Devoted to Jazz and 20th Century America
Time is all time
for the player in cosmic space.
Undo the bolts & let fly
or jump back in the box
and die.
These are your reality implications
on any day of earth-clinging.
But as to the progressive continuance
of organic life on this orb,
charlie parker
sits on the end
of my bed
holding his alto sax.
and for pete’s sake! mr. traps:
buddy rich was also there,
getting his drum kit ready
by the end of the bed.
then ray brown’s there
and making a
In early morning silence,
breathing is audible.
Steam rises from tea.
A train’s whistle moans
in the distance, and I
whisper to the night
secrets I share with
there’s new Coltrane out
lost recordings tootin’ the devil’s horn
and while I’ve been leery
of these “new” releases, how
wrong can John Go?
even John on scat is pure
Concert postings and colored stickers on the crossbeams,
black-clad cyclists crossing East River—
I remember when nobody pedaled
past your grim entrance—around 1985,
when Garden Cafeteria had to close
to keep the junkies out.
They even shut you down in ’88,
said you were
Eight poets — Michael L. Newell, Aurora Lewis, Roger Singer, Lawrence J. Klumas, Freddington, Victor Enns, dan smith and John Stupp — connect their poems to the spirit of jazz in this eight page collection…
Weave for me a basket of brotherhood.
For the frame choose a hardy bark
of inclusiveness
And within the waters of redemption
Soak long the grasses and stalks
To strip racism from their barks
To make pliable their
wind howls through trees round
corners shaking bushes windows eaves
lightning fractures night and all
you locked up in memory too fragile
to be handled comes tumbling out
Wizard of Cool
Eyes liken to a bird of prey
having seen, what we would
never see as he blew phenomenal
madness into the heavens
taking our breath away
On a level, others tried to perpetrate
my first time, Live at the Blackhawk
There’s a pawnshop in Tarzana
Called Thrifty Pawn & Loan.
And propped up in the window
Is a haunted saxophone.
The tag says “50 dollars-
A sweet and honeyed tone”
But fifty bucks ain’t all you pay
Details on the upcoming 49th Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest
Interview with Thelonious Monk biographer Robin D.G. Kelley
Five poems by dan smith
Art Pepper, Los Angeles, 1956