Jason Innocent, on “3”, Abdullah Ibrahim’s latest album
Jason Innocent’s experience with the pianist Abdullah Ibrahim’s new recording captures the essence of this artist’s creative brilliance.
...March 18th, 2024
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.
View all posts by Joe MaitaJason Innocent’s experience with the pianist Abdullah Ibrahim’s new recording captures the essence of this artist’s creative brilliance.
...March 18th, 2024
My friend is a Blues singer,
I am a Jazz drinker,
boozing shots after shots,
I never get drunk with Jazz.
March 16th, 2024
. . Image of Mose Allison by John L. Hawkins . . Remembering Mose I was streaming The Fabulous Baker Boys the other night and thought it reminded me of the times I drank to Mose Allison — in Boston, in DC — and how righteous he was singing Everybody Cries Mercy (nobody has a … Continue reading ““Remembering Mose,” a poem by John Kendall Hawkins”
...March 14th, 2024
It was the first Friday in months that we didn’t both have our own gigs lined up, so my friend Paul invited me out to one of his favorite haunts on 8th Avenue. He promised me the food was good, but told me that the real draw was the live music. Honestly, I tried not to roll my eyes when he dropped that detail on me in the cab. I mean, I love music and all–I’d have to if I was going to work this hard at it–but I kind of was looking forward to giving my ears the night off.
...March 12th, 2024
I admit I’d never heard of “Watermelon Man” before Harry Reid came to my kids’ elementary school to put together a concert band. He wasn’t a salaried teacher, but a part-time outsider brought in by the PTA.
...March 10th, 2024
I’ve never seen much of Spain.
A business trip to Barcelona.
A commuter ride to Girona. Salvador
Dali’s museum. A stop in Sitges
where ivory beach sand abets
a shimmered turquoise sea.
March 8th, 2024
The Portland, Oregon poet Emmet Wheatfall – whose jazz poetry has been published on Jerry Jazz Musician – talks about the connection between poetry and the environment, and the impact of climate change on poets and other artists, and the rest of humanity.
...March 7th, 2024
The trumpet melody glided on a cloud of clarinet and trombone notes. All three instruments dipped and soared over a rhythmical sea of piano, bass, and drums.
...March 3rd, 2024
gentle the footprints go
up through the wilderness
to the heart-shaped night
short of breath, shorter, inches away on my speakers
miles inside
a sphere of glad- sad melancholy, dark tree twilights
March 2nd, 2024
This bassist played with (among others) Charlie Parker, Erroll Garner, Nat King Cole and Dexter Gordon, was one of the earliest modern jazz tuba soloists, and was the only player to turn down offers to join both Duke Ellington’s Orchestra and the Louis Armstrong All-Stars. Who is he?
...March 1st, 2024
In a 2003 Jerry Jazz Musician interview, John Szwed, author of So What: The Life of Miles Davis, reveals a brilliant, inventive, intensely driven musician who was plagued by a host of internal conflicts and contradictions. “Miles’ life as a whole is not easy to grasp,” Szwed reflects, “and the meaning of it, with or without his help, is resistant to quick interpretations.”
...February 29th, 2024
These poems are new submissions by five poets relatively new to Jerry Jazz Musician, and are an example of the writing I have the privilege of encountering on a regular basis.
...February 28th, 2024
This story, a finalist in the recently concluded 64th Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest, tells the tell of Uncle Cheapskate and Aunt Whiner, those pesky relatives you love to hate and hate to love.
...February 26th, 2024
Evergreens and pink lawn
chairs sang through my windowpane
until silenced by grime
and retinal leakage.
I pass my good eye
back and forth;
February 24th, 2024
Marginalized, itinerant
Brilliance barely compensated
You want to save them all; you
Particularly want to save him
February 22nd, 2024
in this 2005 interview, Ben Green, author of Spinning the Globe: The Rise, Fall, and Return to Greatness of the Harlem Globetrotters, discusses the complex history of the celebrated Black touring basketball team.
...February 21st, 2024
The 19 poets included in this collection effectively share their reverence for jazz music and its culture with passion and brevity.
...February 20th, 2024
“Afloat” – a finalist in the 64th Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest – is about a troubled man in his 40s who lessens his worries by envisioning himself and loved ones on a boat that provides safety and ease for all of them.
...February 19th, 2024
Your father and I admonished you
for walking ahead on the craggy mountain ridge.
You defended your eager steps,
saying you were musing
on the musical styles
of Mingus, Parker, and Shorter,
February 17th, 2024
In a 2002 interview, Carla Kaplan, editor of Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters, talks about the novelist, anthropologist, playwright, folklorist, essayist and poet whose work is is taught in American, African American, and Women’s Studies courses in high schools and universities from coast to coast.
...February 16th, 2024
A relaxed, familiar comfort emerges from the poet Terrance Underwood’s language of intellectual acuity, wit, and space – a feeling similar to one gets while listening to Monk, or Jamal, or Miles. I have long wanted to share his gifts as a poet on an expanded platform, and this 33-poem collection – woven among his audio readings, music he considers significant to his story, and brief personal comments – fulfills my desire to do so.
...February 14th, 2024
A nine-hour long Spotify playlist featuring songs by the likes of Horace Silver, Lee Morgan, Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, Ahmad Jamal, and Dizzy Gillespie that demonstrates how the Latin music influence on jazz has been present since the music’s beginnings.
...February 13th, 2024
Following a failed relationship, a Barstow man is left in the desolate town with only his guitar and the familiar music of Mozart to help him cope with it all…
...February 12th, 2024
Morning is dream time—
inns, strip clubs, and shops
are all eye-closed,
a hobo huddles
under a gray blanket
at a storefront,
neon signs illuminating
the strip all night long
February 10th, 2024
it seems like thousands
of nights hunkered
over dark beer and jazz
with my Guru
the janitor who taught
jazz to the novice
February 9th, 2024
In this 2021 Jerry Jazz Musician interview, Eubie Blake biographers Ken Bloom and Richard Carlin discuss the legendary composer of American popular song and jazz during the 20th century
.
...February 8th, 2024
when first he was asked
spring buds had yet to fully open
now rising out of autumn heath
that tenor sax strides deep
February 7th, 2024
Tad Richards is a prolific visual artist, poet, novelist, and nonfiction writer who has been active for over four decades. ..He frequently writes about poetry, and the following piece about the history of the connection of jazz and American poetry first appeared in the Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Poetry (2005). It is published with the permission of the author.
...February 6th, 2024
Both of them put up with fools
until they didn’t
and the sea that men parted
collapsed under their stares.
February 3rd, 2024
In a 2003 Jerry Jazz Musician interview, John D’Emilio, author of Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin, talks about one of the most important figures of the American civil rights movement, and a mentor of Dr. Martin Luther King.
...February 3rd, 2024
The story, a finalist in the recently concluded 64th Short Fiction Contest, is inspired by the classic Bob Dylan song “Tangled Up in Blue” which speculates about what might have been the back story to the song.
...January 30th, 2024
shouts and dances in church
and thumbs its nose at shame
covers its body in brand names
and doesn’t worry about the future
holds hands and kiss shameslessly
in public; they call it p.d.a
January 28th, 2024
Trading Fours with Douglas Cole is an occasional series of the writer’s poetic interpretations of jazz recordings and film. This edition is influenced by Stillpoint, the 2021 album by Zen practitioner Barrett Martin
...January 24th, 2024
Beginning in 1990, the noted photographer Giovanni Piesco began taking backstage photographs of many of the great musicians who played in Amsterdam’s Bimhuis, that city’s main jazz venue which is considered one of the finest in the world. Jerry Jazz Musician will occasionally publish portraits of jazz musicians that Giovanni has taken over the years. This edition is of the pianist/composer Mal Waldron, taken on three separate appearances at Bimhuis (1996, 2000 and 2001).
...January 23rd, 2024
Take tonight, for instance.
I can’t ask you for the moon
the way Sinatra commands it
with his first-class confidence.
Let alone Jupiter or Mars.
January 21st, 2024
One-third of the Winter, 2024 collection of jazz poetry is made up of poets who have only come to my attention since the publication of the Summer, 2023 collection. What this says about jazz music and jazz poetry – and this community – is that the connection between the two art forms is inspirational and enduring, and that poets are finding a place for their voice within these virtual pages.
...January 18th, 2024
A short-listed entry in the recently concluded 64th Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest, the story is a heartfelt, grateful monologue to one Italian composer, dead and immortal of course, whose oeuvre means so much to so many of us.
...January 16th, 2024
“Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man’s sense of values and his…”
...January 15th, 2024
Sensational
Largely unsung
Dorothy Donegan
Known by jazz insiders as
The female Art Tatum
His protégé
The one who made him say:
“She is the only woman who can
Make me practice.”
January 14th, 2024
The writer tells his story of playing guitar with a symphony orchestra, backing up jazz legend George Shearing.
...January 11th, 2024
Takes on love and loss, and memories of Lady Day, Prez, Monk, Dolphy and others…
...January 10th, 2024
The author speaks with Bob Hecht about his book and his decades-long dedication to the genius of Pepper Adams, the stellar baritone saxophonist whose hard-swinging bebop style inspired many of the top-tier modern baritone players.
...January 9th, 2024
A year-end compilation of jazz albums oft mentioned by a wide range of critics as being the best of 2023
...January 8th, 2024
I jammed
with the Afro-American Jazz Band
in the old Off Plaza on McAllister,
and with the blind Black pianist whose name I can’t remember
in the club we knew as The Question Mark
whose sign on Haight Street was just a neon ?,
when the club was straight and featured jazz
January 7th, 2024
. . photo by Brian Mcmillen, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons Les McCann at San Francisco’s Keystone Korner, 1980 . ___ . Compared To What? It’s Les McCann & Eddie Harris heard it back in ’69, heard it now not once but twice, so nice, but sadness got me tonight, hit me hard, Compared … Continue reading ““Compared to What?” – a poem by James Higgins”
...January 4th, 2024
We begin to study Uncle George
in a cavern of disintegration.
A hospital bed wrenched through
a narrow doorway. Shag carpeting
cauterized and peeled from the concrete floor.
A hoyer lift wheeled in. A pully installed
so George can shift from horizontal to vertical.
January 3rd, 2024
This story — a finalist in the recently concluded 64th Short Fiction Contest — harkens back to Richard Brautigan’s fiction of the ’70s, and explores modern day co-worker relationships/friendship and the politics of for profit “Universities”
...January 2nd, 2024
Your chair is a kitten chasing a bird.
Hans Brinker skates across
your living room.
December 31st, 2023
Each year offered
a little blue box.
Trinket from a window.
December 24th, 2023
A personal memory, and a time for loving all others this season…
...December 22nd, 2023
Dusk’s deep waters envelop me
with the quiet embrace of a Bill
Evans solo, the piano so low,
yet so all encompassing (drowning
me in beauty, beauty, beauty —
December 21st, 2023
In this interview, Alyn Shipton discusses Cab Calloway, whose vocal theatrics and flamboyant stage presence made him one of the country’s most beloved entertainers.
...December 20th, 2023
A story that takes place over the course of a young man’s life, looking specifically at all the women he’s loved and how the presence of a derelict building informs those relationships.
...December 18th, 2023
I take my daughter to the ballet studio
at a former convent in Marin.
She will be dancing for hours.
At the edge of the church’s property
is an old gymnasium.
December 17th, 2023
This trumpeter was in the 1932 car accident that took the life of famed saxophonist Frankie Techemacher (pictured), and is best remembered for his work with Eddie Condon’s bands. Who was he?
...December 13th, 2023
Her first note wails amber
smoke near overhead pipes above
the guitars. It wavers
and rolls r’s better than spring.
December 10th, 2023
How can somebody so blue, Grant, be named
Green? How can the ocean current
and its waves? Simple. Immediate. Each note comes
from you slow as underwater speech. Say
a fish tank and pufferfish hugging the glass. Imagine
being trapped. Gravel pumped through the gills
December 8th, 2023
In Becoming Ella Fitzgerald: The Jazz Singer Who Transformed American Song, the book’s author Judith Tick writes that Ella “fearlessly explored many different styles of American song through the lens of African American jazz, [and] treated jazz as a process, not confined to this idiom or that genre,” and who “changed the trajectory of American vocal jazz in this century.” Ms. Tick. who is professor emerita of music history at Northeastern University, talks with about Ella – and her book – in this wide-ranging October 23, 2023 interview.
...December 6th, 2023
In this excerpt from the Introduction to her book Becoming Ella: The Jazz Singer Who Transformed American Song, Judith Tick writes about highlights of Ella’s career, and how the significance of her Song Book recordings is an example of her “becoming” Ella.
...December 5th, 2023
Yours is the sound of smoke
I love to inhale
the sound of a humid
summer night
its cool breeze
December 3rd, 2023
News about upcoming publishing dates, collections, and recent posts…
...December 1st, 2023
Hammers in a construction site
sound like a band warming up,
weird solos by a bunch of drummers.
Jimmy Smith comes down draped in groove,
sermonizing your stride,
clouds chest-out like they know something.
A man standing in front of a house,
shouting, I got nothing from you!
November 29th, 2023
In a 2013 Jerry Jazz Musician interview, Guthrie Ramsey talks about Bud Powell, one of the greatest pianist’s in jazz history, and the collision of two vibrant political economies: the discourses of art and the practice of Blackness.
...November 28th, 2023
Mamacita
with round brown
hips
roll and sway
sway and roll
slow that stroll
she sings
to ease
her sticky soul
November 26th, 2023
Announcing the six writers nominated for the Pushcart Prize v. XLVIII, whose work was published in Jerry Jazz Musician during 2023.
...November 21st, 2023
Four elderly women gather in a church for poetry readings, but they haven’t found a good rhythm yet. Finally, the woman who runs the poetry circle decides to personalize the experience.
...November 20th, 2023
. . The Sunday Poem is published weekly, and strives to include the poet reading their work. Bryan Franco reads his poem at its conclusion. . . ___ . . . . How I Achieved Levitation They all lived in the Walnut Building. Satchmo blew the roof off the house. Fats Waller tickled ivories. … Continue reading “The Sunday Poem: “How I Achieved Levitation” by Bryan Franco”
...November 19th, 2023
It tickles my fancy the way
francophone announcers
ornately say the names
of jazzmen in those live recordings
put to reel in Montreux.
Jack DeJohnette in particular
tickles me, perhaps because
it is a french-like sort of name.
November 16th, 2023
Beginning in 1990, the noted photographer Giovanni Piesco began taking backstage photographs of many of the great musicians who played in Amsterdam’s Bimhuis, that city’s main jazz venue which is considered one of the finest in the world. Jerry Jazz Musician will occasionally publish portraits of jazz musicians that Giovanni has taken over the years. This edition is of the saxophonist Anthony Braxton, taken in January, 2015.
...November 14th, 2023
Hearing Rahsaan Roland Kirk recordings
you could likely miss
the pleasure of that reedman’s kisser,
import of his so unique technique.
November 12th, 2023
The former Village Voice writer Gary Giddins, who was prominently featured in Ken Burns’ documentary Jazz, and who is the country’s preeminent jazz critic, joins us in a December 23, 2002 conversation about jazz legend Thelonious Monk.
...November 10th, 2023
Seven poets combine and art of jazz with an act of love…
...November 7th, 2023
This story, a finalist in the 63rd Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest, looks at the hopes one man has that a woman he meets the night before he leaves for Camp Devens will keep him alive during World War I so he can return and take her out for dinner.
...November 7th, 2023
The Young Turk disregarded the old trumpeter
labeled him a vaudevillian minstrel
because he shucked and grinned,
having no privy to old man’s roiling anger within
fueled by slights and shames endured for years
despite his lauded, storied career.
November 5th, 2023
Jazz divinity
The Divine One on hot, fevered wings
That fly east of the sun and west of
The moon
November 3rd, 2023
In addition to being a top bassist between 1945 – 1960, he was the first major jazz soloist on the cello. He also played on Coleman Hawkins’ 1943 recording of “The Man I Love,” and appeared with Hawkins and Howard McGhee in the film The Crimson Canary. Who is he?
...November 2nd, 2023
She is mesmerizing
flying in the air with the music,
ignoring gravity.
What is she thinking?
October 31st, 2023
La La Love,
even when the cold raindrops
pounded against the window,
we snuggled close like fuzzy cats,
purring with Thelonious Monk
as we drank our Guinness.
October 29th, 2023
Ms. Tanner’s story, a finalist in the recently concluded 63rd Short Fiction Contest, is about a war correspondent’s haunting revelations after she comes across musicians in a refugee camp.
...October 26th, 2023
I don’t know where it starts, he said, but can you imagine
watching They Cloned Tyrone and the music playing,
almost the whole dance club version of Love Hangover,
I can’t even watch anything, my mind looks through the settings,
the dialogue is like a crowd talking in a club and I want to listen in,
go into that Diana Ross whisper singing love voice
October 24th, 2023
The journalist and poet Joel Lewis shares his immensely colorful story of falling in love with jazz, and living with it and reporting on it during his younger days in New Jersey and New York
...October 23rd, 2023
My eyes were faster dreaming
a drum kit in bed with me
Rapid Eye Movement Disorder
disturbing my sleep and my wife
moving away with her cellphone
camera watch my arms begin to move
October 22nd, 2023
A poetic appreciation for the work of the legendary pianist
...October 21st, 2023
You ever heard of a Zoot Suit?
Do you own a Zoot Suit ?
What about the Zoot Suit Riots
you ever heard of them?
