listening to Tom Waits’ Small Change

you’re sleeping close to me
holding one of my hands
in both of yours
there’s a candle on the dresser
another on the night table
a third behind the two Buddhas
on my map, our rivers
don’t meet anywhere
which just goes to show
it’s worth getting out
to see for yourself
the mapmakers can get it wrong
there could be just one big river
right off the edge of the page

Photo source

sing me a Haitian song

sing mules and horses on the mountainside
          a calabash of river water to wash in
          another to drink

sing to me of the climbing tree
          four uncles on the summit waiting
          for the return of the prodigal nephew

sing me an African rhythm
          drawn from the source of the one true river
          that became the ocean and surrounded the islands

sing to me of proud women with straight backs
          burdens atop their heads as they appear and disappear
          on the peaks and in the valleys

sing me a policeman’s song
          a wide-brimmed hat his badge of office
          his horse weary from climbing

sing me a Brooklyn dance, no music but the drum
          to remake their lost island in an old meeting hall
          filled with vegetable stew and mountain stories

sing me sixty-odd years since then
          the boy once mesmerized by the drummer
          returning to old ground as a man of the drum himself

/ / /

This poem is inspired by an interview I conducted with drummer Andrew Cyrille. You can hear the interview here.

Listen to this poem using the player above.

/ / /

Tonight I went to see Foolish Hearts, a duo with Peter Eldridge and Matt Aronoff. They were amazing — a master class in musicianship at the highest level paired with an incredibly emotional connection with the crowd. As I often do, I wrote a poem while listening to them. This is an acrostic poem. Not a format I often use, but it seemed like a fun place to start. I took several photos tonight, too, which you can see here.

From

poems for foolish hearts

1.

picture me
even now, waiting
till you arrive
even now
remembering the last time
even now
looking toward the back of the room
darting ever-so-casual glances
ready to wave you over
I have to confess I
didn’t expect to be here alone
giving myself over to the music
even now

2.

meet me
at Cornelia Street
tonight, wearing
that dress
ask me to
remember
or kiss me
now before
one of us
falls to earth
from this narrow ledge

Listen to this poem using the player above.

I wrote this today on the 6 train while listening to John Cale’s album Vintage Violence.

/ / /

Cale on the 6

John Cale’s on the uptown 6
singing about Adelaide
Spring to Bleeker to Astor Place
on a November day
that finally feels like winter
there’s a guy a few seats down
who’s a ringer for Robert Pinsky
(whom I last saw in Boston
reading poems to commemorate 9/11)
five more stops and I’ll be at the temple
with the money lenders and usurers
meanwhile there are happy hands
clapping on the Cale album
and a tambourine that sounds
like a baby laughing
I feel I should tell you this
so we’ll both know

Listen to this poem using the player above.

I saw Mark Turner play at Jazz Standard a few months back and wrote a poem while watching him. The poem was longer than this version and I kept trying to figure out what else to add. Finally, after being away from it for a while, I not only decided not to add anything, I decided to take things away. Here’s the result.

/ / /

the king’s clothes

corduroy-suited tenorman
plays non-clichéd blues
in clichéd suede shoes

on his furrowed brow
the image of a lotus

Listen to this poem using the player above.

I wrote this tonight at Cornelia Street Cafe. The three lines in quotation marks are by David Budbill, from his book Moment to Moment.

/ / /

passing notes

nothing is more beautiful
than Portuguese at night
and everything sounds better
in your fickle accent

I’m drinking peppermint tea
watching you watch the band
like you’re memorizing them

I started this poem
on five separate pages
almost didn’t write it at all

but I’m listening to Judevine
the mountain sage, who wrote:
“Never be deliberately obscure.
Life is difficult enough!
Don’t add to the confusion.”

so while this may not be clear
it’s as clear as I can make it
at least without more tea, less sleep
or a longer walk to the train

I wrote this brief poem tonight while listening to Darius Jones play at iBeam in Brooklyn. The photo is also from tonight’s show.

/ / /

Click for a larger version.

Listen to this poem using the player above.

I went to see Amy Cervini sing at the 55 Bar in New York tonight. She was joined by many guests, including vocalist Nicky Shrire. I got the idea for this poem from their duet performance.

