Poetry set to music is a most natural thing. Read aloud, its rhythms and meter make it a very close relation. For me, one of the instruments that best matches the phrasing and soundscape of poetry read aloud is the soprano sax. It is because it has so many sonic options and varieties of sound that match the human voice and human emotions. So much of how music affects the listener is linked to a direct immediate connection to emotional experience.
Jane Ira Bloom is described as a poetic player. Her instrument — a musical voice of choice to artistically express her creativity — is the soprano saxophone. The sound is like no other in the instrument’s family: a singular distinctive palette of colours as individual and unique as the artist who plays the instrument. Bloom’s colour choices have given her an open field where she has played music without restriction: jazz ranging from traditional to experimental, including electronic music and sound generation.
She is the first musician to have been commissioned by the NASA Art Program, and her cosmic artistry does not end there: There is an asteroid named in her honour, called Asteroid 6083 Janeirabloom. Her influence is strong and inclusively accessible, inspiring a jazz festival in Brooklyn featuring female artists, The Bloom Festival. Her music is alive and without boundary. Her sound is colour-enhanced poetry, and with that asteroid named after her, she may just be the first jazz-tronaut.