“A Jazz Biography” — a poem by Paul Brown

July 11th, 2021

photo by William Gottlieb/Library of Congress

Sidney Bechet at Jimmy Ryan’s, New York, N.Y., June, 1947

A Jazz Biography

Sidney Bechet was a nasty man
ill-tempered and suspicious
…….– anything but jolly –
a man of hot and steamy trade
wielding the iron all morning
in his New York basement tailor shop
and his soprano sax all afternoon
in a backroom jam
…….jailed and deported from Britain
for roughing up a whore
jailed again in Paris
for shooting a piano player outside a Montmartre bar
…….but on the bandstand . . .
the grey-haired father
a flashing emerald on his finger
an unnerving wide vibrato
relentless power and swagger and swing
drove average bands to a higher mode
made a golden smile in the heart of Duke Ellington
…….after he died
in the republics of Gabon and Chad
commemorative stamps were issued in his name
on the Riviera a statue was erected
and the 4000 dancers at the Savoy ballroom in Harlem
danced a slow shuffle

___

Paul Brown writes poetry and fiction in Belleville, Ontario. His novel Wolf Pack of the Winisk River, written in free verse, was published by Lobster Press, Montreal, in 2009.

Listen to the 1939 recording of Sidney Bechet playing “Summertime”