City Lights presents Aidan Levy in conversation with Ammiel Alcalay celebrating the publication of “SAXOPHONE COLOSSUS: The Life and Music of Sonny Rollins” by Aiden Levy, published by Hachette Books. This virtual event took place over Zoom and was hosted by Peter Maravelis.

You can purchase copies of "SAXOPHONE COLOSSUS” directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/saxophone-colossus-sonny-rollins/

Aidan Levy is the author of “Dirty Blvd.: The Life and Music of Lou Reed” and editor of “Patti Smith on Patti Smith: Interviews and Encounters”. A former Leon Levy Center for Biography Fellow, his writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Village Voice, JazzTimes, The Nation and other publications. He has served as co-convener of the African American Studies Colloquium and works with the Center for Jazz Studies at at Columbia University. For ten years, he was the baritone saxophonist in the Stan Rubin Orchestra.

Ammiel Alcalay is a poet, novelist, translator, critic, and scholar. His books include “a little history”, “from the warring factions”, “Memories of Our Future”, and “After Jews and Arabs”. “Ghost Talk”, A Bibliography for “After Jews & Arabs” and “A Dove in Flight”, by Syrian poet and former political prisoner Faraj Bayrakdar, co-edited with Shareah Taleghani, all came out in 2021. "Follow the Person: Archival Encounters, and Controlled Demolition", a poem in four books, are due out in 2023. Alcalay is the founder and general editor of Lost & Found: The CUNY Poetics Document Initiative (http://centerforthehumanities.org/lost-and-found), for which he was recognized in 2017 with a Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award.

This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation