As the storm starts I press play on the Dave Brubeck album and think of my grandpa. When I was a kid he had a record by the Jack Stewart Quartet, playing Brubeck tunes. They were a band from the Berkshires, where he and I are also from. Half the album was recorded live at a private girls’ school, the other half … I can’t quite recall. Long before I heard the Brubeck originals, I heard these local reproductions, which had the odd effect of making Brubeck seem like the copycat.
thunder drowns the piano
rain on the glass like snares
turntable memories of spring
/ / /
22 April 2023
Charlottesville VA
Category: Jazz
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
the room is a little too warm
Bing is singing the classics
later there’ll be snow
/ / /
7 January 2023
State College PA
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
Pharoah sails the new moon
look on his works
ye mighty and rejoice!
/ / /
24 September 2022
State College PA
for Pharoah Sanders
tears at Wegmans
press play: “Theme 002”
fly fly fly
/ / /
23 August 2022
State College PA
for JB
Leave a Commentat the end of this line, a saxophone!
/ / /
18 June 2022
Lowell MA
(written in front of
Jack Kerouac’s birthplace)
It’s true! After a year away, I’m taking over the hosting duties of The Jazz Session again. Listen to the handover episode for the details.
2 CommentsIt’s been 108 years since Sun Ra arrived from Saturn. Not sure where to start with his massive discography? Try this one:
driving drums
Fender Rhodes
the sharp angles of melody
/ / /
1 April 2022
Latham NY
inspired by
“Morning Song”
by Matt Aronoff
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:
3 CommentsListening 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
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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