Allan Harris’s The Poetry of Jazz: Live at Blue LLama is more than a live album—it’s a vibrant homage to the power of jazz as a storytelling art form. Recorded at Ann Arbor’s Blue LLama Jazz Club, the album blends Harris’s signature vocals and guitar with an inspired mix of jazz standards, original compositions, and poetry by literary giants. It showcases his unique ability to blur the lines between singing, scatting, and spoken word. The repertoire interweaves poetry by William Shakespeare, Dylan Thomas, Maya Angelou, Langston Hughes, and Mary Oliver with Harris’s original compositions and a selection of beloved jazz standards.

The recording features pianist John Di Martino, bassist Jay White, drummer Sylvia Cuenca, and violinist Alan Grubner. Their performances support Harris’s interpretations with subtlety and clarity, contributing to the album’s reflective and lyrical character.

Supported by this ensemble, Harris pairs music with verse to create emotionally resonant performances that connect timeless themes—love, identity, resistance, transformation—with the expressive language of jazz. From setting Hughes’s “The Weary Blues” to music to threading Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise” through a Nina Simone favorite, Harris reaffirms jazz as a living, evolving medium for cultural and poetic dialogue.

The album has already earned critical acclaim, named one of The Times’ Best Jazz Albums of 2025 for its thoughtful integration of poetry and musical form.

The Poetry of Jazz shows Harris applying a literary lens to his musical craft. Without abandoning tradition, he brings a quieter, more introspective dimension to the standard jazz repertoire.