Frazer and Chapin, whose collaboration produced "Put Your Quarter In and Watch the Chicken Dance," a poetry- music fusion piece scheduled for inclusion in a jazz and poetry compilation co-produced by the VILLAGE VOICE and the KNITTING FACTORY, create an exhilarating performance of poetry fused with music on SONG OF BAOBAB. (See link under resources for the knitting factory under Vernon Frazer web page.)

From the opening lampoon of poets at a San Francisco reading, Frazer's biting verse punctures the pretenses he sees around him, from the subterranean literary circuit to the white-collar world -- anywhere surface appearances pass for depth.

SONG OF BAOBAB balances Frazer's acid wit with poignant, even harrowing pieces that view Cancer through the sympathetic eyes of a survivor, challenges standard assumptions of what constitutes sanity through the surly but caring voice of a narrator with Tourette Syndrome, and satirize the generation of the sixties that reluctantly seats itself on the gray side of the generation gap.

Chapin enhances Frazer's pointed texts and purposeful basslines with a variety of saxophones and flutes, as well as an exotic array of "little instruments" that add a world music flair to the jazz core of the work. Chapin's phrases envelop Frazer's words with an empathy that often becomes identification.

Frazer and Chapin bring out the best in each other. On SONG OF BAOBAB their fusion of poetry with music renders a heightened reality that exorcizes pretense, allowing passion and compassion to surface at the core of what is real.

Chapin . . . deploys an imposing arsenal of doodads (alto sax, jaw harp, whistles, zither, all manner of flute) to augment or extend the turbulent emotions evoked by the poetry. Frazer's word portraits of people in varying stages of pain, recovery or folly are by turns caustic and introspective, declamatory and haunting.