October 18th, 2023
An account that the photographer Veryl Oakland shared of his time spent with Carla Bley and her then-husband Michael Mantler during her visit to the San Francisco Bay area in 1979. This encounter is an example of how she’d find inspiration for her music; in this case within the “the marvelous inner workings of mechanical music boxes.”
...October 17th, 2023
Chosen from Ella’s entire repertoire, Ms. Tick’s playlist (with brief commentary) is a mix of studio recordings, live dates, and video, all available for listening here.
...October 16th, 2023
I blame Chet Baker
For opening a window into my past
Sensing that phantom trumpet in my capable hands
The smooth curves of the hard brass, the cold
Mouthpiece against my buzzing lips
Bright melodies blaring
From carefree days of my youth
October 15th, 2023
A collection of Connie Johnson’s poetry is woven among her audio readings, a personal narrative of her journey and music she considers significant to it, providing readers the chance to experience the full value of her gifts.
...October 11th, 2023
Because of his childhood experiences, the story’s narrator loses his singing voice and as an adult neither sings nor dances. But when his marriage falls apart he meets a ‘song and dance man’ who turns out to be Iris, a woman with multiple sclerosis. With her help, he comes to grip with his inhibitions.
...October 10th, 2023
Ce soir l’anniversaire
we defeat the oppressor
with our horns, our magic
here to bury us or set us free
October 8th, 2023
Beginning in 1990, the noted photographer Giovanni Piesco began taking backstage photographs of many of the great musicians who played in Amsterdam’s Bimhuis, that city’s main jazz venue which is considered one of the finest in the world. Jerry Jazz Musician will occasionally publish portraits of jazz musicians that Giovanni has taken over the years. This edition is of the saxophonist Arthur Blythe and his trio, taken on the evening of June 24, 1999.
...October 6th, 2023
. . “Tree”(1924) photo by Alfred Stieglitz/via Raw Pixel/CC0 1.0 Deed . . Song of the Poplar Tree The song playing always catches me off guard. My trembling fingers quicken to remove the old vinyl record. I must stop her voice from singing. Even the wispy quality carries the heavy weight. I weep. Not … Continue reading ““Song of the Poplar Tree” – a poem by Jerrice Baptiste”
...October 5th, 2023
“…The rhapsody, as you see, began as a purpose, not a plan.. I tried to conceive the composition as a whole…”
...October 4th, 2023
The woodshed was the hunting ground for wings of notes.
Black suits and ties, hipster hats and smoke rings of notes.
Was Robert Johnson alone, hellhound on his trail?
Was a deal made? Was Bird Satan’s plaything of notes.
October 1st, 2023
. . photo by Bernard Gotfryd/Library of Congress/PDM 1.0 Thelonious Monk, 1968 . ___ . Thelonious Monk and Mama Thelonious Monk paints a picture of Mama with his piano, the way Monet or Matisse would, with paint: loud, bright colorful notes that are a Rorschach test, screaming on the page. Perhaps, Mama would’ve modeled … Continue reading ““Thelonious Monk and Mama” – a poem by Erren Kelly”
...September 30th, 2023
Earlier this year I invited poets to submit jazz-themed poetry that didn’t need to strictly follow the 5-7-5 syllabic structure of formal haiku, but had to at least be faithful to the spirit of it (i.e. no more than three lines, brief, expressive, emotionally insightful).
This collection, featuring 22 poets, is a good example of how much love, humor, sentimentality, reverence, joy and sorrow poets can fit into their haiku devoted to jazz.
...September 27th, 2023
When a marketing writer gets a new neighbor, she finds herself dreading the 2:00 practice sessions of The Musician. In Rear Window fashion, The Writer is kept apprised of The Musician’s life happenings through a combination of watching out the window and listening to the story told through her music. When a crisis entangles the two women, they form a bond that penetrates the wall that stands between them – despite never having met.
...September 26th, 2023
I’m whistling a tune about
a woman’s broken heart,
down a long and empty
hallway, just to hear it
move itself along,
September 24th, 2023
Barstow to Boron, bound for Bakersfield
we fly across the Mojave Desert, will wind
through and over the Tehachapis
only to come to rest in another desert
on the rim of the sink of California.
September 22nd, 2023
A 28-song Spotify playlist devoted to Autumn, featuring great tunes performed by the likes of Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Sarah Vaughan, Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, Bill Evans, Lester Young, Stan Getz, and…well, you get the idea.
...September 21st, 2023
Trading Fours with Douglas Cole is an occasional series of the writer’s poetic interpretations of jazz recordings and film. In this edition, the poet connects the recordings of Jessica Williams’ “Little Waltz” and Gene Harris’ “Summertime.”
...September 20th, 2023
In a 2006 Jerry Jazz Musician interview, the eminent Louis Armstrong scholar Thomas Brothers talks about the city of New Orleans, and how it imprinted itself on a young Louis Armstrong…
...September 18th, 2023
From a third floor window I imagine
I can almost see the cracked black
& white tile welcoming Penn Avenue
to the long-closed Kappel’s Jewelers.
September 17th, 2023
Before becoming one of television’s biggest stars, he was a competent ragtime and jazz piano player greatly influenced by Scott Joplin, and employed a band of New Orleans musicians similar to the Original Dixieland Jazz Band to play during his New York vaudeville revue. Who was he?
...September 15th, 2023
Ella Fitzgerald is whispering
to me: “sit here and enjoy your dinner with my
sweet honey voice,” eternal bloom of time,
filling the corner of the street where I eat
with a Golden Age long gone but that remains
like an idea, lingering, like the steam of a
hot bath leaving
traces of fingers on the mirror
September 13th, 2023
A story revolving around a jazz record which means so much to a couple that they risk being discovered while attempting to escape the Soviet Union.
...September 12th, 2023
Strains of Charlie Parker’s alto sax fill
the empty apartment song-after-song –
“Dancing in the Dark,” “Loverman,”
“Embraceable You.”
Between every note I wish.
September 10th, 2023
An exhibit of Giovanni Piesco’s photographs of the late free jazz cellist and performance artist Tristan Honsinger
...September 9th, 2023
“Community Bookshelf” is a twice-yearly space where writers who have been published on Jerry Jazz Musician can share information about their recently authored books.
...September 6th, 2023
“Labor Day symbolizes our determination to achieve an…”
...September 4th, 2023
Coltrane said a prayer to his musical God
Straight through the horn of his saxophone.
Not a metaphor; he spoke the words
Through the reed and the music into the air.
September 3rd, 2023
There are two types of clubs
Highfalutin hoity-toity stuck up clubs
And gritty grimy dingy dank dungeons
I prefer the latter, for obvious reasons
Clubs must be weathered
Crackled paint & nicotine stained
August 31st, 2023
Neil Young stumbled off the stage more exhausted than usual. It had been a trying gig, watching Danny Whitten teeter from chord to chord on a heroin-fueled high-wire act that just seemed to get more perilous as the night wore on. It was fine that Danny blew some chords—everyone blew chords in this band. That was what made Crazy Horse special in the first place. If Neil wanted every note pure and perfect, he could have stuck with Crosby, Stills, and Nash. But what would have been the point of that? It was like playing a benediction for your own immaculate coffin.
...August 30th, 2023
Co-author Mr. Edwards discusses his work with Henry Threadgill, widely recognized as one of the most original and innovative voices in contemporary music, and the winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Music.
...August 28th, 2023
The shadow from the brick facade
of Central High School did not seem
to spread much shade on the streets
of our Little Rock neighborhood.
August 27th, 2023
This edition features poetry chosen from hundreds of recent submissions, and from a wide range of voices known – and unknown – to readers of these collections. The work is unified by the poets’ ability to capture the abundance of jazz music, and their experience with consuming it.
...August 22nd, 2023
once said I’d marry a man
Who could hum the first four bars
Of Cal Tjader’s “Doxy.”
We say these foolish things
When we’re young and
Still learning the ways of the world.
August 20th, 2023
n On the Road, Jack & Neal raced Rocky Mount to Ozone Park,
speeding dark quiet American roads
Today, 2023. I drive the new superhighways, continuous sterile green
at median & shoulders,
August 18th, 2023
A man once asked me about ambition, not in a typical sense of family and lifetime accomplishments, more of a rhetorical artistic conversation. To me, it wasn’t a topic which warranted a structured answer let alone a real plan, God forbid life would be linear and predictable. Now, over two decades later, I am found in Notting Hill’s Rooftop Cafe, writing a story which could possibly address the subject unintentionally.
...August 17th, 2023
The podcaster “BG Boogie” has weaponized the most recent dilemma of The Former Guy, creating a playlist “with all the latest up-to-date-est musical indictments of political ineptitude.”
...August 15th, 2023
Shrouded in smoke and cigarette spheres
Jazzy speakeasy on a summer slog of a night
Where hips ramble in tandem,
Slide and slip in an out of rhythm
Juke Joint shifting with an uneven floor
Naked feet shuffling and colliding
August 13th, 2023
“I guess what everyone wants more than anything else is to be loved. And to know that you loved me for my singing is…”
...August 12th, 2023
Vivaldi, especially “The Four Seasons,”
keeps showing up in forms of jazz:
a hint, a structure—but try unraveling
any musical DNA you go straight back
to singing and to drum, voice and poetry—
August 10th, 2023
This jazz legend’s career included early work with Kid Ory in Barney Bigard’s group in 1942, a tour the following year with Louis Armstrong, and stints with Lionel Hampton, Red Norvo, Art Tatum and Stan Getz. His last project was a late 1970’s collaboration with a famous female folk-rock singer. Who is he?
...August 9th, 2023
free
what
bars?
intra-
views,
posit-
ions
o-
pen.
August 6th, 2023
20-year-old Priscilla Habel lives with her wannabe flapper mother who remains stuck in the jazz age 40 years later. Life is monotonous and sad until Cil meets Willie Flasterstain, a beatnik lesbian who offers an escape from her mother’s ever-imposing shadow.
...August 4th, 2023
The phrase that brought to us
The Sunny Day
The Warm of the ocean
The Joy of observing of Life . . .
Not only our own but of a World of Dreams.
August 3rd, 2023
Smooth. Jazz. Chill.
Write. Think. Build.
Listen. Vibe. Poetically
design.
Spend time with jazzy
sounds elevating the
mind. Jazz is smooth.
Jazz is chill.
July 30th, 2023
Did you dream up the orange golden sun of Aruanda?
Seashells far from your mother, you would no longer need
to whisper, “Take Me to Aruanda.”
...July 27th, 2023
. . Fotograaf Onbekend / Anefo, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons Tony Bennett, 1966 . ___ . …..We’ve lost a ton of iconic celebrities lately – stars of all ages and from many creative worlds. Among them: Tina Turner, David Crosby, Cormac McCarthy, Alan Arkin, David Bowie, Ahmad Jamal, Wayne Shorter, Sidney Poitier, Gordon Lightfoot, … Continue reading “A thought or two about Tony Bennett”
...July 25th, 2023
The poet covers the spirit of the music, and the likes of Coltrane, Handy, and Ella…
...July 24th, 2023
The light aspires to be equatorial
but each eroded moment quiets otherwise.
The twilight Superior shore fills
with pine smoke from fire pits
just as Coltrane played in the
smoldering light at the Village Vanguard.
July 23rd, 2023
. . David Becker, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons “‘Benedetto’ means the ‘blessed one’ and I feel that I have truly been blessed.” -Tony Bennett . . ___ . . Tony Bennett, In Memoriam Lightning strikes as your voice makes magic on a summer night i think of a tall girl … Continue reading ““Tony Bennett, In Memoriam” – a poem by Erren Kelly”
...July 22nd, 2023
News about recent and upcoming features to be published on Jerry Jazz Musician
...July 21st, 2023
“Put it this way: Jazz is a good barometer of freedom… In its beginnings, the United States of America spawned certain ideals of freedom and independence through which, eventually, jazz was evolved…”
...July 20th, 2023
. . Lester Young, 1946 . . Solace I relish the cultivation of my Lester afternoons an endeavor still absorbing at my age captive in that garden of ambient sound …………………that Young tenor breath ………………………….a zephyr expulsion stirring atmosphere rare these days for this climate caressing time & movement with a tone to stream still … Continue reading ““Solace” – a poem by Terrance Underwood”
...July 18th, 2023
During that electric dawn
when I first heard
a bracelet of notes
which traced a subtle rhythm
within an hourglass of music
and sharpened the silence with sound,
July 16th, 2023
It’s 1958
and the epitome of 50s style
Anita O’Day steps onto
the stage, white gloves
to her elbows, black hat
crowned with white feathers,
slim black dress and finger clicks
the band into sound and dynamic
jazz minors and majors.
July 14th, 2023
Best known as the trumpeter who replaced Cootie Williams in Duke Ellington’s orchestra, he was also one of the finest jazz violinists of the 1940’s. Who was he?
...July 13th, 2023
A fantasy involving a spider and Miles Davis’ recording of “All Blues”
...July 12th, 2023
in jazz composition
everybody knows where the one is
even when nobody chooses to play it
if the space is quiet enough
you can hear blood racing
July 11th, 2023
The story – a finalist in the F. Scott Fitzgerald 2022 Short Story Contest – follows a laid-off silent-era screenwriter’s career shift after she’s forced to pawn her typewriter.
...July 10th, 2023
It’s one of those moments.
She only has ears for Miles Davis.
Reflecting on things that never came to be—
July 9th, 2023
A violin player and enthusiast makes a crucial decision regarding where his violin will go next.
...July 6th, 2023
In anticipation of a collection of jazz haiku — to be published sometime in August, 2023 — a small sampling of the jazz haiku received so far is published here.
...July 5th, 2023
Some of you young folks been saying to me, “Hey Pops, what you mean ‘What a wonderful world’? How about all them wars all over the place? You call them wonderful?
...July 4th, 2023
The author talks about her book and Chick Webb, once at the center of America’s popular music, and among the most influential musicians in jazz history.
...July 3rd, 2023
he was/
a flightless bird/
bright as sky/
full of natural lies/
and sweet conflict/
when speaking the/
jazz
July 2nd, 2023
This excerpt from the highly regarded biography of Henry Threadgill – one of the most original and innovative voices in contemporary music – tells the story of Threadgill’s backstage encounter with Duke Ellington in July, 1971.
...June 29th, 2023
The poet describes his joyful experience of listening to “Mumbles,” a 1964 recording by Oscar Peterson with Clark Terry
...June 28th, 2023
“Don Quixote’s Adventures in the World of Jazz: 200 Examples and a Few Remarks” reveals remarkable presence of Miguel de Cervantes’ classic Don Quixote in the history of jazz.
...June 26th, 2023
Naturally, his lyrics are cued a cappella./“I’m home” slips from his lips,/sizzles like the taste of what I’m baking in the oven,/as he unwinds his day.
...June 25th, 2023
Two poems devoted to Steely Dan’s 1977 recording of “Aja”
...June 22nd, 2023
Bennie and his mother live alone together, and know each other through simple but profound rituals they have created…
...June 20th, 2023
. . My dad…Joseph Maita, Sr. 1917-2000 This photo would have likely been taken in the late 1950’s/early 1960’s . .. . ___ . . “Good fathers not only tell us how to live, they show us.” -Mark Twain . As we get older, memories become more precious, and we hold them closer to … Continue reading “Remembering and honoring my father”
...June 18th, 2023
The poet Alan Yount and son Arlan write about a live 1964 performance by Duke Ellington and His Orchestra
...June 18th, 2023
In this May, 2023 interview, Shipton and Jerry Jazz Musician contributing writer Bob Hecht talk about Mulligan’s unique contributions to modern jazz.
...June 17th, 2023
The poet recalls an evening when he serendipitously encountered jazz in “The Point” neighborhood of Boston
...June 15th, 2023
All damn day/
talk — talk — talk/
I told him, son/
why not fit those fingers/
down that damn gullet/
and make it a proper/
squawk squawk squawk —/
June 11th, 2023
What if you love music…but you can no longer hear? Ms. Flock’s story contemplates the paralleled loss of the protagonist’s hearing and her husband, where music fits into her life now, and attempts to forge a new relationship being deaf.
...June 8th, 2023
Poets honor jazz as an international music in five atmospheric poems
...June 7th, 2023
A visit to the Normandy American Cemetery at the conclusion of a European vacation leads to a feeling of abundant gratitude
...June 6th, 2023
The poet recalls a live performance he witnessed by the Timeless All Stars
...June 4th, 2023
This busy bee, at the end of a life like clockwork,
a symphony of service to everything but herself—
wings snatched in a world blinded by the way it is—
slowly expiring in the sweet nectar of stillness,
May 31st, 2023
He is best known for writing “(Get Your Kicks On) Route 66” — which Nat Cole made famous in 1946 — but his earliest musical success came with the song “Daddy,” recorded in 1941 by Sammy Kaye and His Orchestra, which was the #1 record for eight weeks. He was also famous for being married to the glamorous singer Julie London. Who is he?
...May 30th, 2023
When the water and sand dance, whence (whence?)/their music? What is that music? What /jazz, what syncopation surfs itself in?
...May 28th, 2023
In this edition, producer Joel Dorn talks with Michael Jarrett about his relationship with the legendary multi-instrumentalist Rahsaan Roland Kirk, in the context of working with him on the 1967 Atlantic album, The Inflated Tear.
