a beautiful visual document and accompaniment to an often overlooked corner of American improvisational music and African American history, its discontent as relevant to today’s struggle for liberation as it was then.

The powerfully political and poetic visions of poet Tongo Eisen-Martin are connected to the lineage of the Beats and Surrealists of yore, yet he stands apart as one of the most inventive and daring contemporary poets working today. An award-winning poet, educator and founder of Black Freighter Press, Eisen-Martin is among the esteemed poets in the City Lights Books Pocket Poet series. His most recent work, Blood on the Fog, was cited in the New York Times as one of the best poetry books of 2021. His spoken word album, I go to the railroad tracks and follow them to the station of my enemies was released by Rocks In Your Head in 2022.