October 8th and 9th, 2010
Noon - 10:00pm
Opening Reception:
October 9th
7 - 10pm

All events are FREE!

The Davis Jazz Festival is co-sponsored by John Natsoulas Gallery and Davis Downtown Business Association.

TThe 4th Annual Jazz and Beat Festival: Beyond the Beat Generation

Artist Biographies

Craig Baldwin

Craig Baldwin is a filmmaker who uses “found” footage from popular culture to create pseudo-documentaries, and tackles such subjects as intellectual property rights and consumerism. Baldwin was born in Oakland and grew up in the Sacramento area, he attended college at University of California, Santa Barbara and University of California, Davis, and earned an M.A. from San Francisco State University. While there, he studied under Bruce Connor and became increasingly drawn to collage film form. Baldwin's interest in the re contextualization of "found" imagery led him to various practices of mail art, zines, altered billboards, and other creative initiatives beyond the fringe of the traditional fine-arts curriculum. Baldwin has worked on such films as Spectres of the Spectrum, a sci-fi spoof utilizing early educational kinescopes which criticizes the corporate control of electronic technologies.

Andy Jones

Andy Jones has taught for the English Department and the University Writing Program since 1990. Originally trained as a poet and interpreter of poetry, Andy has taught classes at UC Davis on TS Eliot, the Poetry of the Beat Generation, and Close Reading of Poetry, as well as the Advanced Poetry Workshop. Andy serves as faculty advisor to The Voice, the campus Undergraduate Health Journal; regularly speaks before groups of students assembled by Student Advising, the McNair Scholars Program, Professors for the Future, and the UCD Medical School's Post-Baccalaureate Program; and hosts "Dr. Andy's Poetry and Technology Hour" on radio station KDVS. His recent publications include an essay on Beat Art and Poetry in Lifescapes Magazine, and a book of poetry, Split Stock, that Andy co-authored with Writing Program colleague Brad Henderson. Currently Andy is working on a new book, Cages, and enjoys co-hosting a poetry series at Bistro 33 in Davis on the second and fourth Tuesday of the month.

Mary Fuller MacChesney

Mary Fuller MacChesney, who has lived in Sonoma County since 1952, was born in Wichita, Kansas, grew up in the Central Vallery of California, studied philosophy at the University of Berkeley, apprenticed at the California Faience Co. , in ceramics, welled in the Richmond Shipyards in World War II, has published three mystery novels, short stories, poems and articles about art in Art Digest, Artforum, Art in America, Craft Horizons, American Crafts, and Current, where she was a staff writer. Mrs. MacChesney was a researcher for The Archives of American Art (1964-1965), a Ford Foundation Fellow (1965-1966) and in 1975 she received a NEA Art Critic's Grant. Her art book, A Period of Exploration, was published by the Oakland Museum in 1973 in conjunction with a three month exhibition of the work discussed in the book. She has exhibited sculpture at the Syracuse Museum in New York, the San Francisco Museum, the Oakland Museum, Cal State of Cal Center, University of Oaxaca, San Francisco art festivals, and many galleries. Her sculpture commissions include work at the San Francisco General Hospital (1974), Salinas Community Center (1976), Andrew Hill High School, San Jose (1971), Dept. of Motor Vehicles, Yuba City (1978), the San Francisco West Side Pump Station (1979), Petaluma Public Library (1975), and the Petaluma Animal Shelter (2003).

Ray Manzarek

Ray Manzarek is musician, songwriter, producer, writer, director and keyboardist of the Doors from 1965-1973. Originally from Chicago, Illinois, he grew up playing piano and later studied at the Department of Cinematography at UCLA, where he met Jim Morrison. They expressed interest in each other's musical endeavors and after Manzarek listened to a rough version of Morrison's "Moonlight Mile", the two formed The Doors. The band played at venues such The London Fog and Whiskey a Go Go, before signing with Columbia Records and, and later, Elektra Records. Manzarek played the bass section on a Fender Rhodes piano Bass and a Gibson G-101 Kalamazoo, which sounded like Vox Continental organ. Manzarek has worked with several bands including Nite City, and backed Echo & the Bunnymen, and played with Iggy Pop. He is currently recording with slide guitarist Roy Rogers on a new project.

Michael McClure

Michael McClure is an internationally known poet, essayist, and playwright. Born in Kansas, McClure moved to San Francisco where he was influenced by the developing Beat movement. He went on to join Philip Lamantia, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder & Philip Whalen as the "unknowns" at the famous "6" Gallery reading in 1955. McClure gives performances of his poetry at colleges such as Stanford, NYU and The University of Arizona. He also performs at clubs in San Diego, Vancouver, and New York as well as festivals in Paris, Rome and Amsterdam. He has been featured in several films including Scorsese's The Last Waltz. He has made three television documentaries, and published numerous books of poetry, plays two novels and several collections of essays.

David Meltzer

David Meltzer is an American poet and musician of the Beat Generation and San Francisco Renaissance. Lawrence Ferlinghetti has described him as "one of the greats of post-World-War-Two San Francisco poets and musicians." Meltzer came to prominence with inclusion of his work in the anthology The New American Poetry 1945-1960. One of the key poets of the Beat generation, Meltzer is also a jazz guitarist and Cabalist scholar and the author of more than 50 books of poetry and prose. 2005 saw the publication of David's Copy: The Selected Poems of David Meltzer (edited by Michael Rothenberg, with an introduction by Jerome Rothenberg) which provides a current "overview" of Meltzer's work. Meltzer's other books include No Eyes, poems on Lester Young, and a book of interviews, San Francisco Beat: Talking with the Poets (City Lights Books). Meltzer teaches at the New College of California in the Poetics Program which was originally founded by Duncan. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Nancy Ostrovsky

Nancy Ostrovsky is a painter/ performance artist who began painting to music about 30 years ago. Nancy has transformed bare walls into masterpieces with unique paintings she creates "on the spot." Ostrovsky has been called "one of the pioneers of performance painting." Her "Paintings To Music" are done "live" while Ms. Ostrovsky is on stage with the musicians as they play. Ostrovsky uses the immediacy of the musicians, the music and environment to record the performance in a highly original and innovative context. Her work is exhibited worldwide, and she attributes her art to musicians she loves - Charlie Parker, Pharoah Sanders, Sun Ra, Eric Dolphy and others.