/ / /

a cappella
(for Nicky Shrire & Amy Cervini)

she waits at the bar
till her name is called

then sings her way to the edge
of the cliff / kept from falling

by the sound of four hands clapping
two voices wrapped like vines

a cappella — from the Italian meaning
“in the manner of the church”

surely this is prayer / sent up
through the tin ceiling

to where she imagines
her ancestors to be

From Trixie Whitley at Rockwood Music Hall (9/27/11)

The sublime Trixie Whitley performed a (mostly) solo set of (mostly) new songs at Rockwood Music Hall. Here are my photos:

I wrote this poem tonight while listening to pianist Matt Mitchell and drummer Ches Smith at Korzo.

From Matt Mitchell & Ches Smith at Korzo – 6 Sept 2011

danger

you were dangerous and angry
red wrists and flashes of light
in the Hungarian bar
with $5 goulash

After careful study, I’ve decided that my life
needs an extra day and a cloning device
or a world without rock stars
and foreign bars

the reds are oppressive
walls, neon Czechvar sign
you
the red star in the center of the universe

I know this sounds like a love poem
but it isn’t
I don’t write those anymore
I’ve lost the knack

instead I take black-and-white photos
try to preserve these red nights
with the ink from a cheap Bic
and the rush of blood in my veins

From the Wikipedia page for Stevie Wonder’s song “Sir Duke”

Critical reception

Steve Halvonik, staff writer of The Daily Collegian, called the piece “pompous”, describing it as “the big brassy salute to Duke Ellington” and “the most engaging song on the album.” He praised its “up-beat tempo, punchy horn lines and syncopated rhythm” and pronounced it the “brightest album” of the year.[3]

You tell me: a great paragraph or the greatest paragraph ever? Doesn’t anybody edit these?

I went tonight to hear Petr Cancura‘s Lonesome Quartet with Petr on banjo and saxophone, Kirk Knuffke on cornet, Garth Stevenson on bass and Tyshawn Sorey on drums. I was very impressed by the music. Petr told a story about a trip he made that inspired this poem. I took a few bit of his story, changed the details and imagined the rest.

From Petr Cancura's Lonesome Quartet at Cornelia Street Cafe (7/7/11)

soil

there’s a farm outside Memphis where a hog is roasting / and the old brass-band leader’s kinfolk will welcome you to the party / even if your accent don’t quite fit

this is soil country / rooted / each one can trace from the branch all the way into the earth / you can’t play brass band music if your feet don’t touch the ground

in the old farmhouse is an even older hutch / in a cabinet in the hutch is an ancient Bible / full of blood and memory / the names are a hymn / a holy call into hallowed ground

out by the roasting pit / they’ve cleared a space for dancing / little girls standing on their fathers’ feet / young boys shoved into the arms of cousins / “come now, child, dance with her – it won’t kill you”

the old brass-band leader is right where he’s been all these years / waving his mail-order baton / cajoling music from a bunch of coots as old / as the dirt they’re standing on

later / when the kids are asleep and the band is done / the oldest of the men takes out a banjo / plucks the stars alight

there’s a farm outside Memphis / where all are welcome / this is soil country / rooted

This poem is dedicated to the trumpeter Eli Asher. In addition to being an inspiring musician, he came up with the phrase “Gumbo Sutra,” which inspired the rest of the poem. I started this weeks ago and finally finished it tonight. Thanks, Eli.

From Buddha In The Modern World (Ongoing Photo Essay)

The Buddha of New Orleans
(for Eli Asher)

The Buddha of New Orleans
plays trumpet on the weekends
with three guys from the Legion hall
and two oyster house waiters
who moonlight as dancers.

Clap hands, here comes Gautama!
He’s lost weight and looks more like
the Tibetan image than the Chinese version.
He swings like a gate, too.
(gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate)

He plays with time, shifting the beat.
No two members of the band
are ever in exactly the same place.
The dancers ignore them, whirling
around the stage in time to the low buzz
from the PA system.

After the gig, the band goes back to his house.
He cooks for them,
recites the Gumbo Sutra.
This has been going on for years
and they still never understand a word he says.

But something about
the way he says it
– so calm, so caring –
makes them smile over their bowls
of rice and beans.

