Boulevard Place Café
Friday, May 11, 7 p.m., all-ages
www.krapfpoetry.com/herzig.htm

Jazz and poetry reunite locally thanks to Monika Herzig’s piano and Norbert Krapf’s poetry. Both have family roots from small towns in Southern Germany. Herzig came to the U.S. with her husband, and Krapf (from Jasper) was an English professor who has spent half of his life writing poetry about Southern Indiana.

Herzig pursued jazz studies and music education at Indiana University, where she teaches in the School of Music. Krapf, a retired college professor, met Herzig when he enrolled last year in a class she taught at IUPUI and the Chatterbox.

“Three weeks into the class, Monika contacted me and asked how would I feel about doing a jazz and poetry CD,” Krapf says. That began a unique artistic collaboration in which the duo matched skills together in small public performances.

Herzig and Krapf perform a full range of emotions in their offerings, sometimes opening with “On the Road with the Hampton Sisters (Virtue Tribute)” or with some humorous pieces and ending with a powerful “New Orleans” rendering.

Herzig admits the tunes on her latest CD, What Have You Gone and Done, are a result of Krapf’s writing. He says her musical interpretations of Bob Dylan, Paul Simon and John Lennon inspired him to write new poems to their music.

They are currently halfway through recording their first duo album of jazz and poetry, Imagine Indiana in Music and Words. Their next performance at the Boulevard Place Café will be recorded for a live DVD that will be made to go along with their upcoming CD release.