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photo by Bob Ghiraldini, from the cover of the 1963 Impulse album Duke Ellington & John Coltrane (from the editor’s personal collection)

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Trade these old records
Jazz marked down to four dollars
Genius in my hand

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Classic John Handy
We dig that jazz/funk hybrid,
Hard work on vinyl

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Essential Coltrane’s
In a Sentimental Mood
Paradise complete
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A dog-eared copy
Of Downbeat, pages flutter
Ella’s Flying Home

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Diving underground
Spirits and jazz co-mingle
I can feel you now

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Connie Johnson was born and raised in Los Angeles, CA. She began writing poems in 1976, but chose to pursue a career in music journalism. Since 2020, her focus has returned to poetry and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Iconoclast, Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, Jerry Jazz Musician, Voicemail Poems, Mudfish and Exit 13.

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Listen to the 1953 recording of Duke Ellington playing “Kinda Dukish”

 

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Click here to read The Sunday Poem

Click here for information about how to submit your poetry or short fiction

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Jerry Jazz Musician…human produced (and AI-free) since 1999

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