...May 23rd, 2023
. . “Guy Ryan,” a short story by Alice Sherman Simpson, was a short-listed entry in our recently concluded 62nd Short Fiction Contest, and is published with the consent of the author. . This story is a chapter from author’s book-in-progress, One For Sorrow. . . ___ . . photo by Lalesh Aldarwish/via Pexels … Continue reading ““Guy Ryan” – a short story by Alice Sherman Simpson”
...May 22nd, 2023
That feeling when everything makes you sad/Nothing you can think of would make you glad/No matter how hard you try to remove yourself/From this blue funk
...May 21st, 2023
The experience of meeting the poet Barbara Gaiardoni and her life partner Andrea Vanacore during my trip to Verona, Italy is shared…
...May 19th, 2023
A call-out for submissions for upcoming poetry collections to be published on Jerry Jazz Musician
...May 19th, 2023
The poet writes a profile of the jazz drummer Elvin Jones, inspired by a photograph by Lee Tanner
...May 18th, 2023
The poets Richard Radcliffe and Svi A. Sesling share their experience of listening to and interacting with to the music of John Coltrane
...May 18th, 2023
Nine poets, nine poems on the leading figure in the development of bebop…
...May 17th, 2023
The poet writes a fantasy about Parker’s time in the California asylum Camarillo…a 15 song playlist accompanies the poem
...May 16th, 2023
In a 2014 Jerry Jazz Musician interview, the late jazz writer and cultural critic Stanley Crouch shares his thoughts on Charlie Parker, a great genius of modern music…
...May 15th, 2023
. . The Sunday Poem is published weekly, and strives to include the poet reading their work. Ms. Baptiste reads her poem at its conclusion. . . ___ . . David Dellepiane, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons . . Jazz Within Me I like Jazz playing within me. ……………….Record that never skips. Since age sixteen, … Continue reading “The Sunday Poem: “Jazz Within Me” by Jerrice Baptiste”
...May 13th, 2023
A short story based on a recollection of the author’s mother from a night many years ago, when Gene Krupa’s sticks gave everything back its beat.
...May 13th, 2023
A woman’s fingers explored/piano keys, as though bairns/plowing through snow drifts/in search of hidden life;
...May 11th, 2023
An abstract poetic view of an abstract jazz recording…
...May 10th, 2023
A remembrance of incidents in the Bronx, Harlem and at Bop City…
...May 9th, 2023
Two completely different experiences in Vienna jazz clubs demonstrates how impresarios of the music, like the musicians themselves, see the music as being “beyond category.”
...May 7th, 2023
The poet describes the clear, crisp sound of listening to jazz music on vinyl
...May 7th, 2023
Michael Dregni talks about the life of the acknowledged jazz master, Django Reinhardt – and the extraordinary times and circumstances in which he lived.
...May 6th, 2023
Poet musings on Ellington — and big band music, by the poets Claire Andreani, Russell duPont, Laurinda Lind and Terrance Underwood
...May 4th, 2023
An account of two jazz club experiences during a recent trip to Prague
...May 3rd, 2023
The poet remember jazz pianist Horace Tapscott
...May 2nd, 2023
A “jazz detective” uncovers a murder via a riddle involving a photo of Dizzy Gillespie
...May 1st, 2023
The poet recalls an encounter with Carmen McRae at a Hollywood shoe store
...April 30th, 2023
The poets share their love of jazz through personal narratives, and memories of live performances
...April 28th, 2023
A poem and an essay devoted to the legendary jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery
...April 27th, 2023
The introduction to the book on jazz legend Chick Webb is published in its entirety
...April 25th, 2023
. . “The Occasional Girl,” a short story by Mark Bruce, was a short-listed entry in our recently concluded 62nd Short Fiction Contest, and is published with the consent of the author. . . ___ . . Photo: Kubat Sydykov / World Bank/CC By-NC-ND-2.0 . The Occasional Girl by Mark Bruce . … Continue reading ““The Occasional Girl” – a short story by Mark Bruce”
...April 24th, 2023
The poet writes about the depth of the trumpeter’s playing, and the connections to many of the great trumpeters before him
...April 23rd, 2023
. . The chalkboard in my kitchen . . ___ . . …..I live a mostly interior life. The work of editing and publishing Jerry Jazz Musician is done within my interior because it involves lots of reading, researching, listening, observing and communicating. (All stuff I love, by the way). This work is physically … Continue reading “A Letter From the Publisher…My pursuit of the exterior“
...April 22nd, 2023
Several poems devoted to the pianist Ahmad Jamal, who died on April 16, 2023 at the age of 92.
...April 21st, 2023
In five poems, the poet writes of the music and complexity of trumpeter Chet Baker
...April 20th, 2023
Contrafacts, as such reworkings are called, are the product of writing a new melodic line over an existing set of chord changes, thereby disguising or sometimes completely obscuring the identity of the original piece.
...April 19th, 2023
The poet writes about the significance of Miles Davis’s “Kind of Blue”, and why it is the “it” jazz recording…
...April 18th, 2023
The poet describes the impact of pianist Ahmad Jamal on a cherished evening, and beyond
...April 17th, 2023
The poet reflects on loss, fate, remembrance, and hopefulness
...April 16th, 2023
This is the 14th extensive collection of jazz poetry published on Jerry Jazz Musician since the fall of 2019, when the concept was initiated. Like all previous volumes, the beauty of this edition is not solely evident in the general excellence of the published works; it also rests in the hearts of the individuals from diverse backgrounds who possess a mutual desire to reveal their life experiences and interactions with the music, its character, and its culture.
...April 13th, 2023
. . “Modus Dualis,” by Martel Chapman . . Riff ‘n’ Tiff There was no time signature to save Louis Armstrong from the shivery brine. Monk volunteered to heave his piano overboard to give the lifeboat more zest but it wouldn’t budge or stay in tune for that matter. Moisture had initiated a rift between … Continue reading ““Riff ‘n’ Tiff” – humor by Dig Wayne”
...April 12th, 2023
Although he was an accomplished bandleader whose 1932 – 1936 band became the nucleus of the first Woody Herman Orchestra, his most important contribution to music is as a songwriter, whose work includes “It Had to Be You,” “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” and “There is No Greater Love.” Who is he?
...April 11th, 2023
A nurse is on the verge of selling everything before heading to WWI France, where a woman she is in love with awaits her arrival, forcing her to come to terms with what that means.
...April 10th, 2023
The poet recalls her early-life friendship with the pianist/composer Dave Frishberg
...April 9th, 2023
The poet writes on how a musician putting their heart into their playing is a key to a great solo
...April 7th, 2023
The poet recalls Miles Davis’ depth of character and musicianship during a particularly complex era of his career
...April 6th, 2023
An impeccably researched biography of an influential figure in American music, the goal of which is “to draw attention away from the circumstances surrounding Ayler’s death and bring it sharply back to the legacy he left behind.”
...April 5th, 2023
The daughter of Reverend Ralph Abernathy talks about her life as a child of the civil rights movement, and to remember the two visionaries who changed the course of American history
...April 4th, 2023
The poet writes about the impact Jimi Hendrix’s performance of “Star Spangled Banner” had on America
...April 3rd, 2023
This narrative poem is informed by quotes and stories in What Happened, Miss Simone? the 2015 Netflix biographical documentary about the singer/artist’s life and art
...April 2nd, 2023
News of a previously unreleased set of studio performances recorded in Holland in 1979 by legendary trumpeter Chet Baker
...March 31st, 2023
A tale of two Michael Cohens — one is Trump’s former “fixer,” the other is an important voice in LGBTQ history
...March 29th, 2023
Thoughts of sadness and hope in the wake of the March 27, 2023 school shooting in Nashville
...March 28th, 2023
In a 2000 interview, Ean Wood, author of The Josephine Baker Story, discusses the entertainer’s groundbreaking, extraordinary life
...March 28th, 2023
A young Parisian girl comes of age during the Nazi Occupation, a time when social and political upheaval create drastic consequences for her youthful naïveté.
...March 27th, 2023
The poet profiles the larger-than-life figure of the legendary jazz bassist Charles Mingus
...March 26th, 2023
The poet writes about the changing sound of jazz in the 1970s through the work of Wayne Shorter
...March 24th, 2023
Bessie Smith biographer Chris Albertson talks about the life of “The Empress of the Blues,” one of popular music’s most important figures during the 1920’s and 1930’s
...March 23rd, 2023
The poets Amy Barone and Mark Fogarty share personal thoughts and memories of the bassist Jaco Pastorius
...March 21st, 2023
An hour-long playlist of recordings by legendary jazz musicians, inspired by the outset of spring
...March 20th, 2023
The poet writes of youthful memories conjured up from listening to Chick Corea and Return to Forever’s 1973 album, “Light as a Feather.”
...March 19th, 2023
In an interview originally published on Jerry Jazz Musician in 2004, Emily Yellin, author of Our Mother’s War: American Women at Home and at the Front During World War II, talks about the historic contributions women made toward the war effort
...March 17th, 2023
Poetic narratives by six women experiencing the blues.
...March 16th, 2023
This saxophonist — described by Art Blakey as knowing more about the saxophone (technically) than anyone, including Charlie Parker — was a soloist in the bands of Don Redman and Lionel Hampton, was an influence on John Coltrane, and ultimately became a prolific R&B bandleader. Who was he?
...March 14th, 2023
A saxophonist and his teenage daughter – a drummer –bond over their club performance of John Coltrane’s “Mr. P.C,” but it doesn’t come without its parental challenges, and the father’s warm remembrance of her childhood.
...March 13th, 2023
The poet writes about the origins of our personal blues, and how they can affect us…
...March 12th, 2023
In this edition, the poet writes about attending a McCoy Tyner performance (or “ceremony”), and hearing the musician’s one word philosophy of music.
...March 9th, 2023
The author writes about his hometown of Lubbock, Texas, and some of the musicians and events that made up that city’s thriving music scene during the mid-20th century
...March 8th, 2023
The poet writes of a dreamlike, mystical evening experience
...March 7th, 2023
. . In a 2009 interview, James Gavin, author of Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne, discusses the challenging yet inspiring life of one of the 20th century’s most revered entertainers . . ___ . . James Gavin, author of Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne . ___ . . . … Continue reading “A Women’s History Month Profile: Lena Horne”
...March 6th, 2023
The poet honors his friend, the late jazz pianist Janice Scroggins, and reads his poem while Ms. Scroggins accompanies him
...March 5th, 2023
Writers talk about influential life experiences with writing, literary figures who inspired their work, overcoming creative and economic challenges, and where they fit in today’s publishing model.
...March 3rd, 2023
A poem honoring the greatness of the saxophonist/composer Wayne Shorter, who died today at the age of 89
...March 2nd, 2023
The poet reflects on winter, its moon, and the playing of saxophonist Art Pepper
...March 2nd, 2023
Fletcher Henderson biographer Jeffrey Magee discusses the influential bandleader, and the emergence of modern jazz
...February 28th, 2023
The poet is inspired by John Coltrane’s 1961 recording, “Ole”
...February 26th, 2023
The author describes the emotional experience of listening to the music of Nina Simone
...February 24th, 2023
The poet is inspired by the 1956 recording of “St. Thomas,” by Sonny Rollins
...February 23rd, 2023
Billie Holiday scholar and biographer Farah Griffin discusses one of the most gifted jazz artists of all time, and one of the most elusive…
...February 22nd, 2023
In this short listed entry from the 61st Short Fiction Contest, a man’s eating habits alter along with the cycles of his love life.
...February 20th, 2023
The poet suggests better music could have accompanied the final scene in the film “Casablanca”
...February 19th, 2023
Mr. Mott discusses this posthumous anthology of extraordinary, thought-provoking uncollected essays by Stanley Crouch.
...February 17th, 2023
The poet’s humorous look at the importance of musicians showing up, and on time, for their performance!
...February 16th, 2023
Ralph Ellison biographer Arnold Rampersad talks about the complex life of the author of Invisible Man, the celebrated work that focuses on racial and economic issues of mid-20th century America
...February 15th, 2023
A brief history of Rodgers and Hart’s composition “My Funny Valentine,” and a poem by George Held, who reflects on the song
...February 14th, 2023
Rosalinda Kolb’s art is filled with creative energy and spirit that uniquely connects viewers to the soul, inner beauty, and complexity of jazz musicians.
...February 13th, 2023
The poet recalls the impact of Chet Baker’s music on her late, earlier life friend
...February 12th, 2023
In addition to composing the theme to films like Mission Impossible, The Cincinnati Kid, Dirty Harry and Cool Hand Luke, this pianist was Dizzy Gillespie’s musical director from 1960 – 1962. Who is he?
...February 10th, 2023
The poet tells the complex and tragic story of jazz pianist Bud Powell
...February 9th, 2023
In two complete essays from the collection “Victory is Assured,” Crouch takes up two topics he had considerable opinions about – Miles Davis and Billie Holiday.
...February 8th, 2023
Louis Armstrong scholar and biographer Thomas Brothers talks about the artist’s most fertile period, from his arrival as a young man in Chicago in 1922 to join Joe “King” Oliver, through the years of the “Hot Five and Hot Seven” recordings
...February 7th, 2023
A minor regional writer walks into a hometown bar and confronts his past – and present – when he encounters an old classmate
...February 6th, 2023
Meanwhile, digging
the scene
a sultry
walking hip-step
bop that
fell to the
sweetest
moody!
...February 5th, 2023
An exquisite poetry collection that honors the poet’s past in touching, passionate verse inspired by priceless family photographs.
...February 4th, 2023
A sampling of recent submissions from six poets who, until now, have not had their work published on Jerry Jazz Musician
...February 2nd, 2023
In a 2002 Jerry Jazz Musician interview, NPR Weekend Edition host Scott Simon discusses his biography of Jackie Robinson, and the integration of major league baseball
...February 1st, 2023
The preface introduces the reader to Ayler’s influence on jazz, and to the compelling and often misrepresented history of Ayler’s life story.
...January 31st, 2023
first light skims on green wing like sprouts strobing for ray
...January 29th, 2023
A collection in which over 30 poets communicate their appreciation for jazz music in poems no longer than seven lines.
...January 27th, 2023
In this edition, producers Teo Macero, Bob Belden and Michael Cuscuna, and musicians Dave Holland and Joe Zawinul talk with Jarrett about the way Miles Davis’s 1969 album In a Silent Way came together.
...January 26th, 2023
The poet writes of the blues of Billie Holiday…
...January 25th, 2023
A wealthy art dealer discovers that his grandfather purchased art confiscated from Jewish families before and after World War II, and meets an elderly woman who was affected by the grandfather’s actions.
...January 24th, 2023
The poet writes about the complexity of pianist Cecil Taylor’s music, and the liberation he feels from listening to it
...January 22nd, 2023
Though his work as pianist with the Savoy Sultans, Coleman Hawkins, Roy Eldridge and Sonny Stitt/Gene Ammons was important, he will always be most remembered as the pianist in Charlie Parker’s classic 1947 quintet. Who is he?
...January 21st, 2023
The poet writes of how the desire for love can be distilled into one golden wail of a Billy Strayhorn declaration.
...January 20th, 2023
Picasso paints a portrait based on what he sees in his model’s soul, much to the ego-centric subject’s chagrin
...January 18th, 2023
“Blow by Blow” is a portrait of Berkeley, California in the 1970’s, and the fusion jazz that was finding its way onto the scene at that time.
...January 17th, 2023
An 18 song playlist to demonstrate some of the genius and versatility of the Canadian jazz musician Don Thompson
...January 16th, 2023
The poet imagines being a monarch butterfly, inspired to movement by the music of Django Reinhardt
...January 15th, 2023
A bluesman finds that his girlfriend is making him too happy. So he fobs her off on a no-talent rival, with unpredictable results.
...January 13th, 2023
The poet uses the winter snow for inspiration and self-reflection
...January 12th, 2023
The authors of “Designed For Dancing” share examples of Cha Cha Cha record album covers that didn’t quite make the final cut in their book.
...January 10th, 2023
A year-end compilation of jazz albums oft mentioned by a wide range of critics as being the best of 2022
...January 9th, 2023
The poet shares a memory of the jazz pianist Carla Bley
...January 8th, 2023
The author considers John Coltrane’s intensity and tenderness, and how these two qualities intertwine in his improvisations.
...January 6th, 2023
Four poets share their appreciation for jazz in poems seven lines or fewer
...January 5th, 2023
A young man finds solace in his late fathers’ guitar and finds a new way to live through the blues and a life on the road.
...January 3rd, 2023
The poet reveres the power and beauty and historical significance of Black women, and reads his poem
...January 1st, 2023
The poet brings in the new year, with the virtuoso sounds of pianist Art Tatum
...December 30th, 2022
An appeal for contributions to support the ongoing publishing efforts of Jerry Jazz Musician
...December 29th, 2022
Although he was not considered to be a true jazz singer, along with Bing Crosby, this “Romeo of Radio”’s short-lived, early 1930’s career influenced Italian crooners like Perry Como (pictured), as well as Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Herb Jeffries and Billy Eckstine. Who is he?
...December 27th, 2022
Every day should be Kwanzaa, you ask me,
given our shared African heritage,
December 26th, 2022
The poet writes of a flute and London at Christmas time
...December 24th, 2022
The author discusses the iconic tenor saxophonist who is one of the greatest jazz improvisers of all time, a lasting link to the golden age of jazz
...December 23rd, 2022
The poet writes of Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein’s hit song, and offers an 18 song version playlist
...December 21st, 2022
“Footsteps of Spring” was a short-listed entry in the 61st Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest
...December 20th, 2022
.This collection of jazz poetry – the largest yet assembled on Jerry Jazz Musician – demonstrates how poets who are also listeners of jazz music experience and interact with the spontaneous art that arises from jazz improvisation, which often shows up in the soul and rhythm of their poetic language.
