TOP-class jazz comes to The Cellar Bards in Cardigan this month when there will be a very special evening of poetry and music with Roger Garfitt.

The author’s latest published project is a widely acclaimed CD of music with poetry, which was produced with celebrated jazz composer Nikki Iles and the John Williams Octet. The work celebrates the life of the novelist and poet Mary Webb.

Roger Garfitt will present the CD, In All My Holy Mountain, and perform extracts from it on Friday, May 26, in the Castle Café Cellar Bar, Cardigan. Doors and the bar open at 7.30pm, the event starts at 8pm. Entry is £3.

Garfitt has always had a particular interest in working with artists and musicians, an interest he first pursued with the poet Frances Horovitz when they collaborated on Wall, a poet/artist book on the theme of Hadrian's Wall.

After Frances' death he made another home with the painter Eugenia Escobar, moving back and forth between England and Colombia. Her painting Arrullo is the cover image on his Selected Poems (Carcanet, 2000), which includes his account of being in Bogotá during the Drug War.

His memoir, The Horseman's Word (Cape, 2011), gives a vivid account of his youthful misadventures, including his escapades as a jazz dancer, and was shortlisted for the PEN/Ackerley Prize.

The jazz CD In All My Holy Mountain, is his latest project. Nikki Iles’s atmospheric score is the perfect counterpart to Roger Garfitt’s poems, taking elements from the English folk tradition and giving them a powerful new jazz identity. More information on the CD is available at https://restringingthelyre.wordpress.com

Mary Webb (1881-1927) was an English romantic novelist and poet of the early 20th century, whose work is set mainly in Shropshire among the characters and people she knew.

Open mic spots are always available at The Cellar Bards for writers of poetry, short stories, micro-fiction and novels (maximum five minutes each). People who want to read just need to put their names down at the door. Or go along to listen to the jazz poetry of Roger Garfitt, plus a great variety of spoken word performances.