Marvin Tate (born 1959) is an American artist, poet, and singer-songwriter from Chicago.

Early life

Tate was born in the North Lawndale neighborhood of Chicago in 1959. Tate attended the University of Illinois at Chicago, studying with

Sterling Plumpp Sterling Dominic Plumpp (born January 30, 1940) is an American poet, educator, editor, and critic. He has written numerous books, including ''Hornman'' (1996), ''Harriet Tubman'' (1996), ''Ornate With Smoke'' (1997), ''Half Black, Half Blacker'' ...

. In 1983 Tate moved to New York City, moving back to Chicago in 1985.

Career

Tate lives and works in Chicago, IL. Tate is the author of ''Schoolyard of Broken Dreams'' (Tia Chucha Press, 1994) and ''The Amazing Mister Orange'' (Curbside Splendor, 2014). His honors include grants from the Poetry Foundation and the

Illinois Arts Council The Illinois Arts Council is a government agency of the state of Illinois formed to encourage development of the arts throughout Illinois. Founded in 1965 by the Illinois General Assembly, the Illinois Arts Council provides financial and technica ...

. In the mid-1980s, Tate started performing at open mics and slam poetry competitions around the city, and was a regular participant in the Uptown Poetry Slam. In 1990, Tate became Chicago's poetry slam champion, after which he was featured on the

MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour ''PBS NewsHour'' is an American evening news broadcasting#television, television news program broadcast on over 350 PBS Network affiliate#Member stations, member stations. It airs seven nights a week, and is known for its in-depth coverage of i ...

. In the early 1990s Tate was a member of Uptighty, with Leroy Bach ( Wilco) and Dan Bitney ( Tortoise), and hosted a local talk show called Talk-A-Riot-Y. Tate won a poetry slam hosted as part of

Lollapalooza Lollapalooza (Lolla) is an annual American four-day music festival held in Grant Park in Chicago. It originally started as a touring event in 1991 but several years later made Chicago the permanent location for the annual music festival. Musi ...

1994. In 1997, Tate appeared with David Sedaris on '' This American Life''. Tate fronted the experimental poetry/funk band D-Settlement from the 1990s to early 2000s, which released three albums from 1997 to 2002 as Marvin Tate's D-Settlement. The '' Chicago Tribune'' wrote: "By merging ferociously honest poetry with various black musical traditions, Tate stands as heir to Chicagoan Oscar Brown Jr., the veteran urban griot whose lyrics long have decried racism and social injustice." In 2004, Tate appeared on the compilation ''reVerse'' with Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Alexi Murdoch,

Lou Reed Lewis Allan Reed (March 2, 1942October 27, 2013) was an American musician, songwriter, and poet. He was the guitarist, singer, and principal songwriter for the rock band the Velvet Underground and had a solo career that spanned five decades. ...

and Mark Strand. In 2005, Tate performed the poem "My Life to the Present" on '' Def Jam Poetry''. In 2014, Joyful Noise released the album ''

Tim Kinsella Tim Kinsella is an American musician, author, and film director from Chicago, Illinois. Known for his eccentric singing voice, he first rose to prominence as lead singer and lyricist of the emo band Cap'n Jazz which he co-founded with his brothe ...

Sings the Songs of Marvin Tate by LeRoy Bach Featuring

Angel Olsen Angel Olsen (born Angelina Maria Carroll; January 22, 1987) is an American singer-songwriter and musician from St. Louis, Missouri who lives in Asheville, North Carolina. To date, Olsen has released six studio albums: ''Half Way Home'' (2012), ...

'', an album interpreting Tate's songs. In 2017, the Jazz Institute of Chicago invited Tate to perform Langston Hughes' poem "Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz." Tate adapted it into "A Great Day in the Neighborhood — Echoes of Langston Hughes," incorporating film, dance, and jazz instrumentals from Greg Ward and Ben LaMar Gay. Tate is represented by Hana Pietri Gallery in Chicago, IL. In 2019, Intuit: The Center for Outsider Art presented an exhibition of Tate's artwork, ''Looking at You From a Distance Not Too Far: Work by Marvin Tate''.

Poetry

Tate's influences include

Amiri Baraka Amiri Baraka (born Everett Leroy Jones; October 7, 1934 – January 9, 2014), previously known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka, was an American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays and music criticism. He was the author of numerous bo ...

Gwendolyn Brooks Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks (June 7, 1917 – December 3, 2000) was an American poet, author, and teacher. Her work often dealt with the personal celebrations and struggles of ordinary people in her community. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetr ...

, Charles Bukowski, Ivor Cutler, Stephen Dobyns,

doo-wop Doo-wop (also spelled doowop and doo wop) is a genre of rhythm and blues music that originated in African-American communities during the 1940s, mainly in the large cities of the United States, including New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chica ...

, gospel, and the

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

. The ''Chicago Tribune'' notes of Tate's writing: "Though it's often funny or absurd, the work's most striking aspect is the calm sense of melancholy consistent in every piece..."

Discography

As leader and co-leader

* ''Partly Cloudy'' (as Marvin Tate's D-Settlement) (1997, Urban Collision) * ''The Minstrel Show'' (as Marvin Tate's D-Settlement) (1999, Urban Collision) * ''American Icons'' (as Marvin Tate's D-Settlement) (2002, Urban Collision) * ''Family Swim'' (2007, IVR) * ''Tim Kinsella Sings the Songs of Marvin Tate by LeRoy Bach Featuring Angel Olsen'' (2014, Joyful Noise) * ''The Process'' with Joseph Clayton Mills (2016, Every Contact Leaves a Trace) * ''Kitchen Songs'' (2018, self-released) * "Jesus on'da Green Line" with Ben LaMar Gay (2020, self-released) * ''Marvin Tate's D-Settlement'' (2022, American Dreams Records)

Guest appearances

* ''Uptighty'' by Uptighty (1993, Mud) * ''Flesh & Bone'' by Mike Reed (2017, 482 Music) * ''Fly or Die II: Bird Dogs of Paradise'' by

Jaimie Branch Jaimie Breezy Branch (June 17, 1983 – August 22, 2022) was an American jazz trumpeter and composer. Biography Branch was born in Huntington, New York, on June 17, 1983. She started playing trumpet at age nine. At age 14, she moved to Wilmett ...

(2019, International Anthem) * ''Immensity of the Territory Vol. 3'' by Charles-Henry Beneteau, Christophe Havard, Anthony Taillard (2020, Entropic GBC)

Compilation inclusions

* "San Francisco Sky," "Schoolyard of Broken Dreams" on ''A Snake In The Heart: Poems and Music by Chicago Spoken Word Performers'' (1994, Tia Chucha Press) * "Take Off Your Shoes (And Run)" on ''reVerse'' (2005, reVerse) * "Blood in the Potatoe Salad," "Take Off Your Shoes (and Run)" on ''Urban Collision Presents'' (2005, Urban Collision)

Publications

* ''Schoolyard of Broken Dreams'' (Tia Chucha Press, 1994) * "Soulville Revisited," "The Ebony Mannequin in the Marshall Fields State Street Store Window" published in ''Black Writing from Chicago: In the World, Not of It?'', ed. Richard R. Guzman ( Southern Illinois University Press, 2005) * ''The Amazing Mister Orange'' (Curbside Splendor, 2014)

References

External links

Website

Bandcamp

D-Settlement archived website

Website/ Hana Pietri Gallery
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tate, Marvin Living people 1959 births African-American poets American male singer-songwriters 20th-century American poets 21st-century American poets Singers from Chicago