...December 16th, 2022
Chuck Sweetman and Patricia Carragon write two very different poems, both inspired by Frank Sinatra
...December 9th, 2022
Information concerning a new way contributing writers can access work published on Jerry Jazz Musician
...December 8th, 2022
Mr. Robbins’ story was a short-listed entry in our recently concluded 61st Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest
...December 7th, 2022
The authors of “Designed For Dancing” share three examples of record album covers that didn’t quite make the final cut in their book.
...December 5th, 2022
The poet writes of a visitor to his listening of Louis Armstrong’s “Struttin’ with Some Barbecue”
...December 4th, 2022
The poet celebrates the sights and sounds of the New Orleans French Quarter
...December 2nd, 2022
In this excerpt, Aidan Levy describes how a 16-year-old Sonny Rollins caught the ear of the 29-year-old Thelonious Monk, a man Rollins looked up to “as a father figure – a guru, really,” whose musical principles “deeply informed his artistic development.”
...December 1st, 2022
Announcing the six writers nominated for the Pushcart Prize v. XLVIII, whose work was published in Jerry Jazz Musician during 2022.
...November 29th, 2022
The poets D.H. Jenkins and Stephen Bett on the jazz guitarist Pat Metheny
...November 28th, 2022
Connecting an old photograph owned since the 1970’s to gratitude for friends, family, artists, creators, website readers and contributors
...November 23rd, 2022
Salsa musicians Tony Martinez and Sal Rodriguez are determined to get paid by Billy Barata, their notoriously dishonest bandleader.
...November 21st, 2022
The fierce resistance…to Revelation! Disordered
listeners. The forest clearing in the thicket… The
Universe expanding on the Theme… The
Future finally right
now?
November 20th, 2022
In the winter of 1981 we were hired to play Downtown—
a performance in Greenwich Village billed “Frank Zappa Presents:
a Musical Tribute to Edgard Varèse.” I sat on stage,
wearing black, tuning my violin, warming up,
looking out at the audience milling around, most of them
covered in tattoos and piercings of every body part
November 14th, 2022
A poem about what’s at stake in the Nov 8 2022 midterm election
...November 8th, 2022
The winner of the the 61st edition of the Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest is a story of reflection on a coming-of-age mentorship, gone awry.
...November 7th, 2022
Producers Joel Dorn and Hal Willner discuss the album Amarcord Nino Rota, a tribute to Federico Fellini’s musical director
...October 31st, 2022
“Fire From Heaven” arises from the poet Douglas Cole listening to John Coltrane’s 1964 album A Love Supreme
...October 24th, 2022
The author writes of his friendship with Ray Charles, and his son’s 2000 interview with him.
...October 21st, 2022
A discussion about the revolutionary, non-conformist poet Claude McKay’s complex early life that culminated in a pioneering role in American letters
...October 12th, 2022
In five separate poems, poets write of Robert Johnson, Beethoven, Ornette Coleman, Duke Fakir and The Band
...October 10th, 2022
According to the All Music Guide to Jazz, this bassist “probably appeared on more records than any other musician in the world,” recording on “everything from Jackie Gleason mood music and polka bands to commercials and Buck Clayton jam sessions.” Who was he?
...October 8th, 2022
Old photos link the narrator to his mother’s love and strength, and thanks her while humming Billie Holiday’s “All the Way”
...October 4th, 2022
The poet honors the late Pharoah Sanders
...September 30th, 2022
Mr. Donnelly’s “The Sweatshop” is a memoir about about his time working in a music accessory sweatshop by day, and slogging it out on the club circuit by night…
...September 29th, 2022
Jazz and poetry…Mingling Yeats, Dylan Thomas and Coleman Hawkins — and communicating a lifelong passion for music
...September 26th, 2022
Brief personal memories about the experience of listening to the saxophonist Pharoah Sanders
...September 25th, 2022
I was there to see The Trio:
Ramsey Lewis, Eldee Young,
Red Holt. The darkened space
lived up to its name. It felt edgy,
sophisticated, high voltage.
September 21st, 2022
A review of Stephon Alexander’s book, “The Jazz of Physics: The Secret Link Between Music and the Structure of the Universe”
...September 20th, 2022
Cool, cool, ineffably cool,
his trumpet grieves with
a restraint barely able to be
embraced by listeners, his music
is pain on ice, whiskey frozen
September 13th, 2022
As if the stars contained wood ticks
on fire. As if there were forests within
forests. Trees within stones. Stones
folded over into water.
The most secret nocturnal animals
walk around during the day, unseen.
September 11th, 2022
A Spotify playlist featuring standard tunes from the Great American Songbook as performed by hard bop musicians.
...September 8th, 2022
My friend and I are talking indignant politics
as we head across the Mid-Hudson bridge,
steel sky above, chilly water below,
when a cloud of birds twists, spins above us.
They seek every bare branch, fill them
as if they were summer leaves, then scatter
again like confetti in wind. No one is in charge,
yet balance animates all.
September 5th, 2022
It’s
sittin’ in the corner knowing what others don’t get and smile-noddin’ over scotch and coda after a day bounced you about like Buddy’s snare and high hat clamped you down to sweet Georgia brown dirt in the Summertime wailed by Sidney Bechet
August 31st, 2022
A former contemporary dancer struggles to find her place in both the world and her own body after leaving her discipline behind for a career in software development.
...August 29th, 2022
Forgotten poems fly here and there
like birds that circle aimlessly
high in the thin and chilly air
till, willy-nilly, they come down
August 28th, 2022
Originally a saxophonist, this drummer played on Coleman Hawkins’ classic “The Man I Love” sessions of late 1943, and played with Stan Kenton for several years before leading his own band, starting in 1953. Who was he?
...August 26th, 2022
“The Ghost Note” arises from the poet listening to “From Paris With Love” from Melody Gardot’s 2020 album Sunset in the Blue
...August 23rd, 2022
The authors discuss how dance records of mid-century were a primary resource for learning the steps, and how the convergence of dancing and music – and album cover art – impacted American identity.
...August 20th, 2022
Through your horn’s dark pieties,
the glamor of its golden mouth, a youth
lost to the call and response of too many needle-nights,
too many dumps, too many dives,
you play a mudwater music, slow-flowing under an old iron bridge,
so sad, so far gone, it wings away never to come back.
August 18th, 2022
A woman stands up for her ex-boyfriend when her new lover disparages music by Art Tatum, a favorite artist of his.
...August 16th, 2022
A broad collection of jazz poetry authored by an impressive assemblage of regular contributors and established poets new to this publication – all of whom open their imagination and hearts to the abundant creative experience they derive from this art.
...August 14th, 2022
I rise, change the sheets on the bed
that used to be in Mother’s basement.
I step into her body or she into mine,
attempt to line the blanket and spread
evenly, to tuck in the ends the “military”
square-corner-way and then, I remember
Mother doing chores to jazz, blues
August 12th, 2022
Producers Teo Macero and Bob Belden, and bassist Dave Holland talk about working with Miles Davis on his groundbreaking 1969 recording, Bitches Brew
...August 10th, 2022
Was it something she said? about
the famous Charlie Parker drawers
He — himself a drawer —
illustrator, declaimer of conclusions —
commenced to rapping
about terrorists
on LA flight
demanding underwear
August 8th, 2022
The poet’s tender remembrance of his father’s passion for the clarinet
...August 5th, 2022
My mother used to take me here. It’s different in the dark; the metal frames lurk like gallows and the railings remind me of prison bars. I don’t remember her pushing me in the bucket seat, but I believe she did. I do remember the big girls’ swing: hours and hours we spent. She took the seat beside me; we leant and pulled together, stretched pointed toes, forwards and backwards, rising and falling, higher and higher, hands gripped on chains and our bottoms lifting as we peaked. I pick at the paint on a rusted spear and nick my finger. Blood trickles onto my palm. I lick it off and the taste is metallic, as if my flesh is made from city. Perhaps the city took over, where my mother left off.
...August 4th, 2022
Through the art of meditation,
I become transfixed—transported
to the days of Baldwin & Joplin,
the Black Renaissance of Harlem— the resurrection
of a muse, Langston Hughes,
...August 2nd, 2022
Honoring the passing of a great American athlete, and citizen.
...August 1st, 2022
Forty-two versions of George Gershwin’s “Summertime” in much of its glory for your listening pleasure, and in the heat of this moment.
...July 31st, 2022
A conversation about race with the author of “N: My Encounter with Racism and the Forbidden Word in an American Classic”
...July 30th, 2022
bass
piano
blues
low
down
blues
and higher now
12 bar blues
right now
cliché
like
“a little bit a soda”
but not.
July 27th, 2022
The editor/publisher of Jerry Jazz Musician reflects on a major life change, and what lies ahead
...July 25th, 2022
Give the man a toothpick,
he is dying!
Perhaps his teeth need cleaning,
Sweet starchy deposits of his life trapped
and pleading for rescue
from the dying body
July 18th, 2022
In today’s world of stand-up comedy, women are distinguished performers whose acts fill auditoriums and provoke their stardom in blockbuster movies. But before the likes of Amy Schumer, Tiffany Haddish, and Ali Wong, it took courageous and revolutionary women of mid-20th century America who were willing to confront extreme cultural barriers and participate in a corner of the entertainment world previously inhabited by men only. Shawn Levy’s In On the Joke: The Original Queens of Stand-up Comedy consist of concise biographies of comedians like Moms Mabley, Phyllis Diller, Elaine May and Joan Rivers who successfully broke into the boys club of stand-up comedy, offering new ideas of womanhood along the way.
...July 13th, 2022
He’s a-stagger the patrilineous
hillside grove wonder tunnels
street black ribbons going bower-deep
with sunlight glitter punctuations
feeling the great payoff on the way
July 11th, 2022
When I hear Sketches of Spain or Kind of Blue – Miles Davis masterpieces from his earlier career – I am always calmed, thrilled by the ways that music can take over every portion of a person from head to toe, from inside to outside, from innermost mind to outermost layer of skin.
...July 6th, 2022
The authors describe the circumstances surrounding the creation of an extended version of Duke Ellington’s little-known 1953 composition “Janet”
...June 30th, 2022
In this excerpt, the authors write about some influential midcentury Latin-themed dance albums.
...June 22nd, 2022
The Club is almost ready to open.
It’s clean, the bar stocked, piano
polished and the crowd is lined
up down the street.
June 19th, 2022
Throughout the day, the sky has bled
boatloads of water to drown the streets,
a level of grief I have not known
since the day the e-mail arrived
with the heading, “Landing gear down,”
a note from a brother informing me
of my father’s passing in Oregon
June 19th, 2022
The poet writes about the 1956 collaboration of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong
...June 17th, 2022
In the book’s prologue, published here in its entirety, the author writes about some of “The Real Ambassador’s” challenges getting to the stage.
...June 16th, 2022
The poet reflects on a childhood of the 1960s
...June 12th, 2022
In this edition, the jazz photographer Veryl Oakland’s photographs and stories feature John McLaughlin and Carlos Santana
...June 10th, 2022
In this edition, Jeff Gold writes about two Harlem night spots – The Apollo Theater and Club Baby Grand – and shares photographs and memorabilia from his collection.
...June 6th, 2022
The poet recalls a special night on the town, listening to Les Paul
...June 4th, 2022
When in spring/Miles’s horn awakens/The nodding giant of the streets…
...June 2nd, 2022
The poet reveres the jazz drummer and musical mentor to many, Art Blakey
...May 31st, 2022
The poem “Convergence” rises from listening to the 1960 album, “Stan Getz Quartet at Large”
...May 28th, 2022
John Kendall Hawkins reviews the book N: My Encounter with Racism and the Forbidden Word in an American Classic by James Henry Harris
...May 24th, 2022
This trumpeter played on almost all of Dinah Washington’s recordings, even if he had to do so under the pseudonym of “Dobbie Hicks.” Who is he?
...May 22nd, 2022
The wind sandpapered John’s cheeks the instant he opened the swing door. By the time he’d stepped down from Bill’s Billiards into the street he was shivering.
He hadn’t been good on stage: every second tune had reminded him of Riley, the turd.
There was no traffic and even the pizza place had closed, and he missed its earlier smells of warm mozzarella and meat. The chill air did, however, carry the hint of something, a snatch of melody from a passing car or a distant open window, and he listened, seeking its source.
...May 19th, 2022
The poet writes of the collaboration of Ellington, Roach and Mingus on the 1962 album “Money Jungle”
...May 13th, 2022
A book excerpt focusing on the life of pioneering comedienne Moms Mabley
...May 10th, 2022
A story of a young man working in a music store who is asked to record the ramblings of a deranged customer. He agrees, but comes to regret his decision.
...May 2nd, 2022
Mamacita with round brown hips roll and sway sway and roll slow that stroll
...April 27th, 2022
The author recalls an eventful evening listening to a jazz singer at New York’s McAlpin Hotel in the early 1970s
...April 12th, 2022
Over 60 poets from all over the world celebrate their love of jazz…in poetry.
...April 7th, 2022
From a dark corner, night crawls across a wood-board floor
warped from a life beneath boots and spilled beer.
Her music is a moan, a collection of sorrows,
lost love, broken hearts, and illegal dreams.
April 7th, 2022
A story about two American musicians in Paris for the summer–both of whom are on the brink of a breakdown.
...April 4th, 2022
Inspired by the essays collected in the jazz and cultural critic Nat Hentoff’s 2010 book At the Jazz Band Ball: Sixty Years on the Jazz Scene, in this series of poems Sean Howard uncovers new relationships and resonances in the author’s writing – reusing, recycling, and remixing text from the book as poetry – while allowing him the opportunity to pay a personal tribute to a writer he reveres.
...March 29th, 2022
The earth has got a fever of 103, and I’ve
found Langston Hughes languishing
on the sidewalks of NYC.
Piano keys were dancing in the wind;
Thelonious Monk was bluer than blue,
his slouch hat rolling to Timbuktu.
March 24th, 2022
. . “Opus One,” a story by Amadea Tanner, was a short-listed entry in our recently concluded 59th Short Fiction Contest, and is published with the consent of the author . . ___ . . photo by Gordon Parks/Library of Congress . Opus One By Amadea Tanner . …..The Dempsey Quintet pulsed eight to … Continue reading ““Opus One” — a short story by Amadea Tanner”
...March 22nd, 2022
The two versions of the 1965 album The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra (Vol. 1) were part of the inspiration for Meisha Synnott’s enlightening artistic exploration
...March 20th, 2022
a trumpet cries over orchestral waves
trumpet mourns like a wounded beast
trumpet demands attention
orchestra swells trumpet riding its waves
silence then trumpet reappears softly in distance
March 17th, 2022
Drummer Joe La Barbera talks about his book, and the significance of his experience working in Bill Evans’ last trio
...March 14th, 2022
We hear it from the street corner
as someone’s fingers begin to
pray the tune on the alto sax.
…..Let our rejoicing rise
…..High as the listening skies…
March 10th, 2022
Gail’s days on the bandstand are behind her now, London nights swapped for the life of a farmer’s wife back in Devon. But if an intriguing young man with a love of Billy Strayhorn wants sax lessons, who is she to deny him the chance to experience what she has given up?
...March 7th, 2022
In a 2004 interview, A’Lelia Bundles, the great-great granddaughter of Madam C.J. Walker, discusses the daughter of former slaves who became one of the 20th Century’s most successful, self-made female entrepreneurs.
...March 6th, 2022
Gene Hyde’s poem connects nature and the moon to the music of John Coltrane
...March 1st, 2022
Sam Cooke’s biographer Peter Guralnick in a wide-ranging conversation about the singer’s epic American life, cut short at the age of 33
...February 28th, 2022
Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Quincy Jones and Toots Thielemans are featured in this edition of photographs and stories from Veryl Oakland’s book
...February 26th, 2022
In a 2014 Jerry Jazz Musician interview, the late jazz writer and cultural critic Stanley Crouch shares his thoughts on Charlie Parker, the great genius of modern music…
.
...February 24th, 2022
Now when I start telling you about John Jones Sr., I don’t want you to go and get the wrong idea on me. And I don’t want anyone else to hear about it because I’ll deny it sure as I blow hella on this old harp. There are things that he knows about me that only your Pop can know. For that I got to love him. Even though times are when he gives it to me good.
...February 22nd, 2022
In this edition, producer Bob Thiele talks with Michael Jarrett, author of Pressed For All Time: Producing the Great Jazz Albums from Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday to Miles Davis and Diana Krall about working with John Coltrane on his classic 1964 recording A Love Supreme
...February 19th, 2022
do you hear the wind?
see that scarlet leaf
dance on concrete?
I am that wind
I am that leaf
I am that dance
February 17th, 2022
We’re going through Security at Dublin airport, headed to Philadelphia, thinking about what’s ahead of us. There’s something sinister about lines of people queuing up to be processed. Nobody likes it. Belt, jacket, phone, laptop, wallet. Do they need my shoes? Everyone feels displaced, dehumanized somehow.
...February 10th, 2022
They stretch octaves
across the sheet music
and the decades
of “Charleston Rag”
fingers like twisted bent tree trunks–
remembered rivers of antiquity
flowing through his veins–
February 8th, 2022
Gordon sat in the corner of the Red Sky Café and stared at his fingers as they slid across the fretboard of his Fender Stratocaster. They seemed disconnected from the rest of his body but hardwired to his brain. When he thought blue, they moved to his favorite notes. When he thought joy, a new series of chords and major scales opened up. He thought, played, listened, and watched.
