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Catherine Lee’s writing engages in social change activism using a percussive jazz voice. Since 1976, Lee’s words have been published widely in print and online within collaborative multimedia projects. Her impact on Boston’s 1980 jazz scene is detailed here:
Studio Red Top: Credit Where It’s Due
Lee is a 3-time city-funded creative writer and producer who collaborates with Texas artists to create educational multimedia works. Lee’s “Maverick Secrets: Decoding Early TV Westerns” (2025) her 2nd city-funded drama, premiered and is available here and at Amazon. Five members of a group of multicultural friends are playing Texas Hold-em poker in a senior center. Hearing a TV Western theme song, they recall maligned and omitted minority characters and assumptions about gunplay and women’s roles that were programmed into them as children.
Lee completed “Mentor Wonders,” a 1-act play about mentoring Westside public school students in late 2022. Its poetic dramatic script is available at Amazon.
Lee, former Pearson custom textbook production editor, created several signed, numbered artist handmade, limited edition chapbooks (We Free Kin, A Rested Development and Kinda Pregnant), available with a music CD from her writing/editing services web site Cat at Jazz Ovation Inn. Lee’s multimedia poetry, videos, and radio specials are archived on Soundcloud and VIMEO. Several are linked in this profile.
MORE ABOUT THIS ARTIST
Artist Type: Literary Arts: Author/Writer, Playwright, Poet; Media Arts: Producer, Voiceover; Multi-Disciplinary: Performer and Writer; Performing Arts: Actor, Spoken Word Artist; Teaching Artist/Instructor
Artist Style: Literary: Documentary, Editor, Non-Fiction, Poetry, Prose; Teaching Artist/Instructor: Instruction for Adults, Private Lessons, Workshop Presenter; Theatre: Comedy, Drama, Improv, Political, Solo/One-Person; jazz poetry, grant writing instructor
Artist Medium: Audio/Sound; Film
Artist Statement of Work
Tell us about your work (style, approach, philosophy, subject and/or theme):
Though I currently write drama collaboratively with actors and directors, my first love is writing poetry with heavily jazz-inflected meters. I agree with my mentor, the Beat poet tedjoans, that "Jazz Is My Religion."
Like him, in a missionary way, I educate "squares" who are unfamiliar with Black American classical music (derogatorily called "jazz"). I mimic how musicians quote snippets of other melodies in their solos with my ambiguous word choices that use multiple semantic meanings and/or variations in grammatical syntax to help audience members draw their own meanings. My poetry can be grouped 5 ways: those with overtly music-related content; those reflective of primarily unrequited romantic relationships; those with progressive, anti-racist, or feminist content; those about mentoring public school students; and ekphrastic poems that comment on visual or musical art.
I'm a versatile writer who also creates funding proposals and other types of nonfiction prose to support myself.
VIDEOS
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\"Be A Mentor - Sea Un Mentor\" is a video PSA created to encourage bilingual volunteer mentors for a San Antonio public school where Lee has mentored for a number of years. Lee wrote the grant that secured production funding, hired and managed video artist and talent, arranged production schedule, wrote storyline, logged footage, and managed a schedule of public showings. It exemplifies Lee\'s skills in bringing her writing to life in a complex multicultural, collaborative environment. Post-Covid-19 school schedule, this piece is conceptually accurate, but the school\'s mentoring program no longer functions this way.
Contact information
AUDIO
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Lee\'s original poem, \"White Horse Black Mountain Boob Blues,\" performed with Aaron Price\'s piano accompaniment.
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Lee\'s original poem, \"Laces Rule,\" from her collection of poems based on mentoring public school students. Lee reads with composer/guitarist Aaron Price, who contributed his original song to the project.
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Lee\'s original poem, \"Keeping Score,\" performed with bassist Zack Page and pianist Aaron Price.
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Lee\'s original poem, \"Crescendo,\" performed with Aaron Price\'s piano accompaniment.
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Lee\'s original poem, \"Ceora Vocalese,\" performed by vocalist/trombonist Ron Wilkins with pianist Cecil R. Carter. Vocalese is a type of lyric poem that closely matches recorded music melodies or solos played by jazz musicians. In this case, Lee wrote lyrics to the melody of \"Ceora\" by trumpeter Lee Morgan.