A friend asked on Facebook for album recommendations by fairly recent bands. Here’s what I suggested, in BAND-ALBUM format:

• The Decemberists – The King Is Dead
• Mumford & Sons – Sigh No More
• Alan Hampton – The Moving Sidewalk
• Tune-Yards – Whokill
• Black Dub – Black Dub
• Buke And Gass – Riposte
• Cee-Lo Green – The Lady Killer
• Gretchen Parlato – The Lost And Found
• Laura Marling – I Speak Because I Can
• Midlake – The Trials Of Van Occupanther
• Thao with the Get Down Stay Down – Know Better Learn Faster
• Willem Maker – Agapao

I went to Jazz Standard tonight to see Ben Allison’s band with Michael Blake, Steve Cardenas, Jason Lindner and Rudy Royston. I wrote this poem during the show, inspired by things in the club, phrases I heard, song titles and my owned fevered imagination. The first quotation in the poem was said from the stage by Michael Blake.

Photo by jazzmix.org

new york basement blues

1.
grab your jazz hat
meet me in the bent-note basement
Jackie’s back of the bar
sloshing the occasional beer
on the tongue-colored tile

the Dutch couple near the stage
look trapped, unsure
told, perhaps, that this would be

something else

(close your eyes, dear,
and think of Holland)

2.
there was a monk on San Juan Hill
who could tell your fortune
in two bars of three

he could stop on a dime:
and give you nonsense and change

“you and me baby” he’d say
“let’s start our own country
and nobody will come”

(he had a sign in his window / it said:
MY BOSS IS KAREN CARPENTER)

3.
later, as the sleepy-eyed theater boys
slowly regain their senses
a sidewalk prophet in plaid and denim
hands us a poem by William Blake

on which he’s drawn a caricature
of Barrack Obama
hugging Margaret Thatcher

“April is the cruelest month” he says
“except for February, which I’ve never liked”

This poem was inspired by seeing vocalist Fay Victor and bassist Dominic Lash perform together tonight at the Evolving Music Series. Here’s an album of photos from the event, which also included Theo Bleckmann & Jay Clayton, Charles Gayle’s Forgiveness and more.

fireflies

my mouth is full of fireflies
a spring night jack-o-lantern
with glowing cheeks
my honeyed ears hum
with the soft songs of bees
and their dancing maps
there are dogs and bears and tragic lovers
haunting the April sky
a night woodsman thunks his axe into a stump
I hear a grumbling ostinato in the trees
the song of an unseen singer
calling me homeward toward my little room
filled floor to ceiling with jars of fireflies
damp with saliva

I wrote this tonight at Bar Next Door while listening to James Shipp, Mike LaValle, Rogerio Boccato and Jo Lawry.

song without words

there is a way you sing
this song without words
that reminds me of
water touching sand

the bell falls to the ground
like a baby’s eyes opening

your fingers tap the chorro
I taste warm maté

what if we never get past
this slowly revolving door?

never get to the sunshine lands
where children play big drums
and dance without fear?

I saw Amy Cervini‘s “Jazz Country” band at 55 Bar tonight. Amy was joined by Steve Cardenas, Anat Cohen and Ike Sturm. The music was gorgeous and this poem was inspired by the first song they played. I won’t name the song so you won’t have the melody and lyrics running through your head when you read the poem. And I shouldn’t have to point out, but I will, that although this is written in the first person, this is not a love poem from me to the happily married Ms. Cervini. Cool? Cool. There have been enough jazz feuds without me starting another! Anyway, enjoy the poem and go see this band.

From Amy Cervini's "Jazz Country" & Victor Prieto Trio

no fences
(for Amy Cervini)

if you had a horse
and I had a horse
we could ride horses
through our crooked village
with our clarinets
making all the children laugh
you in your circled dress
me in whatever a nearsighted fool
wears on a horse
no steeplechase for us
because our village has no fences
just streets that meet at oblique angles
and plenty of space for the angels
of our better nature to sally forth
with the sun on their wings
and clear water in their canteens
there may not be mountains
but we can see the tall buildings
and they’ll do

I wrote this poem while listening to Ben Allison, Mark Guiliana and Steve Cardenas at Kush. In defense of the trio’s reputation, I was not actually an “audience of one” as it says in the poem.