...February 7th, 2022
In a November 16, 2020 interview with Jerry Jazz Musician, Ricky Riccardi, author of Heart Full of Rhythm: The Big Band Years of Louis Armstrong, discusses his vital book and Armstrong’s enormous and underappreciated achievements during the era he led his big band.
...February 6th, 2022
Prior to Jack Teagarden, this trombonist — who gained a strong reputation playing with the Original Memphis Five and Red Nichols — was the most advanced in jazz. He and his band backed Sophie Tucker on her 1924 recording of “Red Hot Mama,” and he eventually went on to play with Paul Whiteman, Benny Goodman and Eddie Condon. Who was he?
...February 4th, 2022
Tonight, I am alone,
lost in a dream,
and the dulcet tones
of Grappelli’s violin
glide lazily across
the twilight of my mind,
February 1st, 2022
In an excerpt from his book Soundtrack to a Movement: African American Islam, Jazz, and Black Internationalism, Richard Brent Turner writes about Max Roach and his wife, the singer Abbey Lincoln, and the contributions they made to social justice, constructed in the intersecting worlds of African American Islam and jazz.
...January 28th, 2022
Remember when
the music saved
your life?
It’s different now.
Snow chills and hope,
like the rhythm section,
is subdued.
January 24th, 2022
In this edition, Gold writes about two Harlem jazz clubs – Connie’s Inn and Smalls’ Paradise – and shares photographs and memorabilia from his collection.
...January 23rd, 2022
Dressed in a tight-fitting black suit, Rosario Cino, flanked by his son Mario and his nephew Charlie, also in black suits, exited the cool of All Souls Church and stepped into a rank wall of unseasonably warm and humid air. They and a handful of friends and relatives had just sat through the funeral of Guido Tutolo, a former bookie, loan shark, and paisan—and last of the old gang, as Rosario had said repeatedly to his son and nephew, neither of whom seemed torn up about the death, their connection to Guido limited, their youthfulness of course looking forward.
...January 18th, 2022
The book’s co-author in conversation about the little-known life story of the pioneering Ms. Dodgion, who defied the odds to become a world-class jazz drummer in a world – and on an instrument – dominated by men.
...December 11th, 2021
“What I have to say now stays between us.”
The Chairman’s face flushed a little. I sensed one of his rants was coming, and I was not disappointed:
“In my opinion, Jakub Hoch is a pseudo-liberal loudmouth of minimal talent who has no place as Musical Director of this orchestra.”
...November 23rd, 2021
I had a little radio up on top of the refrigerator, and I turned it on as the sunlight went and the world filled up with darkness. I listened to a jazz station and smoked a cigarette and blew the smoke out the window.
...November 18th, 2021
Bob Hecht, a frequent contributor to Jerry Jazz Musician, writes about a current fascination – the compositions of Wayne Shorter, and his contributions to the Miles Davis groups he played in during his time with the trumpeter, 1964 – 1970. Bob has assembled a 20 song Spotify playlist featuring many of the recordings…
...November 16th, 2021
the
horns
blow
melodies
seduce
hairs
on the
back
of
necks
November 14th, 2021
This lifelong friend of Duke Ellington co-wrote “Sophisticated Lady,” played clarinet, violin, baritone and alto saxophone during his first stint in Ellington’s band (prior to leaving in 1928), and, following time in a band that also included Fats Waller and Chu Berry, returned to Duke’s orchestra, where he would play until 1946. Who was he?
...November 12th, 2021
Fifty years ago today, November 10, 1971, the pianist Keith Jarrett recorded Facing You, his now historic debut album for the nascent ECM Records.
...November 10th, 2021
You Supremes in your long black robes
are at it again, sitting as though on Olympus, while we
soulfully wait to hear if you’re in tune with our needs.
We know You Can’t Hurry Love, but
we’re anxious to see your next decree.
...November 9th, 2021
Three times a year, we award a writer who submits, in our opinion, the best original, previously unpublished work. Emily Jon Tobias of Dana Point, California is the winner of the 58th Jerry Jazz Musician New Short Fiction Award. In “Mouth Organ,” Monk is a young musician who comes of age within his family domain, first by falling in love with girlfriend Gloria, and then having to face an unreconciled past with his mother, Bunny.
...November 8th, 2021
News concerning the renowned activist and poet Nikki Giovvani curating the tenor saxophonist Javon Jackson’s upcoming album of gospel hymns and spirituals.
...November 6th, 2021
Julie London purrs.
Smooth, sultry, classy, sexy.
Temperatures rise.
November 5th, 2021
A remembrance (and photographs) of Pat Martino is excerpted from the photographer Veryl Oakland’s book Jazz in Available Light, in which he writes about the 1976 photo session at San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts.
...November 4th, 2021
Along with the satisfaction of publishing countless outstanding poems over the years comes my delight in getting to know many of the poets responsible for them. From this experience an active community of writers has taken shape, most of whom share a common vision of communicating their love and appreciation for jazz music and the historic artists they revere. One such poet is Ms. Aurora M. Lewis of Morena Valley, California, whose new book, Jazz Poems: Reflections on a Broken Heart has just been published.
...November 3rd, 2021
Wind sweeps through screen into living room;
papers dance across desk and floor;
an old woman’s hair floats,
a tattered flag of silver and gray;
November 2nd, 2021
On my walks alone lately I fantasize
that I’ll come across a woman my age
give or take a few years.
She’ll be listening to Miles, or Monk,
or Horace Silver, and reading
one of my poetry books.
October 29th, 2021
In this chapter titled “Mingus,” Ms. Dodgion describes her experiences singing in late-1940s jam sessions and night club performances with the legendary bassist Charles Mingus.
...October 26th, 2021
Jeff Gold’s book Sittin’ In: Jazz Clubs of the 1940s and 1950s is a visual history of many of the country’s most influential night clubs and ballrooms during jazz music’s golden era. Jerry Jazz Musician occasionally publishes a noteworthy excerpt from the book. In this edition, Gold writes about four Harlem jazz clubs – the Celebrity Club, Club Baron, Palm Cafe, and Club Sudan – and shares photographs and memorabilia from his collection.
...October 20th, 2021
if i could
i’d ride the trains
again
just to make it all go
away
like that phone call i
got that evening
from sis
or that last conversation
we had
October 15th, 2021
The jazz DJ you listened to each morning
Is broadcasting from another sphere.
Perhaps you and Phil are parsing
Charlie Parker together.
His nasal voiced juicy lisp that spilled
details of Parker, Lester Young, and Coltrane,
no longer flies the airwaves in Birdflight.
October 12th, 2021
. . photo by William Gottlieb/Library of Congress Mary Lou Williams, c. 1938 . . ___ . . Opus for Mary Lou By John Bliss . …..“Baloney Bliss,” Mary Lou Williams said, lacing into my father. …..Mary Lou was Black and brought a spiritual magic into my white world. Her nose was petite like an … Continue reading ““Opus For Mary Lou,” a true jazz story by John Bliss”
...October 11th, 2021
Having invented jazz, Buddy Bolden
Tried to imagine what else he’d invent,
Maybe the light bulb or dry cereal,
A cure for syphilis or dementia
Praecox, something he was familiar
With, but he stuck with jazz, American
And quintessential as coffee with milk
...October 3rd, 2021
Maebelle had been surprised when, in 1934, a scout for the American Record Corporation invited her to come and sing at the General Store, “for our field recordings.”
“Field recordings?” she’d joked. “They wanna hear the Boll Weevil, close up?” She was recalling the Charley Patton song.
...September 29th, 2021
Ferlinghetti at 101 took the cosmic bus home
this week. A life abundant, blessed with
art, poetry, creativity, and a lot of fun.
RingMaster for the poetry revolution,
Mr. San Francisco Big Daddy!
City Lights! The Mecca of hip!
September 28th, 2021
Often described as one of the “great jokesters in jazz,” this trumpeter became a popular figure on the west coast who, in addition to playing with artists like Stan Kenton, Benny Goodman, Jimmy Giuffre and Art Pepper, also starred in a short-lived TV series called Run Buddy Run. Who is he?
Don Ellis
Ruby Braff
Shorty Rogers
Red Rodney
Jack Sheldon
Al Hirt
...September 24th, 2021
Dear Miss Ella, song supreme,
Improvisations sovereign –
I, swayed and moved by.
She, both modest, shy
Yet spoke of love (and what’s above),
Deserving place in poetry
Centered around her artistry –
The art of spontaneity;
A musicality called jazz!
September 21st, 2021
A 2003 interview with jazz impresario George Wein, the founder of the Newport Jazz Festival who died last week at the age of 95
...September 20th, 2021
It’s never easy to say goodbye, especially when you didn’t get there in time. Dad was hours away from me and I didn’t have a car and it was the middle of the night when I got word. Words. Sung off-key.
...September 18th, 2021
a strange caribbean woman
kneeled down
very close to me,
in my hospital recovery bed.
she seemed very animated
also even sensory
she gradually came closer
as she put her face next to mine.
September 16th, 2021
Contributing writer Bob Hecht’s 40-song playlist features 20 compositions by Ornette Coleman that alternates a cover version of an Ornette composition – often by a pianist or other harmonically-based instrument – followed by Ornette’s original version. It provides a nice perspective on the beauty of his music, even for those who may not particularly be fans.
...September 15th, 2021
Dim dusk breaks down
the receding light and one after another
strands of the passing hour unravel
leaving behind an existence beyond time
that opens the doors to another world:
It’s late in the evening in a foreign metropolis
September 10th, 2021
High overhead (turned turned and turned
again) a bird defines wind currents.
Branches crackle wildly gesticulate
a confusion of gusts.
With grace and ease a student
navigates school rapids until
September 5th, 2021
. . “Catbelly Heat On My Knees,” a story by Ewing Eugene Baldwin, was a short-listed entry in our recently concluded 57th Short Fiction Contest. It is published with the permission of the author. . . photo via hippopx/CC0 1.0 Universal . Catbelly Heat on My Knees by Ewing Eugene Baldwin . ___ . … Continue reading ““Catbelly Heat on My Knees” — a story by Ewing Eugene Baldwin”
...September 3rd, 2021
Missa brevis —a little requiem. At most I know
perhaps forty Latin words and have already used up
four of them. Maybe not too bad for a Jew boy.
And besides, editors of poetry are always carping:
Keep it short.
August 23rd, 2021
One of the best things about my life is that in the course of it I had the chance to see the great Blind Lemon Jefferson on eleven different occasions. This was especially gratifying because for me he was the finest blues singer who ever lived, even better than Robert Johnson or Charlie Patton or Bessie Smith.
...August 21st, 2021
“It’s not exclusive, but inclusive, which is the whole spirit of jazz.”
-Herbie Hancock
.
And…this spirit is not limited to the musicians, because celebrating jazz is rich in creative opportunity for writers and visual artists as well. The 54 poets who contribute to this poetry collection are living proof of that.
As always, thanks to the poets, and I hope you enjoy…
Joe
...August 19th, 2021
In this edition, “Keeping Jazz Alive in the Desert,” Mr. Oakland’s photographs and stories focus on Monk Montgomery’s efforts to bring jazz to Las Vegas, and the notable jazz musicians who played in that city
...August 12th, 2021
Almost sixty years
have passed yet
it could be today
she sings murder
oppression
protest in the streets
school children
sitting in jail
August 9th, 2021
water
cold
pleating
over
against
rock
planted
August 5th, 2021
My father played baseball
and was a hot prospect,
so the story goes,
pursued by the Braves
until the accident that left him
with eyes that saw two of everything –
“Tough to tell which ball to swing at,” he’d say.
July 31st, 2021
This saxophonist – best known for his Blue Note soul-jams of the 1960s – replaced John Coltrane in Earl Bostic’s early R&B/jazz band, played in Max Roach’s band after his time in the military, and was married to the organist Shirley Scott. Who is he?
.
Jimmy Scott
Benny Golson
Tom Scott
Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis
Eddie Harris
James Moody
Lou Donaldson
Stanley Turrentine
...July 28th, 2021
“Eerie Moan” is a flash improv off the haunting 1933 Duke Ellington track…
...July 26th, 2021
Blossom Dearie sings Mad About The Boy.
Her fingers quicken over black & white bars.
A young man & woman fall in love during summer.
Moon climbs up the mountain, lips quiver
during their first kiss under stars.
...July 24th, 2021
“Space for Nothing” a story by Pamela Nocerino, was a short-listed entry in our recently concluded 57th Short Fiction Contest.
...July 21st, 2021
In this edition, Gold writes about Harlem’s Ubangi Club, and shares photographs and memorabilia from his collection.
...July 17th, 2021
My mouth hungry
ravenous lips slathered
with Radiant Ruby gloss
I dine on the very edges
of the celestial universe.
Ingest illumination
until my voice box
awakens antiquities,
beguiling even the moon.
July 15th, 2021
Hawkins examines the relationship between the characters portrayed in the 2020 film Shirley, and the missed opportunity to include Ralph Ellison in the story
...July 13th, 2021
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
July 11th, 2021
Information about two newly published books by the poet Michael L. Newell
...July 9th, 2021
Taking Forster’s bucket
into the unknown
like Keith Jarrett
in Bremen sailing
into pianissimo
July 8th, 2021
In the closing weeks of 1949, the consensus of New York’s cognoscenti was unanimous: the American debut of London’s Sadler’s Wells Ballet was the triumph of the post-war era. The praise and attention lavished upon the visiting artists was unrelenting; the Yanks’ sudden passion for tutus, Tchaikovsky, and entrechat quatres bordered on obsession. And yet, three weeks into their engagement, with four performances at The Met remaining, their company’s esteemed music director and conductor Constant Lambert was bored to tears.
...July 6th, 2021
Stella sticks her toes in the grass
and she don’t know the impact—
the moonlight bending on the bowing blades of grass
casting long shadows like tracks
I follow her, relaxed.
July 3rd, 2021
This pianist was Billie Holiday’s regular accompanist during her last two years (1957 – 1959), and also played in the Eric Dolphy-Booker Little Quintet that recorded extensively at New York’s Five Spot in 1961. Who is he?
Mal Waldron
Al Haig
Duke Jordan
Hampton Hawes
Joe Albany
George Wallington
...July 1st, 2021
On my birthday in 1917, Jazz
was first recorded.
The time of Jelly Roll Morton was at
hand—the king of Blues,
June 29th, 2021
In this edition, producer Creed Taylor recalls working with the guitarist Wes Montgomery on his 1965 Verve album Goin’ Out of My Head
...June 27th, 2021
He hovers,
flesh and presence,
round the story of midnight jazz….
a single note hangs, suspended
in a cigarette-whiskey haze
as ears perk open, anticipate
the pleasure of surprise
June 24th, 2021
Prague, Christmas Eve, 1994. Midwinter. Snow. Anna and I have a room in the Grand Hotel Europa, which is not grand in the least but run-down and cramped, still bearing the stamp of its Warsaw Pact years. The floral wallpaper is worn and the carpet threadbare; the room is mostly taken up with the big double bed.
...June 22nd, 2021
. . Joseph Maita, Sr. c. 1935 . ___ . …..My father Joseph Maita (Sr.) was affable, charismatic, and loving – gifted as a musician and, ultimately, a successful business owner. He was also extraordinarily complex and challenged by having to make choices so many young parents find themselves confronting – following … Continue reading “True Jazz Stories: Musical Adventures of Joe Maita, Sr.”
...June 20th, 2021
I’ll first catch “Song for My Father”
as Steely Dan churning in a tape deck between
the thin walls of this two-room cabin, biting
what I’ll later come to dig–Horace Silver’s opening bass notes,
June 19th, 2021
…..The Grenada-born trumpeter Arthur Briggs was among the first to introduce and popularize jazz music, and did so from Europe, where he permanently settled after arriving from Harlem in 1919, and where he eventually grew to be considered “the Louis Armstrong of Paris.” Little-known in America, his musical biography features his befriending and performing with the likes of Sidney Bechet (who Briggs was with when he bought his first soprano saxophone), Josephine Baker, Coleman Hawkins, and Django Reinhardt.
...June 16th, 2021
Spring rains watercolor the earth leaf, daffodil, violet,
then soften to a blue-gray mist,
and clear. Day’s begun transitioning, sky-bright blue to
lapis lazuli. Moon dreams in the north.
June 14th, 2021
A photograph of Jimmie Lunceford and my dad in Sacramento, California; c. 1937
...June 11th, 2021
Brent didn’t really go to Japan as a tourist. He went to Japan as a record hunter. The “Land of the Rising Sun” was known to house some of the best record stores for free jazz and that, my friends, was more important than any shrine, temple or giant Buddha statue.
...June 8th, 2021
a Saturday night
Blue Note
jam session
chaotic improvisation
settling into discordant conjunction
June 4th, 2021
In this edition, Gold writes about New York’s Midtown Manhattan club Birdland, and shares photographs and memorabilia from his collection.
...June 1st, 2021
Golden Gate
shadow arms
ocean and steel
ships of souls
harbors deep waters
avenues of piers
city welcome
the blood of youth
May 29th, 2021
Few artists inspire creativity like Miles Davis. This collection of poetry by 50 poets from all over the world is evidence of that.
...May 27th, 2021
A young man was walking up one of the roads that climbed out of the town, into the hills. He was tall, probably in his late teens, appeared fit and strong – looked like he’d pass a physical. Dark curly hair which was too long, but that could be easily taken care of, of course – give him a haircut, swap the t-shirt and shorts for an olive green uniform, the glasses for a pair of regulation army specs, and he’d look the part.
