A Taste of New York in Downtown Fort Wayne

Posted by admin on Mar 13, 2012

A Down­town Artists’ Venue

Acoustic Spo­ken­Word Cafe

Music isn’t hard to find in the Sum­mit City, and the qual­ity of musi­cian­ship is top notch. But there is one thing that sets TRIAAC’s Acoustic Spo­ken­Word Café apart from other venues — it’s an artists’ venue. Patrons who come to the Café come to hear the musi­cians and poets who bring their work to the boards. Much like Fort Wayne’s for­mer Toast & Jam or the  the atmos­phere and patron expec­ta­tion at New York’s Vil­lage Van­guard, “when the artists present every­one listens.”  

Sunny Tay­lor played the Café in Feb­ru­ary, and it was the first time she’d played “unplugged” in a good while Sunny is only one of the incred­i­ble Fort Wayne tal­ents that have graced the boards at the Café this sea­son. Among the oth­ers have been Keith Flye, John Ward, Carol Lock­ridge, Megan King, the Afro­Disi­acs, Fatima Wash­ing­ton, the Bryan Nellems Trio, the Three Rivers Jenbe Ensem­ble, and Mathis Grey. And the sea­son doesn’t wrap up until the end of June.

And the incred­i­ble mix the Café presents is among its most touted aspects. The artis­tic mix fea­tures musi­cians, poets and a reg­u­lar Open Mic space at each sit­ting of the Café. Poets who’ve appeared at the Café since Sep­tem­ber include Helen Frost, Emmanuel Ortiz, George Kala­ma­ras, Ketu Oladuwa, Mary Ann Cain, Troy Bigelow, Paula Ashe, Tanika Burt, Linda Bess, Teresa Vazquez, and Kemit Oladuwa.

The Acoustic Spo­ken­Word Café is designed as a space for artists to be heard in Down­town Fort Wayne. It’s a venue where artists come to cre­ate, dis­play, present, explore, re-member and remem­ber, engage and entice, invite and move, act and embody, plant and germinate—without rush­ing or feel­ing the pres­sure “to per­form” over the night-life din.

Con­tin­u­uum, a new jazz ensem­ble fea­tur­ing Quincy Sanders on alto sax, Marco Rubio on bass, and Jesse West on pic­colo bass, with Bryan Nellems on drums will close out the win­ter ses­sion of the Café, on March 24. The fea­tured poet for the evening is Aric Curry, a young artist who has devel­oped his skills at the Weisser Park Com­mu­nity Center’s SBA pro­gram. The Café is open the sec­ond and fourth Sat­ur­days of the month, from Sep­tem­ber through June. Round­ing out it’s third year, TRIAAC received fund­ing from Arts United of Greater Fort Wayne to sup­port the work of the café.

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