From Ben Allison at Kush – March 22, 2011

the streets

are my private space
where I go to get away
to be alone with all the others
who are alone together

walking the Bowery
is a moving meditation
a reminder that ill fortune is
as fleeting as anything else

I’m an audience of one
in a darkened club
talking to my faraway sons
on the phone before the band starts

really, it’s getting a bit ridiculous
I go from coffee shop to art house
to sushi bar to jazz club
no bongos, no beret, no one beside me

I waited a couple days
then gave up on this Zen bullshit
and sent the message anyway
broke a rule known only to me

let’s be honest:
no amount of playing it cool
matters at all
and who has the time?

pull up a pillow
let’s huddle around this candle
as the snare drum echoes
off these fake-middle-eastern walls

let’s all play guitars
or take photographs of dogs in sweaters
or paint ambitious murals
with no thought of tomorrow

let’s learn to hula-hoop
or juggle points of view
ride unicycles past
the unworthy gazes of businessmen

tonight I spoke with the one man
in all of New York who knows
how to use “vonce” in a sentence
and can play Al Green backwards

I’d like to dance in tiny circles
like they used to do in San Juan Hill
before the boxes
replaced the real people

I’d like to live in a tiny studio
eat rice and play records
with no space for anything
but room enough for everything

I took a crazy series of trains and buses from Manhattan to Brooklyn tonight to see a solo set by bassist John Hébert at Sycamore, a tiny basement music spot at 1118 Cortelyou Road. As it turned out, there was also a solo set by drummer Billy Mintz. I wrote this piece during Hébert’s set.

From John Hébert & Billy Mintz at Sycamore

sycamore

I am not Bob Dylan
you are not Bob Dylan’s girlfriend

here in this Brooklyn basement
we are all making eye contact
over the bulging body of the bass
filling this quaint cave with mumbled rhetoric

as if on cue all the women
on the bench close their eyes
right legs crossing left legs
as a single bead of sweat
drops from the bassist’s nose
to the threadbare rug

you know who you are
all the men have sensitive beards
you know who you are

I planted a sycamore in the backyard
so we could sit beneath it and remember

I planted a willow in the front yard
so we could sit beneath it and regret

Yesterday I saw Chris Washburne and SYOTOS at El Museo del Barrio. I wrote this during the gig. Some of the poem is based on the performance and things that were played and said during it, and other lines are paraphrased from the brilliant book The Mambo Kings Play Songs Of Love by Oscar Hijuelos. The last two lines are instructions given to me back when I played latin jazz for a living.

barrio music

this is sacred ground
church on Saturday
we should be dancing
led down the aisle by El Rey
like a victory parade
hips swaying, laughing
we are praying to the holy trinity
the mambo, the rumba
and the cha cha cha
James Brown, Machito and Schoenberg
this isn’t music for sitting down
when you play the clave, play the clave
and clap like your mama’s making tortillas

Hard as it is to believe, I went to my first show at the Village Vanguard in New York tonight. The band was Terrell Stafford, Bruce Barth, Tim Warfield, Peter Washington and Dana Hall. I wrote this in the dark during the set. I wanted it to seem a bit noirish, thus “the blond.” I’m not sure if that’s OK.

Friday night at the Vanguard

there’s something about the way the blond
is tilting her head, laying it back
against the cushions like she’s dreaming

– stop —

now we’re in church and a “go ‘head”
comes from stage left
where the trumpeter sits snapping his fingers
in what would be a cliche in other circumstances

the blond leans forward
she has a cleft in her chin like an action hero
on her it’s intriguing

– can I get an “amen”? –

it’s a ballad again
she leans over so far you’d think
she had a stomach ache, but she’s smiling

I went to Small’s in the Village tonight to see Bruce Barth. I ran into several people I knew and some I’d never met in person. The whole experience felt like a poem, so it seemed only fitting to make it one.

One of my favorite movies is An American In Paris. At the beginning of the film, Gene Kelly does some narration and mentions that he went to Paris because the great artists before him had gone there. I feel that way about New York and poetry, and also New York and jazz. I didn’t change any names in this poem to protect the innocent, either.