...May 25th, 2021
Your blood, poisoned by neither drink nor drugs,
but the ravening appetite of some fickle force
we can’t fathom; the way hearts attack us or else
our systems are assailed by cells made to invade.
May 21st, 2021
. . photo by William Gottlieb/Library of Congress Sidney Bechet at Jimmy Ryan’s, New York, N.Y., ca. 1947 . …..I don’t know about you, but ever since Kenny G made himself known in the world of pop music, the soprano saxophone has been a challenge for me to enjoy. His “smooth” approach to the … Continue reading “Playlist: A sampling of soprano saxophonists”
...May 19th, 2021
Richard Carlin and Ken Bloom, authors of “Eubie: Rags, Rhythm, and Race,” talk about Blake and their insightful and timely book – an important portrait of the man and the musical world his work helped reshape.
...May 17th, 2021
“What’s he even mean by that,” my son asked the other day.
Whose love? What love? And for whom?
May 16th, 2021
. . Polydor Records, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Chick Corea, 1976 . . In Summa Summit ……………in memory of Chick Corea Pretty, I’ve got a postcard picture mind that finds windows inside a supermax where lost time and space are a double bind — the phenomenology of the sax remembered from all-night pot-toked jazz … Continue reading ““In Summa Summit” — a sonnet (in memory of Chick Corea) by John Kendall Hawkins”
...May 15th, 2021
“Ensemble”—I had heard the director use the term on many occasions, and thought it just meant some undefined collection of musicians. My Jr-high classmates were asked “to meet for ensemble,” or were told that “the ensemble session will be at 10:10 today.” In school, if you joined the band you just started playing; there was no course in Orientation to Band 101 to explain these concepts to us.
...May 13th, 2021
It was the sixties.
“It’s cool,” he said.
“You’ll dig it.”
A row of attached
and run-down
brick three-stories
on a dark side-street
May 11th, 2021
The first time I tried to convince Veronica that we’ve met before, it was a dark summer night, honeyed and sulky, and beneath my feet, the earth was still swollen with rain. Under my right arm, I carried one of her paintings in a wooden case, while my left hand held the scrap of paper bearing the Trevisan family home’s address, given to me in a brief yet frantic call from her aunt.
...May 10th, 2021
My homing pigeon heart
Eternally it wings me
On a long journey back through time
We follow the north star to the lake
Of Neptune’s song and mermaid hair
And land beside that ramshackle cottage
May 8th, 2021
In September, 2017, the photographer and writer John McCluskey took several photos of Chick Corea during a performance at New York’s Blue Note.
...May 7th, 2021
My mother’s ghost comes to me whenever I smoke one of my innumerable cigarettes, when I am re-reading one of her favorite books – like Jane Austen’s Emma – or even when I’m walking, careless and carefree, down the street. And her ghost always arrives when I hear certain music.
...May 5th, 2021
This one-armed Dixieland trumpeter and “jive” vocalist’s 1930 song “Tar Paper Stomp” used a riff that later became the basis for Glenn Miller’s recording of “In the Mood.” Who is he?
.
Wingy Manone
Louis Prima
Charlie Teagarden
Humphrey Lyttelton
Muggsy Spanier
Yank Lawson
Mutt Carey
...May 4th, 2021
Sailing through a midnight sky,
entangled in pine branches,
a golden full moon graces
the night with a beauty
comparable to a Bill Evans
or Duke Ellington solo,
nothing needed to expand
the floating vision;
May 2nd, 2021
Mike finished washing his face just as he knew Tomas, his son, would start the journey over to visit him. He wasn’t home yet, that place he called “home.” East to his son’s West.
...April 26th, 2021
An interview with The Art of Jazz author Alyn Shipton, whose book is an exploration of how jazz influenced sheet music art, album art, posters, photography, and individual works of fine art.
...April 25th, 2021
I believed you were still
in that orange plaid upholstered rocker
in the sunroom.
We danced our mutually agreed upon waltz.
You pretended you knew who I was. And I pretended
you hadn’t forgotten me.
April 23rd, 2021
In this edition, Mr. Oakland’s photographs and stories feature drummers Jo Buddy Rich, Louie Bellson/Tony Williams and Shelly Manne in “A Succession of Battery Mates, Part 2”
...April 19th, 2021
On the day Miss Lena took her reward
I’m breaking bread w/Eddie
who shoveled her sidewalk as a kid
and picked Miss Ella’s roses.
High-fived Cootie runnin’ scales ’n
JB takin’ the bridge.
April 15th, 2021
In all honesty, my father had been known to tell more than a few tall tales in his time. Yet, whenever I’d try to catch him on one he would pause, nod his head patiently, and then politely remind me there were always two sides to every story.
...April 11th, 2021
I can see you sitting outside the Reno
where the Mob’s tight hold makes dollars spin.
You are scuffling the dust, then homing in
whenever Lester launches his solo.
April 6th, 2021
The author talks about his book and the rare collection of 200 full-color and black-and-white souvenir photos and memorabilia that bring life to the renowned jazz nightclubs of 1940’s and 1950’s.
...April 4th, 2021
Gareth Davey writes a fictional account of the tragic death of the jazz trumpeter Lee Morgan
...April 1st, 2021
A poem by Michael Amitin celebrating John Coltrane’s classic “A Love Supreme” recording
...March 29th, 2021
A 50 song jazz playlist featuring countless great performances, including by Shirley Horn, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Frank Sinatra, Mel Torme, and many others
...March 28th, 2021
An excerpt from Jeff Gold’s “Sittin’ In: Jazz Clubs of the 1940s and 1950s” focuses on Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom
...March 26th, 2021
An intimate portrait of Bill Charlap and mother Sandy Steward, who explore the art of musical collaboration and accompanying singers.
...March 23rd, 2021
A collection of the poet Erren Kelly’s unconstrained, improvisational and provocative poetry written during the era of COVID
...March 19th, 2021
Are you singing on balconies these days?
Do you still sing only in your car, radio tuned
to hot, blistering jazz?
March 15th, 2021
He drove uptown on Riverside Drive, the motor noise magnificent. Traffic increased as he approached Harlem. Other drivers jostling to get ahead noticed the car first. A red Ferrari was not subtle in gray Manhattan, and the engine roared money and power and European elegance. Then neighbors would study the man in outsized sunglasses. Some recognized him, smiling or shaking their heads in disbelief. Others looked aggrieved, even outraged that a person like him could be driving a vehicle like that. Ferrari only built three-hundred of their 275 GTB.
...March 12th, 2021
This pioneer pianist of the bop era had short term associations with Benny Carter, Boyd Raeburn, Lester Young, and Charlie Parker, but led such a troubled life that he only recorded once between 1947 – 1971. Who is he?
Mel Powell
Jess Stacy
Joe Albany
Dodo Marmarosa
Lennie Tristano
Al Haig
Hampton Hawes
Phineas Newborn
...March 11th, 2021
The poets Terrence Underwood and George Held write about the jazz pianist Thelonious Monk
...March 7th, 2021
In this excerpt from the books first chapter – published with the gracious consent of Papillote Press – Nanton writes about his initial meetings with the celebrated artist, and the 20th century currents that were important in shaping his individual talents and personality.
...March 3rd, 2021
In this winter collection of diverse themes and poetic styles, 55 poets wander the musical landscape to explore their spirit and enthusiasm for jazz music, its historic figures, and the passion, sadness, humor and joy it arouses.
...February 25th, 2021
Hunkered down
listening to Coltrane’s
Once in a While
and the smooth flow
of his sax, a whiskey
beside me, thinking
of those Jazz-infused
moments before life
began to drift away.
February 23rd, 2021
. . In a 2009 Jerry Jazz Musician interview, Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original, talks about the legendary composer/pianist who was a founding father of modern jazz. . . .Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an … Continue reading “A Black History Month Profile: Thelonious Monk, a founding father of modern jazz”
...February 22nd, 2021
In the heavy burden of snow,
when pearly whiteness covers the Earth’s soul,
when jazz music curtails our hearts,
it melts the ice inside;
February 17th, 2021
Author Dave Chisholm talks about the experience creating his graphic novel about Charlie Parker in California, “Chasin’ the Bird”
...February 15th, 2021
The first flat of my own in Stockholm was
really small but in a nice area on one of
the islands south of the old town.
My girlfriend often stayed with me,
since her own flat was way out
in the suburbs.
February 13th, 2021
In this edition, Mr. Oakland’s photographs and stories feature drummers Jo Jones, Art Blakey and Elvin Jones.
...February 12th, 2021
Yesterday removed from the warm artery of time
And the ground beneath my feet shrinking
Falling
Falling
Falling
into the ramshackle cottages
leaning together on the streets with no names
February 11th, 2021
In a 2019 Jerry Jazz Musician interview, Jeffrey Stewart, author of The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke and winner of the 2018 National Book Award for Non-Fiction, talks about Locke, the man now known as the father of the Harlem Renaissance.
...February 10th, 2021
In this edition, producer John Koenig, saxophonist Sonny Rollins and photographer William Claxton discuss their roles in Rollins’ 1957 Contemporary Records album Way Out West with Pressed For All Time author Michael Jarrett
...February 8th, 2021
Round Midnight at the Silver Seas Hotel
and falling stars parade through
an espresso black sky in Ocho Rios.
Caribbean waves lap against the sea wall
like brushes swishing against a snare.
February 7th, 2021
Feelin’ Kind of Blue.
Improvised textures,
made in heaven,
escape elucidation
and drift off
into the ethereal.
February 3rd, 2021
When this bandleader temporarily retired in 1936, key members of his band became the nucleus of the first Woody Herman Orchestra. Who is he?
Charlie Barnet
Isham Jones
Dick Jurgens
Horace Heidt
Skinnay Ennis
Jimmy Dorsey
Charlie Spivak
Fred Waring
...February 1st, 2021
Bob Hecht talks with pianist Bill Charlap and writer Ted Panken about the late Phil Woods, and his book Life in E Flat: The Autobiography of Phil Woods
...January 28th, 2021
Wading through the gloaming, almost majestic,
looking ready for a coronation, the bird stretches
wings as though sweeping night air from his regal
January 27th, 2021
“An Archaeologically Authenticated, Gastro-Musicological Historical Artifact: The Menu For The Jazz Brunch At Jack’s Tea Garden” is excerpted from a work-in-progress entitled “The Hip Man Letters, vol. 2: Dear Morty.”
...January 26th, 2021
This excerpt from the just released Life In E Flat: The Autobiography of Phil Woods(written with Ted Panken) covers Woods’ post-high school life as a budding musician from Springfield, Massachusetts. He recalls early memories of work in local jazz clubs, as well as trips to New York to take lessons with the pianist Lennie Tristano, who introduces him to none other than Charlie Parker.
...January 25th, 2021
a lot of the trumpet players
I used to go hear, are all gone now
or too old to play.
clark terry
miles & maynard:
ray anthony’s still around though.
January 22nd, 2021
. . Inside the Village Vanguard, November, 2016 . ___ . . To The Audience Members Who Chatted During The Recording Of Bill Evans Trio Live At The Village Vanguard, June 25, 1961 . Relax, I will never scold, don’t shush. All music, like all moments, is soon lost. It’s vocal … Continue reading ““To The Audience Members Who Chatted During The Recording Of Bill Evans Trio Live At The Village Vanguard, June 25, 1961″ — a poem by John Riley”
...January 18th, 2021
. . . . …..Sure, Queen’s Gambit, The Crown, and Fargo are pretty compelling programs to watch while under quarantine, but have you seen Young Man With a Horn? How about The Connection? Syncopation, maybe? …..No, these are not contemporary Netflix productions, they are examples of the more than 100 movies produced since … Continue reading “Book Excerpt: Play the Way You Feel: The Essential Guide to Jazz Stories on Film, by Kevin Whitehead”
...January 7th, 2021
Ingham’s photo-narrative was created utilizing Nina Simone’s introduction to her live performance of “Mississippi Goddam” at Carnegie Hall, 1964.
...January 5th, 2021
Bobbin’ an’ weavin’
schuckin’ an’ jivin’
I’m comin’ up.
I’m comin’ up.
Down the corridor, I walk—
square ring stage
Garden audience awaits.
January 4th, 2021
The community of poets, writers, artists and photographers who have recently contributed their work and time to Jerry Jazz Musician to answer this question, “What one song best represents your experience with 2020?”
...December 29th, 2020
All of a sudden, I began to experience an unusual perspiration. A perspiration that altered the rhythm of my heartbeat. The more the rhythm was thrown off, the more rapid my heartbeat pounded. I listened with displeasure as my heartbeat produced discordant tunes. The tunes were unpleasant to the ears.
...December 28th, 2020
Jazz and poetry have always had a symbiotic relationship. Their creative languages share the common soil of imagination and improvisation, from which their audiences discover inspiration and spirit, and perhaps even a renewed faith in life itself.
This collection features 50 gifted poets from places as disparate as Ohio and Nepal, Estonia and Boston, Guyana and Pittsburgh, each publicly sharing their inner world reverence for the culture of jazz music.
...December 3rd, 2020
This radio star, actor, teen idol and post-Al Jolson singer specializing in sweet ballads was also an alto saxophonist who allegedly inspired a young Charlie Parker. Who was he?
...November 30th, 2020
In the mountains
trees practice for winter,
dropping their leaves.
Birds, like thin farmhands,
sweep down on rutted back roads,
begging for food.
It’s Thanksgiving.
November 26th, 2020
To where have our better angels flown
Instead of wings, ghoulish shadows darken our skies
So___ past the book stalls and flower carts
And down the Champs-Elysees stretch
naked tables and vacant chairs
November 24th, 2020
Updates and news about content recently and soon-to-be published.
...November 23rd, 2020
He still has his father’s old records.
That single cardboard box is all that Ken has left of the man. That and memories. He remembers those swirling blue winter nights: sitting on the living room rug, right between the full-blast radiator and Dad’s battered old armchair, watching the record turn around and around and fill the room with Duke Ellington’s piano. The summer Sundays, where the warm breeze came in through the window, and the cleaning of their apartment turned into a game backed by Dizzy Gillespie’s big band, deep orange-pink like strawberry lemonade.
...November 16th, 2020
Nineteen fifty-nine –
1-9-5-9 – things changed.
Coltrane took Giant Steps –
Miles was Kind of Blue
and Brubeck played
with Time.
November 9th, 2020
Another new time is upon us
We must again touch the mobile of life
So the parts may re-wed in a new balance
November 3rd, 2020
I grew up in a household where music was second nature, always present, ingrained. My mother could sight read well and played not only classical pieces on the piano (Schumann, Liszt, Chopin) but show tunes—the full range of Gershwin, Cole Porter, Rogers and Hart, Irving Berlin, which she and I sang together.
...November 1st, 2020
On the cusp of an election of consequence the likes of which America hasn’t experienced for 150 years, and in the midst of continued Black Lives Matter protests and an indisputable surge of COVID, 29 poets sharing perspectives from all over the world contribute to this volume of poetry reflecting our tumultuous, unsettling era…
...October 29th, 2020
Grandma’s mother had gifted her the bracelet on her tenth birthday. It hung upon her forearm every hour of the day, until her wedding. When the vermillion filled the parting in her scalp, she lost the permission to wear it. Her new husband adored the drink, and loathed the ornaments she carried from her mother’s house.
...October 29th, 2020
. . Drawn from interviews with prominent producers, engineers, and record label executives, Michael Jarrett’s Pressed For All Time: Producing the Great Jazz Albums is filled with interesting stories behind some of jazz music’s most historic, influential, and popular recordings. In cooperation with Jarrett and University of North Carolina Press, Jerry Jazz Musician will occasionally … Continue reading ““Pressed for All Time,” Vol. 8 — producer Ed Michel on Art Pepper’s 1980 album Winter Moon“
...October 27th, 2020
in evening western sky, golden clouds pile
beneath sinking crimson sun and spill
toward river and ocean with the beauty
and rhythmic precision of notes tumbling
from a vibraphone during a dazzling
improvisation by Milt Jackson
October 26th, 2020
In an exclusive interview, Will Friedwald, author of Straighten Up and Fly Right: The Life and Music of Nat King Cole, discusses Cole and his book.
...October 23rd, 2020
No Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, King Oliver, Satch Mo’ and his velvety horn, No royalty of Jazz! No A Train taking us uptown, no Langston Hughes, or Zora Neale Hurston. No Chuck Berry and rock and roll
...October 20th, 2020
In this edition of photographs and stories from Mr. Oakland’s book, Thelonious Monk, Paul Bley and Cecil Taylor are featured.
...October 17th, 2020
She started to scat, I started to cry.
My tears taste like salt baked on my lips.
I hear her soft voice
like the river I walk to each morning.
I carry a jar to give her the river.
October 16th, 2020
I methodically walk along. Stepping in tune to the pulsing soundtrack spilling out of the passing nightclub, littering the sidewalk. The electric guitar wailing something menacingly slow and strong. Almost soulful but still all the while punk at its core and insisting itself to be anything but a love song. I wouldn’t be surprised to catch a glimpse of Lux dancing inside as I pass. Lux, used to be Grace, and I almost miss the days when she was.
...October 13th, 2020
He closed almost every show with that tune.
It was so like him.
After giving us more than we ever knew
could be coaxed from a piano
or a trombone…
he thanked us.
October 9th, 2020
“Nah,” Mucka says to the guy in the funny hat, a couple of seats down. “We’re from Massachusetts, an hour or so from here. My friend here….” He leans back so the guy can look around him to see me….”he wanted to come down, see if we could, you know, the whole jazz thing . . . . festival …. thing.”
