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Category: Jazz

POEM: 23

Published 14 March 2023 by Jason Crane

23

This is a poem
inspired by an album
inspired by twenty-three paintings.

This is a stanza in a poem
inspired by an album
inspired by twenty-three paintings.

This
is a word in a stanza in a poem
inspired by an album
inspired by twenty-three paintings.

T—
his is a letter in a word
in a stanza in a poem
inspired by an album
inspired by twenty-three paintings.


is the absence of a word
in a stanza in a poem
inspired by an album
inspired by twenty-three paintings.

*

up in the sky
we make the stars
make pictures

/ / /

14 March 2023
State College PA

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haiku: 7 January 2023

Published 7 January 2023 by Jason Crane

the room is a little too warm
Bing is singing the classics
later there’ll be snow

/ / /

7 January 2023
State College PA

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POEM: Digging Bill Evans

Published 21 November 2022 by Jason Crane

Digging Bill Evans

I was 21, driving a used car,
no money in the bank, a job
as a waiter in my uncle’s restaurant
awaiting me in the desert.
I moved into a studio apartment:
a bed, a small sofa, a scuffed old
round table from the restaurant.
I had my stereo from back east;
the library across the street
had CDs. I’d sign them out
then sit on the floor, head
between the speakers, trying to
find my way into the music.
Now I have a 20-year-old son.
I can’t afford a studio apartment.
I don’t have a job waiting for me.
I’m still trying to find my way
into whatever story the music is telling.

/ / /

21 November 2022
State College PA

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haiku: 24 September 2022

Published 25 September 2022 by Jason Crane

Pharoah sails the new moon
look on his works
ye mighty and rejoice!

/ / /

24 September 2022
State College PA
for Pharoah Sanders

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haiku: 18 June 2022

Published 18 June 2022 by Jason Crane

at the end of this line, a saxophone!

/ / /

18 June 2022
Lowell MA
(written in front of
Jack Kerouac’s birthplace)

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Happy arrival day!

Published 22 May 2022 by Jason Crane

It’s been 108 years since Sun Ra arrived from Saturn. Not sure where to start with his massive discography? Try this one:

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haiku: 1 April 2022

Published 1 April 2022 by Jason Crane

driving drums
Fender Rhodes
the sharp angles of melody

/ / /

1 April 2022
Latham NY

inspired by
“Morning Song”
by Matt Aronoff

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audio poem: hum

Published 23 March 2022 by Jason Crane

The other day I wrote a piece called “Hum.” My friend Patrick said it needed some noir saxophone behind it. He’s a saxophonist, so I recorded myself reading the piece and sent it to him to add sax to. He did, and this is the result:

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POEM: Listening To Claude Thornhill’s “Snowfall”

Published 6 January 2022 by Jason Crane

Listening To Claude Thornhill’s “Snowfall”

The band announces itself with a flourish
before fading into the soft white of the piano.
It sounds better because it’s old,
a half-remembered audio phantasm
floating just out of reach.
Sure it would be nice to hear
every nuance, every breath, every
subtle shift in tone or timbre.
But given the choice, I’ll take
the crackles and static,
the muted highs and lows,
the mid-range heard as if
underwater, perhaps from
the bottom of a pool
while the band
plays on the
patio
above.

/ / /

6 January 2021
Albany NY

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The Drowning Pool playlist

Published 16 December 2021 by Jason Crane

I’ve been reading Ross MacDonald’s The Drowning Pool today and listening to music as I read. Here’s the playlist:

Dizzy Gillespie — Night In Tunisia
George Shearing — Lullaby Of Birdland
Cecil Taylor — Looking Ahead
Gerry Mulligan — The Gerry Mulligan Quartet
Zoot Sims — Zoot Sims Avec Henri Renaud
Glenn Gould — Bach: The Two And Three Part Inventions
Emerson String Quartet — Beethoven: The String Quartets
Elvin Jones & Richard Davis — Heavy Sounds

I also made this into a Spotify playlist.

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