9=3+3+3, or, A Night At Small’s

on the train, this:
if you don’t change direction,
you may end up where you’re headed

huh

the sage is sleeping soundly
slumped over against the pole
if this were Japan, someone
would wake him at his stop

or more likely he would awaken
as if by magic
some shared ethnic telepathy
connecting all Japanese to their destination

but this is New York
no such enlightenment
is forthcoming

Louis Armstrong is smiling
in argyle socks
a black Buddha before bebop

Rebecca has blood-red nails
that look jet-dark in this dim light
her double-jointed pinky bent on the bar
her name is alliterative, as is the artist’s
who guesses it

and, for that matter, the piano player’s
(and his title)

the Japanese photographer says
he is ready to go home
twenty-four years is long enough

meanwhile the boy from Pasadena gets the seal
of approval from the boy from Brooklyn
it’s official: he’s a New Yorker now

the mirror next to the piano is reflected in another mirror
looked at from the right angle
there are an infinite number of piano players
(writing Hamlet?)
and an unending row of archers

people clap when they’re supposed to
like a ritual prayer that’s lost its meaning
in the observance

even the photographers look like musicians
and the temperamental cat is not a euphemism

/ / /

whale song

she goes each day to the ocean
to look for the whales, she says
that’s why she stays
despite the pull of the opposite shore
the all but inescapable magnet
tugging on the keys of her saxophone

of a morning she is crouched there
at the boundary, eyes narrowed
searching for shadows on the surface
a spray of spout-water above the waves

one day she knows she will hear them singing
on that day she’ll put lips to reed
feel the air move from her lungs
and she’ll join them in their song

(I finally missed a day, so I’m one stone behind on my 365-straight-days plan. Ah well…)

/ / /

late night Sun Ra fills my empty apartment
with the whirling sound of Saturn

Today marks four years since I launched The Jazz Session, my jazz interview program. Grant Stewart, my guest on the first show, returns today for the fourth anniversary. Listen to today’s episode — and every episode — for free at http://thejazzsession.com.

I’m drinking lukewarm chamomile tea
– I have no idea what chamomile is –
listening to an American musician performing in Paris
when she asks the crowd if they’re having a good time
they say “yes” not “oui”

Listen to this poem using the player above.

Inspired by “Fee Fi Fo Fum” from The Complete Novus And Columbia Recordings Of Henry Threadgill & Air.

Threadgill’s birds

an ocean of crows flows overhead
wings beating black against the coming night
I see them in small sections through
the window, missing its valance

Henry Threadgill plays the flute
and a disembodied woman’s voice is singing
notes looping around one another like
sparrows swooping after unseen bugs

Listen to this poem in Japanese using the player above.

This one was harder for me to write than yesterday’s and I’m a bit less certain that I’ve accurately conveyed the meaning.

/ / /

Miles Davis わ “All Blues” を弾きます
正しい考えでも現在の状態わそんあに悪くないです

Miles Davis plays “All Blues”
it’s the right idea but things aren’t that bad

/ / /

part of a river of stones

Listen using the player above.

/ / /

I wake up to the clarinet and trombone
go to sleep to the cornet and saxophone
in between I feel the rhythm of the drum
as I wait for what’s coming to come

/ / /

part of a river of stones

Listen to this poem using the player above.

I went to see Jeff “Tain” Watts, Robert Hurst and Steve Coleman tonight at Jazz Standard. I ended up chatting with Coleman and John Szwed, author of the definitive book on Sun Ra. I put into this poem bits of our conversation, song titles and phrases inspired by the setting and performance.

in which we cross east 27th street at high tide

ancient ways, gold days & spaceways
with an iced tea & a side of fries

how’s the weather in Bahia?
here in New York the street-corner
gutter is a river with no ferry boat

so we turn the string bass on its side
use the bow as a paddle
& since Michael isn’t around
Robert rows us ashore

to the warm lands
where we will know despair no more

(catch the Hail Mary as it spills from her lips)

“how ’bout a hand for the band, the guys?
it ain’t me — we’d play all night”

Listen to this poem using the player above.

I wrote this on the bus from Albany to New York City.

The Blues

1.

it all goes back to the blues
that’s what they’d have you believe
the gravel your boots crunch
must lead to a dusty crossroad
every baby’s cry is a bottleneck slide
on the worn strings of a scarred guitar
whiskey runs from the kitchen faucet
the radiator’s busted so body heat will have to do

2.

snowscape bus rides to big city lights
he’s seated across from a pale redhead
who looks like she’s crying but isn’t
he pretends to be watching the trees
safe in the anonymity of sunglasses
they won’t be meeting later in a juke joint
she won’t nurse a beer or lean in close
to hear him over the sound of the band

Listen using the player above.