...October 8th, 2020
I am probably being
followed online by
the CIA
because I have listened
to your poems on YouTube,
you were just that
revolutionary! You were
just that powerful of a poet
my teacher
October 7th, 2020
Prior to his time with Stan Kenton’s Innovations Orchestra, this trumpeter — who some have said could play higher than any other trumpeter up to that point in history — gained experience with the big bands of Boyd Raeburn, Jimmy Dorsey and Charlie Barnet. Who is he?
...October 5th, 2020
a touch of salt
peppered with depth
the bang of delivery
served up
as cymbals sizzle
in smoke clouds
of madness
October 4th, 2020
Frank Sinatra floated through the air in my boyhood home and Philadelphia neighborhood. My mother and two of her older sisters, Henrietta and Marge, had seen young Frankie in person at Atlantic City’s Steel Pier in the late 1930s, the thrill that wed these young Italian-Americans to Frank for life. “It’s Always You” reached them. He was part of our Staffieri family — their fantasy husband.
...October 3rd, 2020
In a July 27, 2020 conversation with Jerry Jazz Musician editor/publisher Joe Maita, the historian and most eminent jazz writer of his generation Dan Morgenstern and pianist Christian Sands – the Creative Ambassador of the Erroll Garner Jazz Project – discuss Garner’s historic legacy.
...October 1st, 2020
. . “Bella by Barlight,” a story by Steve Young, was a short-listed entry in our recently concluded 54th Short Fiction Contest. It is published with the permission of the author . . photo by-crosspraha- / CC BY-SA . Bella by Barlight by Steve Young . ___ , …..The Pocono Lounge, in the basement … Continue reading ““Bella by Barlight” — a short story by Steve Young”
...September 28th, 2020
An invitation was extended recently to poets to submit work that reflects this time of COVID, Black Lives Matter, and a heated political season. In this third volume, 33 poets contribute…
...September 25th, 2020
September’s breeze slightly more than a whisper
rubs shoulders with a tired overheated August sky
summer makes its exit seeks retirement
from a year struck by ten swords
September 23rd, 2020
“Balboa,” a story by Matt Sweeney, was a short-listed entry in our recently concluded 54th Short Fiction Contest.
...September 22nd, 2020
My Motherland, like:
Jack Kerouac
like
blow-on-subject-seas-of-thought like
hip hip Ginsberg clackin’ right at it, like
eye on the rug, boy
September 19th, 2020
I have to admit, Portland has kicked my ass this summer.
Two fires continue to rage here. I’m sure you’ve heard about this city’s Black Lives Matter demonstrations that have also sparked pesky vandalism by dozens of mostly White activists. While their activities seem banal enough – a dumpster fire here, a picnic table on fire there – this behavior shamefully threatens to commandeer BLM’s objectives and gives life to a cynical and evergreen pre-election message stoking White suburban fear. The vandalism tests the patience of even the most tolerant and hopeful of local citizens.
Now mix in the fires of climate change – hot, powerful winds fanning flames on a drought-laden state – and the result is living in, for now, the epicenter of the world’s worst air quality.
...September 17th, 2020
“Album Unfinished,” a story by Geoffrey Polk, was a short-listed entry in our recently concluded 54th Short Fiction Contest. It is published with the permission of the author
...September 16th, 2020
The herd, now scattered, tired, and thinned
lies down in the electric wind
which cools the summer air and ground
so sleep may come, however sound
September 15th, 2020
. . “Great Encounters” are book excerpts that chronicle famous encounters among twentieth-century cultural icons. In this edition, Will Friedwald, author of Straighten Up and Fly Right: The Life and Music of Nat King Cole, writes about the 1940 Lionel Hampton/King Cole Trio RCA Victor recording sessions. . . Excerpted from STRAIGHTEN UP AND … Continue reading “Great Encounters: When Lionel Hampton recorded with the King Cole Trio”
...September 14th, 2020
There it was
On the waterfront bench
Tempting me
In this Summer of
Covid inspired fears
A little flower framed heart
With the message
Free! Enjoy!
Smile
September 10th, 2020
In The Fire is Upon Us: James Baldwin, William F. Buckley Jr., and the Debate over Race in America, author Nicholas Buccola tells the story of the historic 1965 Cambridge Union debate between Baldwin, the leading literary voice of the civil rights movement, and Buckley, a staunch opponent of the movement and founder in 1955 of National Review, the leading conservative publication. The evening’s debate topic? “The American dream is at the expense of the American Negro.”
...September 2nd, 2020
1963 and Mingus and his mighty band
of musicians play and sing “Freedom,”
as marchers for freedom fill streets
throughout the South,
August 30th, 2020
. . “Satin Doll,” a story by Jack Tasker, was a short-listed entry in our recently concluded 54th Short Fiction Contest. It is published with the permission of the author . . photo Creative Commons CC0 . Satin Doll by Jack Tasker . The Pianist and The Cabbie . …..When the music stops … Continue reading ““Satin Doll” — a short story by Jack Tasker”
...August 26th, 2020
. . “Clifford Brown” is a painting by Warren Goodson, a Saxapahaw, North Carolina artist whose work is driven by his appreciation for Black culture. With his gracious consent, Mr. Goodson’s art is featured throughout this collection. . . _____ . . “Poetry is eternal graffiti written in the heart of everyone.” -Lawrence Ferlinghetti … Continue reading “A Collection of Jazz Poetry — Summer, 2020 Edition”
...August 24th, 2020
The needle drops on Charlie Parker
playing “Relaxin’ at Camarillo”
the boy lies on the floor
of his room and listens to the gorgeous ease
the affirmation
buoyant love song
August 14th, 2020
One of the many rewards of reading Will Friedwald’s comprehensive and lively biography of Nat King Cole, Straighten Up and Fly Right, has been rediscovering gems within the great singer’s expansive catalog. Thanks to Friedwald, I am reminded of Cole’s 1960 album, Wild is Love, an ambitious, electrifying (and “hit”) recording that could best be described as a concept album about falling in love.
...August 11th, 2020
During the blaze at the Radio Flyer factory, Louis Armstrong was responsible for saving the lives of every man, woman and child on the ball bearing line.
...August 10th, 2020
A marker for memory,
a last thought,
for the trumpet that opened the gates
at the end of the world,
and passed on into forever.
August 9th, 2020
Although he had success as a bandleader in the 1930’s, he is best known for being manager of Harlem’s Minton’s Playhouse during the birth of bebop. Who was he?
Luis Russell
Don Redman
Jimmie Lunceford
Erskine Hawkins
Chick Webb
Jay McShann
Andy Kirk
Teddy Hill
...August 7th, 2020
Pedestrians all around me narrow their eyes at the harassing wind and lower their umbrellas to help protect against the assault.
Not me. I lift my chin towards the grey skies and allow the wind to caress my face and to set my scarf dancing around my neck.
...August 4th, 2020
23 poets contribute 26 poems that speak to the era of COVID, Black Lives Matter, and a heated political season
...July 30th, 2020
Mother and I took the metro to the Piazza del Popolo, then boarded a northbound tram for the Parco della Musica, where the Rome Jazz Festival was being held.
...July 29th, 2020
Commentary concerning the current protests taking place in my city, Portland, Oregon.
...July 28th, 2020
The loss of Annie Ross
Is loss indeed.
I was a teen in ’53.
Mom owned along with Slim Gaillard
The first jazz club in all Long Island.
July 25th, 2020
In this edition of photographs and stories from Mr. Oakland’s book, Dexter Gordon, Art Farmer and Johnny Griffin are featured.
...July 21st, 2020
If the sea keeps rising
it will reach Pittsburgh tomorrow
and I will put on new clothes
and forget Myrtle Beach
and Charleston
and the Outer Banks
July 20th, 2020
…..I recently went on a two week road trip.
…..A few months ago such a casual bit of news would have aroused only the slightest interest. Select friends would display a polite enthusiasm, a question or two about the destination or accommodations would be raised, and perhaps a handful of pictures would even be endured.
...July 18th, 2020
He’s here again, his mossy hair visible at the back of the crowd. I’ve seen him a few times before and it’s always the same: he leans against a pillar, arms crossed, a hungry look in his eyes. There’s a bit of rebel in him. I don’t know if it’s the cigarette or the rimless sunglasses perched on the edge of his nose, but he doesn’t fit in with the polished and the proper.
...July 13th, 2020
Music
gathers all our grief and rage,
transforms it into rhythmic dots
that dance across an open page,
which hearts and mouths and fingers strive
to share upon the human stage.
July 10th, 2020
“Charles Ingham’s Jazz Narratives” connect time, place, and subject in a way that ultimately allows the viewer a unique way of experiencing jazz history. This edition’s narratives are “Nat King Cole: The Shadow of the Word,” “Slain in Cold Blood” and “Local 767: The Black Musicians’ Union”
...July 8th, 2020
A story of coming to terms with old age…
...July 7th, 2020
The author discusses the enigmatic and extraordinary pianist, composer, and band leader, whose most notable achievements came during a time of major societal and cultural change, and often in the face of critics who at times found his music too technical and bombastic.
...July 6th, 2020
Must I retrieve my black leather
jacket from the chest in my closet
My Afro pick, discarded in a
forgotten drawer?
July 4th, 2020
. . photo by William Gottlieb/Library of Congress Nat “King” Cole, Paramount Theater, New York, N.Y., ca. Nov. 1946 . ___ . This bassist played with (among others) Charlie Parker, Erroll Garner, Art Tatum, Nat “King” Cole (pictured), Dexter Gordon, James Taylor and Rickie Lee Jones, and was one of the earliest modern … Continue reading “Jazz History Quiz #139”
...June 30th, 2020
. . In 2005, Kevin Boyle’s National Book Award-winning book Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age told the story of Ossian Sweet, a Black doctor in Detroit who in 1925 moved from that city’s ghetto into a home of his own in a previously all-white neighborhood. … Continue reading “Interview with Kevin Boyle — author of Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age“
...June 28th, 2020
Despite the many trials
and tribulations of black folks
here in America, as a means of survival
my people have learned to laugh and smile
in the face of adversity.
June 27th, 2020
In this edition, producer John Snyder recalls Sun Ra, and his 1990 Purple Night recording session
...June 25th, 2020
I recently extended an invitation to poets to submit work that reflects this time of COVID, Black Lives Matter, and a heated political season.
What follows are some of those submitted. More will appear in the future.
-Joe Maita/Editor and Publisher
...June 18th, 2020
but tonight they’re here, on a street off seventh avenue, holding a thermos of coffee, following a jazz guitar. The music comes from a doorway beneath a brownstone on the next block.
...June 16th, 2020
“Charles Ingham’s Jazz Narratives” connect time, place, and subject in a way that ultimately allows the viewer a unique way of experiencing jazz history. This edition’s narratives are “The Entrance of Bessie Smith into San Diego”, “Lionel Hampton Is Coming to Dinner at Dr. Gordon’s House”, and
“Lionel Hampton: Central Avenue Breakdown”
June 15th, 2020
. . Given the current Black Lives Matter protests, coupled with the upcoming presidential indoor “rally” in Tulsa (in the middle of a pandemic, no less), it seems like a good time to revisit an interview I conducted with Tim Madigan, author of The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot … Continue reading “Tulsa in 1921 — an interview with Tim Madigan, author of The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921“
...June 14th, 2020
. . photo by Tengilorg / CC BY . . While Playing A Vinyl Record Music lightens blue mood. It softens mind like feather floating towards earth, then brushes against cheek, chin and ear. Body sways with Jazz in air. A tickle on skin, sensations cradled in ears, harvesting goodness like wheat to enjoy … Continue reading “Poetry by Jerrice Baptiste and Moe Seager”
...June 12th, 2020
“One ticket please,” David said aloud to Gladys.
Studying him with eyes peering over her glasses, the ticket seller, Gladys, squinted with disbelief at the sense of disproportion standing before her; David’s battered face and tortured eyes, so contradictory to his features of lapidary refinement.
...June 12th, 2020
. . © Veryl Oakland Bill Evans, Berkeley, California; April, 1969 . . Listening to Bill Evans, June 2020 First the piano by itself— after months of darkness after a Winter of clouds and wind after discontent after lies and lies explaining lies and prayers and ice and rivers forgetting to … Continue reading ““Listening to Bill Evans, June 2020” — a poem by John Stupp”
...June 12th, 2020
Just as it did during the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War protests, music is playing an important political and inspirational role in the Black Lives Matter movement and the worldwide protests in support of it.
...June 8th, 2020
. . photo/National Park Service South Kaibab Trail in Grand Canyon National Park . ___ . At the Grand Canyon A white man and a black man stand side by side on this precipice, silently looking across the Grand Canyon, watching the revolutionary ravens surf the deep blue ocean of sky and … Continue reading ““At the Grand Canyon” — a poem by T.S. Davis”
...June 5th, 2020
. . Charles Ingham’s photo-narratives connect time, place, and subject in a way that ultimately allows the viewer a unique way of experiencing music history. . . ___ . . Indianola Is a Place Apart (Church and Second Streets, Indianola, Mississippi) 2020 . . Charles describes the work . ….If … Continue reading ““Indianola Is a Place Apart”– a photo-narrative by Charles Ingham”
...June 4th, 2020
The following is a statement issued by two executives of Atlantic Records – Jamila Thomas and Brianna Agyemang – announcing an initiative called #TheShowMustBePaused, “in observance of the long-standing racism and inequality that exists from the boardroom to the boulevard.”
...June 2nd, 2020
no wars
no greed
no famine
no disease
just rainbows
and blessings
May 31st, 2020
Ms. Golia discusses her book and the artists whose philosophy and the astounding, adventurous music he created served to continually challenge the skeptical status quo, and made him a guiding light of the artistic avant-garde throughout a career spanning seven decades.
...May 30th, 2020
His face gave it away. Standing in front of the painting, his ice-blue eyes like tiny bejewelled pinpricks, mouth gaping and tongue hanging out, he basked in the portrait’s aura like a skinned lizard under a desert sun.
...May 26th, 2020
. . photo Bret Stewart/Wikimedia Commons . . Afterwards …………………….For the Spring of 2020 . …………………..“The World Breaks Everyone, And Afterwards, ……………………Many Are Stronger At The Broken Places.” …………………………………………………………….– Ernest Hemingway. . many, many, years ago …………I was in need …………………..of some extra money. I had decided …………to sell my upright 1940’s ………………….. kay … Continue reading ““Afterwards — For the Spring, 2020” — a poem by Alan Yount”
...May 23rd, 2020
. . . …..The poet Michael L. Newell, whose work has often appeared in the pages of Jerry Jazz Musician, has informed me that his new book, Wandering, is now available. Published by cyberwit.net, the book features selections of his poetry from the past fifty years. …..Michael draws readers into his lyrical, vast world with … Continue reading “News about the poet Michael L. Newell”
...May 22nd, 2020
Mosaic Records is offering prints of entire contact sheets of classic Blue Note recording sessions that, as described by Mosaic owner Michael Cuscuna, shows Francis Wolff’s “thought process and the progression of shots that lead to his final best image.”
...May 21st, 2020
Shortly following their famed 1938 Carnegie Hall performance, Benny Goodman’s drummer Gene Krupa left the band to start his own. Who replaced Krupa as Goodman’s drummer?
...May 20th, 2020
Prominent artists and educators reflect on the pandemic and how they are spending their time during isolation and social distancing
...May 18th, 2020
Charles Ingham’s “Jazz Narratives” connect time, place, and subject in a way that ultimately allows the viewer a unique way of experiencing jazz history. This edition’s narratives are “Torn from Its Moorings”, “Watching the Sea” and “Plantations”
...May 16th, 2020
The introduction to Philip Clark’s book “Dave Brubeck: A Life in Time” is excerpted here in its entirety.
...May 15th, 2020
No one knew why he did it. Why early one August morning, the day after I turned eleven, when stores were just pulling up their metal gates, and delivery trucks were double parked in front of them, when as Mama said the sun was so oppressive you could fry an egg on the sidewalk, Mr. Carmichael left his seventh-floor apartment right above ours in The Bridgeton Apartments…
...May 14th, 2020
33 poets from all over the globe contribute 47 poems. Expect to read of love, loss, memoir, worship, freedom, heartbreak and hope – all collected here, in the heart of this unsettling spring.
...May 12th, 2020
Arizona State University historian and author Tracy Fessenden responds to the question; “During this time of social distancing and isolation at home, what are examples of the music you are listening to, the books you are reading, and/or the television or films you are viewing?”
...May 11th, 2020
The jazz guitarist Yotam Silberstein has created a series of online concerts called the “Quarantine Duos”, featuring gifted musical guest artists
...May 10th, 2020
Miscellaneous news and notes to share…
...May 9th, 2020
Spelman College president Mary Schmidt Campbell responds to the question; “During this time of social distancing and isolation at home, what are examples of the music you are listening to, the books you are reading, and/or the television or films you are viewing?”
...May 8th, 2020
The flute floats a legato stream of notes,
blood from the heart pouring in a lucent stream,
brilliant as a harvest moon filling the sky
with radiance such as the flutist releases
May 6th, 2020
Journalist Joe Hagan and photographer Tim Davis respond to the question; “During this time of social distancing and isolation at home, what are examples of the music you are listening to, the books you are reading, and/or the television or films you are viewing?”
...May 5th, 2020
. . “Searching Alex,” a story by Robert Knox, was a short-listed entry in our recently concluded 53rd Short Fiction Contest. It is published with the permission of the author . . . © User:Colin / Wikimedia Commons/Flicker/CC BY-SA 4.0 . . . “Searching Alex” by Robert Knox . …..He remembered a happy … Continue reading ““Searching Alex” — a short story by Robert Knox”
...May 4th, 2020
Which to recue first:
The Human right or the human left?
