Devoted to Jazz and 20th Century America
At the abandoned jazz club,
where I once debuted,
only spiders and rodents
reside behind the acoustical panels
that once resonated my dreams.
I see my distorted image
reflected upon the scarred ride cymbal
of a headless drum set
and feel like an intruder,
disrupting a Buddy Rich riff
when he
Where have all the flowers gone?
Have I been asleep?
Gone
The brilliant yellow sunshine crispness of
June Christy….
The seductive red rouge intimacy of
Jeri Southern…
The smooth rich rose caress of
Her voice shredded, turned to gravel
by cigarettes and whiskey, she navigates
grocery aisles and checkout lines
as sotto voce she sings old songs
both jazz and country. People stare
in amazement as her ruined voice
elicits tears from listening bystanders.
In her living room she croons with
after playing, my upright
kay bass, my fingers
still loving, the birds eye maple
neck & strings:
my left arm
hurt the next day.
after playing my old
I had them
all down
pat
from the winged
Studebaker
to the old
Henry J
Today’s Writers Almanac daily poetry post — as chosen by Garrison Keillor — is “1960” by Billy Collins, a brilliant piece that reminds us of the intimacy found in a 1960 Bill Evans live recording.
1960
In the old joke,
the marriage counselor
tells the couple who never talks anymore
to go to a jazz club because at a jazz club
everyone talks during the
“Miles & Me”
slash here
semi-colon there
dash and a
period
comma down to
colon
lead me back
to quotes
… a great song
by frank loesser
played by gene harris, piano,
& his quartet.
played by two black guys
& two white guys …
jazz brothers, in the
A record store on Wabash was where
I bought my first album. I was a freshman
in college and played the record in my room
over and over. I was caught by how he took
the musical phrase and seemed to find a new
way out, the next note was never the note
you thought would turn up and yet seemed
A marsh harrier soars above the Norfolk broads
circling higher and higher
rather like a Gillespie trumpet solo that rises and rises
to dizzying heights of pitch and volume
eventually the bird slides behind billowing clouds
and vanishes into distance
so the trumpet reaches and