/ / /

Gerald Cleaver is in my ears
talking about Uncle June
and the Great Migration

I’m making a smaller journey
home from the post office
where I checked for word from you

/ / /

part of a river of stones

Several things happened today that reminded me how we’re all connected.

First, a poem I wrote ended up on a show I love, The Basketball Jones. The poem was inspired by a line one of the hosts said on the show and I Tweeted him about it. I certainly never expected it would be read on the show. The reading was hilarious, as were the hosts’ comments afterward.

Second, in the comments for that episode of the show, one of the viewers said that in addition to The Basketball Jones, his other favorite show is The Jazz Session. How crazy is that?

Finally, I went to a job counseling meeting yesterday that was part of the requirements for my unemployment benefits. Today I got an email from a guy saying that he was sitting behind me at the session yesterday and that he’s a fan of RocBike.com and follows me on Twitter.

Totally crazy.

Listen to this poem using the player above.

pulled pork

we ate Elgie Stover’s unlicensed pulled pork
on the back porch of the Blue Nite Cafe

talked about the future and what we imagined
it might look like

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I never
imagined it would look like this

even though that first conversation
contained the seeds of everything that was to follow

Elgie served his pulled pork on a single piece of white bread
in a styrofoam container

we could always tell when he arrived because smoke
would drift in through the back doors of the club

from that moment on, every song
rushed toward the back porch

we played music like men whose minds
were already eating

if my parents hadn’t had friends on the island
I never would have known about the club

if I hadn’t known about the club, I never would have been
on the porch, eating pulled pork and talking with you

I think a lot of this would have happened anyway
it probably would have been easier

but I wouldn’t trade those conversations
or this pain for all the pulled pork in the world

Listen to this poem using the player above.

This is poem #25 for the November Poem-A-Day challenge. Today’s prompt was to write an animal poem. Given that this is also my first Thanksgiving as a vegan, I decided to write a poem about doing something with a turkey other than eating it.

Today I played chess with a turkey

Rather than eating him, I mean.
His name was Ronald.
I was embarrassed, because I thought
all turkeys were named Tom.
“That’s OK,” he said, “everybody thinks that.”
We played in the park on one of those tables
old men use when the afternoons get too long.
Ronald told me he’d always wanted to play
the saxophone, but his limbs weren’t set up right.
I suggested the koto, a Japanese instrument played
by plucking, something I figured he could easily do
with his beak. “It’s just not the same,” he said.
“You can’t play the blues on a koto.”
Ronald mentioned that he once played a one-string,
jug-band bass with Muddy Waters, during Muddy’s
last gig in Chicago. “But Muddy died in 1983
and turkeys only live for 10 years,” I said.
Ronald said that was another myth.
“I’m 47, and my dad lived to be … well …
I know it was more than 80, at least.”
Ronald said many turkeys only live 10 years
because most of them never develop hobbies.
We played three games of chess and Ronald won
all three. He was very gracious about it.
“It keeps me young,” he said.
After the games, we walked back downtown
to my apartment. The whole way there, Ronald
hummed “Mannish Boy.”

Poem #10 for the November Poem-A-Day challenge. Today’s prompt was to write a love poem.

A Love Poem

John came
                     down
                               the
                                     stairs

SMILING

holding A Love Supreme

Alice knew
it was a day
unlike other days

Poem #7 for November Poem-A-Day challenge. Today’s prompt is to write a “pro-” poem.

Pro-Bono

Even though the glasses are a little goofy.
But hey, he’s been a star since the 80s,
And big glasses were the rage then, too.
Are there still people who call him Paul?
Old friends from high school who remember
When he would get called names because
He was an artsy kid, not a jock?
When I was in high school, all my female friends
Started breathing heavily while we watched
Rattle and Hum, cross swaying against his bare chest,
Running his hands through his long sweaty hair.
This is not a rebel song. It’s hard to be a rebel
When you’re worth 200 million dollars
And have had lunch with presidents, popes and the
Dalai Lama. Still, though, he thinks the rich countries
Should give the poor a break. He appreciates
Leonard Cohen. And he once stole a song from
Charles Manson.

