Somewhere in Advance of Nowhere

In this new collection, Jayne Cortez finds her voice and uses it to wonderful effect. As the great musicians know, The Blues is a state of mind and in New York, Bahia, Pernambuco, Santiago de Cuba, or Guadalajara, Jayne Cortez's Blues speak of a poet who knows where she is coming from and where she is going - an exact sense of place. Jayne Cortez's pantheon - Nicolas Guillen, Babs Gonzales, Aime Cesaire, Ana Mendieta, Big Mama Thornton, Rosita Morales, Miles Davis - is a pantheon of music and struggle. In Somewhere in Advance of Nowhere, Jayne Cortez has found riffs to respond to the epic demands of her muse.