JazzSpeaks

World-renowned jazz bassist Keter Betts has had an illustrious career playing with jazz greats and is undoubtedly a master of his art. He first came to Washington, D.C., in 1947 for a 13-week engagement with Carmen Leggio and later played with Earl BosticÆs Band, the Charlie Byrd Trio, and the Woody Herman Orchestra. In 1964 he began accompanying Ella Fitzgerald. For a brief period he left Ms. Fitzgerald and worked with Roberta Flack, Joe Williams, Johnny Hartman, Kenny Burrell, Herbie Mann, Billy Eckstine, and Chris Connors. In 1971 he rejoined Ms. Fitzgerald and remained with her. Throughout his career, Mr. Betts has recorded with numerous jazz musicians including Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington, Earl Bostic, Cannonball Adderley, Louis Belleson, Charlie Byrd and Stan Getz, Herb Ellis, Tommy Flanagan, Woody Herman, Sam Jones, Junior Mance, Sue Matthews, Dick Morgan, Bobby Timmons, and Joe Williams. His travels as a touring musician have taken him all over the United States and the world.

Holly Bass is a writer, dancer and performance artist. She has presented her poetry and performance art at the Kennedy Center, Woolly Mammoth Theater, Studio Theater, the Whitney Museum, St. MarkÆs Poetry Project, and the Nuyorican Poetry CafT. Arena Stage will present a staged reading of her one-woman show, Diary of a Baby Diva, in June 2000. Her poems have been published in Callaloo, the Washington Review, eyeball magazine, and the upcoming Venus 2000 anthology. She teaches creative writing at area public schools and contributes articles to American Theater Magazine, the Washington City Paper, and the Washington Post. She is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Jane Alberdeston-Coralfn is a performance poet from Puerto-Rico. She has published a book of poetry entitled Taina Dreams and is a member of Cave Canem.

Brian Gilmore, a native Washingtonian, is an attorney, poet, lawyer, and author of two collections of poetry: Elvis Presley is Alive and Well and Living in Harlem and Jungle Nights and Soda Fountain Rags: Poem for Duke Ellington.

Playwright and poet Ernesto Mercer attended Howard University and founded and curated the Afoche Poetry Series. He was also a founding member of the Black Rooster Collective. He has performed at: the Whitney Museum of American Art; the Philadelphia Black WriterÆs Conference; the Arthur Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; National Black Theatre in Harlem; the Orisha Society of Brooklyn; Nuyorican PoetÆs CafT; the Stoop; and the Virginia Festival of the Book. He was a featured poet at the 34th Annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival, and he is a two-time winner of WashingtonÆs Larry Neal Prize in Poetry. As a member of the DC WriterÆs Corps, he teaches poetry in the Washington public school system.