In August, several of my friends participated in an event during which they wrote a poem a day on a postcard and mailed it to someone. They in turn received postcards from other poets. That was all too much for me, but the “poem on a postcard” idea was a good one, so I started writing the occasional short poem and sending them to friends. I sent this one to jazz critic Richard Kamins:

Click image to enlarge.

Listen to this poem using the player above.

The music in the audio version of the poem is “Buddy Bolden’s Blues” performed by Sidney Bechet.

I never heard Buddy Bolden say a goddamned thing

never saw Count Basie swing
never felt Duke love me madly
never heard Prez bend a note so sadly
never saw Miles though I was alive
never watched Mingus struggle to survive
never danced round and round with Monk
never moved to Lockjaw’s roundhouse funk
never smelled the flower in Billie’s hair
never tasted Coltrane’s thickly burning air
never swung my girl to Chick Webb’s drums
never stared amazed at Tatum’s thumbs
never laughed as Ella made up the words
never cried as Lacy called down the birds
never asked Jackie what made him tick
never nursed Charlie when he was sick
never bopped when Dizzy beed
never copped what Dexter’d need
never thought they had it made
never forget a note they played

Listen to the show using the player above.

More photos:

I had the pleasure tonight of performing a featured poetry set with the Poets Jazz Trio — poet Dan Wilcox on saxophone and percussion, poet Tom Corrado on bass, and me reading my poems and playing saxophone and percussion. We played as part of the Dan’s Third Thursday Poetry Series at the Social Justice Center in Albany. Many fine poets came out for the open mic and it was a joy to see them all. In this post, you’ll find photos from the event taken by poet Alan Catlin, along with an audio recording of the set that you can listen to with the player at the top of this post.

Thanks to Dan and Tom, and to Jason Parker of oneworkingmusician.com for his transcription assistance.

Tonight’s show was dedicated to the late jazz organist Gene Ludwig and to his wife, Pattye.

Organist Gene Ludwig passed away yesterday, July 14, 2010. I didn’t know him well, but he was a guest on The Jazz Session in August, 2009, and we spoke several times in person and by phone and email. Gene and his wife Pattye were extremely kind to me and to everyone with whom I saw them interact, particularly during Gene’s performance last year in Schenectady, NY. My thoughts are with Pattye and with their families at this time.

Gene’s Schenectady gig inspired a poem that appears in my book, Unexpected Sunlight. You can read the poem here at jasoncrane.org.

Listen to this poem using the player above.

Art Pepper is my favorite alto saxophonist and one of my favorite musicians, period. I wrote this while listening to Stuttgart May 25, 1981 – Unreleased Art Vol. V. Art’s wife, Laurie, has been on The Jazz Session twice. If you’d like to learn more about Art, please listen to her appearances in 2007 and 2009.

Photo (c) Laurie Pepper

The Truth About Art Pepper

Art’s life is Synanonymous with art, the making of
with the alto saxophone, the playing of
with Ginsberg’s angel-headed hipsters, the slaying of

Art’s sound is a soaring cry that no bird of prey can outshine
he is a misty-morning muezzin atop the minaret calling the faithful
to the temple of pure emotion, architecture without artifice

Art is the inmate released, outpouring pent-up desire
archetype of the madness that bound those bound by the 50s
survivor of the plain old lives that crashed in the purple mountains

Art for Art’s sake, one foot hokey-pokeying on the ledge
the people like ants – aren’t they always? – far below
(although Art was never one to put himself above the people)

Art could play a ballad like he had Cupid’s arrow lodged between his ribs
could play the blues like he’d been struck down on a dusty road
could blaze like the nucleus of the sun, irradiating the audience with love

Art was the original Comeback Kid, cutman in his corner dabbing
his sweaty brow with a towel, handing him a new reed soaked
in the jar of blood and guts beside the ring

Art could take a punch, roll with it, let the kinetic energy of the blow
travel from his gut to his spine, slide up to his brain
there to spark the next invention, the next flight of fancy

Art is beauty and beauty is truth and therefore Art was the truth
he was the news that stays news, the last dispatch from the battlefront
Art could make the shooting stop, could arrest breath and pause time

Art’s most magical reality was that he was purely human
not carved from marble by a holy sculptor with a careful eye
but made from the same clay as we all, gifted with the breath of music

Listen to this poem using the player above.

A poem dedicated to the jazz musician Sun Ra, written after reading an article by Nate Chinen.

to swing you in the arms of the stars

you don’t need a rocket to get there
there wouldn’t be any there there if you got there
anyway

but HE would be there in a long robe
dime store rhinestones a glittering milky way
HE is a high priest with a congregation of everyone

arms lifted to create a horizon, the sun medallion
set into HIS space pope’s mitre
your eyelids are getting heavy, it’s all getting heavy

doo-wop be-bop swing and free
Space Is The Place for you and me
and HE and we and Muhammad Ali

the Black Christ descends from the highest peak
of the Andes, looks around slowly, sees
nothing of interest, climbs back to the summit

for some, it is just too much chaos
but there was order, too, and beauty, and reason
a cover story for those long kept under the great white thumb

isn’t the homesickness of 746 million miles
better than the sickness of a home in Alabama
where being a little green man would be preferable to being what HE is?

sure, HE had a name, HE was her man, her little boy
a baby from a womb not covered in stars
but released in blood and tears like all the rest

pushed into a world not of HIS choosing, HE chose not to be of this world
adopted for HIMSELF a new birth in the undiscovered country
fell from a new womb with the slight bounce of nine percent less gravity

as has been previously noted, we are spinning on a marble
that is whirling around a fire
the hole in the middle of the universe surrounded by black wax

HE pressed grooves into that wax and drew forth sound from the needle
while the tables turned – the polarity reversed – up was down
the black man was a cosmic prince, the king of the moonlit desert

couldn’t Pat Patrick wail over this awakening?
couldn’t John Gilmore swing you in the arms of the stars?
couldn’t HE tell you what your blood knows but your brain fears?

on the summit of the highest peak of the Andes
the Black Christ is clearing brush to make a landing place
for the ninth rocket, the one that will carry him away

we travel the spaceways from planet to planet
humming a tune born of a south too deep to bear
midwifed in stardust and held up in the harsh light of the sun for all to see

Listen to this poem using the player above.

I wasn’t going to write about the passing of jazz pianist Hank Jones until I saw this article in the New York Times.

UPDATE: Hank Jones’ manager, Jean-Pierre Leduc, posted this in response to the NYT article:

Hank had a huge farm up in Hartwick, NY, and he had most things he needed. He was not unhappy or hermit-like. I wish he had treated himself to a bigger space (he could have lived anywhere), but it was clean and right where he wanted to be — Upper West Side. On tour he had the best suite in the best 5-star hotels, and he was on tour a lot, even very recently. The article in The Times was a clear invasion of privacy.

I considered making revisions to the poem based on this, but I don’t think that’s necessary.

(Rafa Rivas/AFP/Getty Images)

91

“On the cluttered night-table was a book of Sherlock Holmes stories.”
– From a New York Times article on what was found in jazz pianist Hank Jones’ tiny one-room apartment after his death.

the detective used the violin
as a tool to sharpen his thoughts
the pianist practiced on an electric keyboard
using headphones so he wouldn’t disturb the neighbors

91 years is a long time
to be good at something so few understand
unlike Holmes, Hank never got a chance to stand in the parlor
to explain how he’d figured it all out
how he’d arrived at the real answer

he had to depend on ears and brains and beating hearts
to understand the messages pushed into ivory
by two hands, ten fingers, a billion synapses firing

when he died they broke into his room with a hammer
it was locked from the inside
a detail the detective would have appreciated
they found rumpled sheets, accolades
long ago forgotten and newly given
manifestations of his talent not sufficient
to encapsulate the world-altering beauty of it

there is nothing elementary
about 91 years of a black man playing the piano
no sidekick to remark on just how heavily
the odds had been stacked in opposition

could even the most talented sleuth
have pieced together the long road from Detroit?
inspected the dust of a thousand thousand footsteps
and traced the route from segregated hotels
to the grandest stages in the world?

91 years is a long time to breathe in and out,
to push down on the keys, to bear the weight of memory
the memory of waiting for his time in the spotlight

yet he could have walked down any street in America
and no one would have looked twice
he was a king, an 88-keyed deity who could
swing you into the ground and could pass
completely unnoticed among the multitudes
more concerned with the camera flash

in the end he went out playing
in a world that was richer for his footsteps across the stage,
his particular selection of notes
his attention to detail, elegance
and the long slow curve of 91 years of history