No, neither
But the human heart
From every human center
May 3rd, 2020
That massive blind face, rough hewn
As any one of Michelangelo’s Captives,
Fills the cover of his first Columbia LP.
White beard. Capped head.
The cloak a part of the costume he wore
As “the Viking of 6th Avenue,”
May 2nd, 2020
Charles Ingham’s “Jazz Narratives” connect time, place, and subject in a way that ultimately allows the viewer a unique way of experiencing jazz history. This edition’s narratives are “”The Artists Salute Each Other”, “Monk’s Mood at the It Club” and “Communing with Ghosts”
...May 1st, 2020
When I met her around 1990, I was an RN working in Seattle at the University of Washington Medical Center on the Rehab Medicine Unit. She was my patient, and I’ll call her…Marge.
...April 30th, 2020
Deborah lost her wallet. Most of us have at one time or another. It’s one of the awful feelings, TMW you know you don’t know. Or the last time you knew … anything. It swallows you, that feeling. Utter loss. Utter failure. All the work it will take to regain lost ground. All the effort. If.
...April 27th, 2020
Music writers/critics Howard Mandel and Joel Selvin respond to the question, “During this time of social distancing and isolation at home, what are examples of the music you are listening to, the books you are reading, and/or the television or films you are viewing?”
...April 26th, 2020
In the late late light of the Delta
I look up to see the tugs glide by
above the levy
flying high above the Quarter
as if to shrug and say
What else you gonna do?
April 25th, 2020
In this edition of photographs and stories from Mr. Oakland’s impressive book, Frank Morgan, Michel Petrucciani, Charles Lloyd, and Emily Remler are featured…
...April 24th, 2020
Bob Hecht hosts a previously unpublished 1985 interview with the late, great jazz saxophonist Lee Konitz, featuring photography and music
...April 22nd, 2020
now frequent outside
bouyant butterflies drift
through a rush of hot breeze
…………blending
with dry yellow
Black Olive leaves
...April 21st, 2020
After playing a 1950 concert in Hartford, Connecticut with a pick-up rhythm section trio, Stan Getz hired them, which included Walter Bolden on drums and Joe Calloway on bass. Who was the trio’s pianist?
.
Cecil Taylor
Barry Harris
Wynton Kelly
Phineas Newborn
Tommy Flanagan
Hank Jones
George Shearing
Horace Silver
.
Go to the next page for the answer!
.
...April 20th, 2020
Recording artist Bruce Cockburn responds to the question, “During this time of social distancing and isolation at home, what are examples of the music you are listening to, the books you are reading, and/or the television or films you are viewing?”
...April 18th, 2020
Ingham’s “Jazz Narratives” connect time, place, and subject in a way that ultimately allows the viewer a unique way of experiencing jazz history. This edition’s narratives are “The Annunciation of Chet Baker,” “Frank O’Hara Whispers to Scott LaFaro,” and “Blessing the Child.”
...April 17th, 2020
Speak memory—
of the cunning hero
from Little Italy
the archtop carver
the workshop magician
blown off course time and again
April 15th, 2020
The Saturn V mega rocket had a problem with syncopation from the get go. The uber squares shipped in the highest foreheads and keenest flat tops money could buy but the translunar queso bullseye refused to step and fetch it.
...April 14th, 2020
Doesn’t every house have its own unique smell? How is that, when everyone’s mom cooked the same pot roast, used the same cleaning powder? And why is it that you never notice your own house’s smell, but you’ll recognize it. Like a false memory. Deja vu.
...April 13th, 2020
the rhythmic flow
that trills and travels—
a saxophone
exploring sound—
the making time
to trace each riff,
watching it wander
all around
April 10th, 2020
In the introduction to Maria Golia’s Ornette Coleman: The Territory and the Adventure – excerpted here in its entirety – the author takes the reader through the four phases of the brilliant musician’s career her book focuses on.
...April 9th, 2020
rain’s elegant tap dance
across rooftop across
windowpane has sorrowful
joy of old
folk tune plucked
April 8th, 2020
Her granddad shook Bridgett awake. He was sniffling.
“What’s the matter? Are you sick?” She propped herself on her elbows.
“It’s Morrison. Gone.“ He was standing there in a faded tie-dyed shirt, smelling musty. His thinning gray hair, reaching past his waist, had not been tied back, but he was wearing his love beads.
...April 7th, 2020
I am writing to share some of the ways I am coping with the current alarming situation, to fill readers in on a few things that are going on with Jerry Jazz Musician, and to invite you to share your own thoughts during this time.
...April 6th, 2020
i listen to wallace roney
as i watch the sun rise
i make a safe haven out of
jazz
this music is social
but right now, i am alone
April 4th, 2020
What is an arpeggio
…………….that it sails
…………………………….so quickly –
…………………………………………ear to heart,
April 3rd, 2020
Ingham’s “Jazz Narratives” connect time, place, and subject in a way that ultimately allows the viewer a unique way of experiencing jazz history. This edition’s narratives are “Released from Camarillo State Hospital, Charlie Parker Plays Jack’s Basket Room,” “Diz Railing at the Cosmos,” and “Speaking in Tongues”
...April 3rd, 2020
sits on a shelf, forgotten save when I open
the closet, and feel my aching knees complain
of hours spent crouched behind home plate
where I had no thought of any consequence
other than winning or losing
April 2nd, 2020
In this edition, producer Tom Dowd talks with Michael Jarrett about the genesis of Herbie Mann’s 1969 recording, Memphis Underground, and the executives and musicians involved.
...April 1st, 2020
There is a great banging coming from inside the brewery
while out here in the sun my blood knocks at the blue
ceilings of my veins like an irate tenant in the apartment
one floor down unprepared for that first blast of Lee
Morgan’s trumpet
March 31st, 2020
.I’m in bed, my windows open to the summer breeze, when I hear the guy outside again, singing. The curtains shift, as if with his voice, and glow a little, from the streetlight nearby. I’m thinking about the Apollo nose cone bobbing in the waves, about catching a tennis ball thrown high over the road. My dog’s on the floor, wedged between my bed and the dresser. He’s a Dalmatian, a big one. He got mean for a while—for weeks he’d try to bite whoever came near us.
...March 30th, 2020
that intro, dat bass
a Mount Rushmore of jazz players
listen how Miles
utilises space in his solo
humanity reached its peak in evolution
at 1:32—the best cymbal crash
into a laid-back groove ever
March 28th, 2020
Interviews with three outstanding, acclaimed writers and scholars who discuss their books on Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, and Cole Porter, and their subjects’ lives in and out of music. These interviews – which each include photos and several full-length songs – provide readers easy access to an entertaining and enlightening learning experience about these three giants of American popular music.
...March 27th, 2020
In the introduction to The Music of Time: Poetry in the Twentieth Century, the T.S. Eliot prize-winning poet, novelist and memoirist John Burnside writes; “Can poetry save the world, as [poet Lawrence] Ferlinghetti suggests? This will sound quixotic, but I have to say, not only that it can, but that it does.” The introduction to the book – excerpted here in its entirety – is Burnside’s fascinating conversation concerning the idea of how poets respond to what the Russian poet Osip Mandelstam called “the noise of time,” weaving it into a kind of music.
...March 27th, 2020
In a Jerry Jazz Musician interview with The Letters of Cole Porter co-author Dominic McHugh, he explains that “several of the big biographical tropes that we associate with Porter are either modified or contested by the letters,” and that “when you put together these letters, and add our quite extensive commentary between the letters, it creates a different picture of him.” Mr. McHugh discusses his book, and what the letters reveal about the life – in-and-out of music – of Cole Porter.
...March 26th, 2020
Chet Baker’s trumpet sings
unrestricted airwaves
in a senseless world
lonely trees by the promenade
wooden arms and hands
feel wind’s breath
March 26th, 2020
Richard Crawford’s Summertime: George Gershwin’s Life in Music is a rich and detailed musical biography that describes Gershwin’s work throughout every stage of his career. In a Jerry Jazz Musician interview, Crawford discusses his book and the man he has described as a “fresh voice of the Jazz Age” who “challenged Americans to rethink their assumptions about composition and performance, nationalism, cultural hierarchy, and the racial divide.”
...March 21st, 2020
Ingham’s “Jazz Narratives” connect time, place, and subject in a way that ultimately allows the viewer a unique way of experiencing jazz history. This edition’s narratives are “”Exactly Where She Is Supposed to Be,” “In Memory of Clora Bryant, Standing Outside the Downbeat,” and “Out West, Thinking About Miles Davis”
...March 20th, 2020
Irving Berlin biographer James Kaplan talks about Berlin’s unparalleled musical career and business success, his intense sense of family and patriotism during a complex and evolving time, and the artist’s permanent cultural significance.
...March 19th, 2020
I wasn’t expecting the sound of seagulls
& water when I popped out of 2 train
at 135th Street
Randy birds mating,
attacking trash bags
outside of Harlem Medical Center
March 18th, 2020
You walk on the rose-colored strip of concrete that starts on the sidewalk, goes under the big black awning with the street light shining on it, and stops at the two heavy wood doors inviting in all of Central Ave. You pause long enough for Walt, the bouncer you should never irritate to the degree of getting his exclusive attention, to nod you inside even though he knows you.
...March 15th, 2020
.It must have been the late 1980s when my girlfriend and I put on our best clothes and shelled out more money than we had to hear McCoy Tyner at the very elegant Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley in downtown Seattle.
...March 14th, 2020
“Doc, here’s my dizzy symptom:
I’m buying these skinny books
like they’re jazz CD’s—
rackin’ ‘em up on the changer,
five at a time, punchin’ in
‘All Disks’ and ‘Shuffle,’
March 13th, 2020
A ten page excerpt that features correspondence in the time frame of June to August, 1953, including those Porter had with George Byron (the man who married Jerome Kern’s widow), fellow writer Abe Burrows, Noel Coward, his secretary Madeline P. Smith, close friend Sam Stark, and his lawyer John Wharton.
...March 11th, 2020
With yesterday’s passing of pianist McCoy Tyner, the world lost a major creative voice of the past 60 years. So much joy and awe in virtually every groove he carved…
...March 7th, 2020
Do you believe in God
after hearing McCoy Tyner
on My Favorite Things
who wouldn’t
hallowed be his holy name
March 6th, 2020
The 53rd edition of the Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest is now in its final stages. Finalists have been determined and publication of the story is anticipated for the week of March 15.
...March 6th, 2020
Ingham’s “Jazz Narratives” connect time, place, and subject in a way that ultimately allows the viewer a unique way of experiencing jazz history. This edition’s narratives are “The Death of Chet Baker, 13 May 1988,” “Out There Somewhere,” and “Dreaming of Bird”
...March 5th, 2020
They slip in from the sidewalk one by one
as the day dims to brown. Some stake tables
near the stage, some lean against the bar.
March 4th, 2020
Rain sang off the roof for hours. The ancient on the porch rocked, strummed his guitar, whispered, “Make Me a Pallet on the Floor,” one minute sounding like Sam Chatmon, the next his licks would have made Mance Lipscomb proud.
...March 2nd, 2020
Influenced by Charlie Parker and Phil Woods (pictured), before forming his own group this alto player got his start in Buddy Rich’s Big Band, and shortly thereafter played with Lionel Hampton. While leading his own band, he was famous for playing bebop covers of songs such as “The I Love Lucy Theme,” “Come Fly With Me,” and “Hooray for Hollywood,” and often performed with singer Eddie Jefferson. Who is he?
...February 26th, 2020
While preparing for an interview this week with Dominic McHugh. co-editor of The Letters of Cole Porter, I have immersed myself in Porter’s music, which has long been inspiration for a multitude of jazz recording artists.
...February 25th, 2020
It’s a shame that, in the 21st century, there are still men of my age who do not know who fathered them.
...February 23rd, 2020
Walking on the wall around Jerusalem’s Old City
I meet Gary, a potter from New Orleans.
He tells me he’s hitchhiking to Africa
but talks mostly about music—
February 21st, 2020
From the Jerry Jazz Musician archives, in a March, 2003 interview, David Colley, author of Blood For Dignity: The Story of the First Integrated Combat Unit in the U.S. Army, talks about the integration of the United States military, and about the courage of African American soldiers determined to achieve success before and after World War II.
...February 19th, 2020
These photo-narratives are provocative, meaningful and brilliant – connecting time, place, and subject in a way that ultimately allows the viewer a unique way of experiencing jazz history.
...February 17th, 2020
The winter collection of poetry offers readers a look at the culture of jazz music through the imaginative writings of its 32 contributors. Within these 41 poems, writers express their deep connection to the music – and those who play it – in their own inventive and often philosophical language that communicates much, but especially love, sentiment, struggle, loss, and joy.
...February 17th, 2020
. . . …..Jazz in Available Light, Illuminating the Jazz Greats from the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s is one of the most impressive jazz photo books to be published in a long time. Featuring the brilliant photography of Veryl Oakland — much of which has never been published — it is also loaded with his … Continue reading “Veryl Oakland’s “Jazz in Available Light” — photos (and stories) of violinists Joe Venuti, Stephane Grappelli, Jean-Luc Ponty, Zbigniew Seifert, and Leroy Jenkins”
...February 15th, 2020
Dancing with you
I’m not aware that one leg is
shorter than the other
or perhaps one leg is longer
than the other,
February 14th, 2020
. . . . photo by Bouna Ndaiye/used by permission of Gerald Horne Gerald Horne, author of Jazz and Justice: Racism and the Political Economy of the Music . ___ . . …..Jazz music — complex, ground breaking and brilliant from its early 20th century beginnings — would eventually become America’s … Continue reading “Interview with Gerald Horne, author of Jazz and Justice: Racism and the Political Economy of the Music“
...February 12th, 2020
Shepp, believing in the immortality
of Malcolm’s significance, murmurs,
a few weeks after his murder,
“Semper Malcolm” over disjointed jazz,
February 11th, 2020
This story, excerpted from Irving Berlin: New York Genius by James Kaplan, describes how Berlin came to write his first major hit song, “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” and speaks to its historic musical and cultural significance.
...February 10th, 2020
over the image of a city sidewalk
broadly peopled like in
tight dollied crane shots
topcoat thick with
jump notes coming in swarms
February 5th, 2020
I could make the argument that jazz being marketed as a “popular music” officially died on January 12, 1975. Why? Because that was the date of the last Super Bowl halftime show that featured jazz music, in this case a “Tribute to Duke Ellington” performed by the Grambling State University Marching Band and Mercer Ellington.
...February 1st, 2020
In this edition, producer Helen Keane tells Jarrett about how the collaboration of Tony Bennett and Bill Evans began, culminating in the 1975 recording, The Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album.
...January 31st, 2020
even in winter, she is a fire blazing, her eyes are
like the the clearest lake or the best dream or
like an opal, where night finds its song
January 29th, 2020
Miscellaneous news and notes to share…
...January 28th, 2020
. . Arlene Corwin . ___ . …..The community of artists who contribute their work to Jerry Jazz Musician are a special collection of brilliant creators who most often share their souls within the “comfort” of their poetry and prose. .Skilled writing ain’t easy or cheap, but it provides a willing practitioner a … Continue reading “News about the poet Arlene Corwin”
...January 27th, 2020
After a New Year
not the first sunrise
not the first cold bus
not the first trip along the Ohio
not the first day at work
not any of those things
there is nothing special about this morning
January 22nd, 2020
I will accept this one day. I won’t have a choice.
The way I spent my time in San Francisco not finding
the Saint John Coltrane Church,
January 18th, 2020
Don’t be surprised when kindred spirits meet each other at the right place at just the right time. People need people, even if they try to deny it. How many times do you see two people together and wonder, ‘Why do they get along so well?’ You see these people and they don’t look good or don’t seem to fit together; it baffles what should just be familiar.
...January 16th, 2020
Here is a recommendation “from the vaults”…
Jackie McLean on Mars is a 1979 film by Ken Levis that reveals the great alto saxophonist’s skills as an educator at the Hartt School of Music at the University of Hartford.
The 32 minute black-and-white production includes a montage of classic photography and several instances of outstanding music…
...January 14th, 2020
I got da bones
of jazz
scratched out
in diners
back alleys
and cellar stairs
January 11th, 2020
This musician first recorded with Ben Pollack’s band in 1936, and then joined Benny Goodman’s band in 1937. He eventually started his own band, in which Frank Sinatra sang for a short time in 1939. In 1941 he recorded “You Made Me Love You (I Didn’t Want to Do It”), which made him a star, and second only to Glenn Miller in popularity in 1942. Who is he?
...January 10th, 2020
And the clouds
unfastened their seat belts
and fell across the roads and rivers
so Pittsburgh looked like it was a flying pig
January 6th, 2020
In a Jerry Jazz Musician interview, Con Chapman, author of Rabbit’s Blues: The Life and Music of Johnny Hodges – the first-ever biography of the immortal musician – talks about the enigmatic man and his unforgettable sound.
...January 5th, 2020
. . . We Call Him Man-Man ……………In honor of my grandson, Domonic His name is Domonic, we call him Man-Man Only 13, but whatever he wants to do he can He has music running through his veins Beats, rhythms, melodies on his brain At 6 he played the drums in the school drumline moving … Continue reading ““We Call Him Man-Man” — a poem by Aurora M. Lewis”
...January 5th, 2020
The “before and after” work featured in this post utilizes a combination of Russell Dupont’s love for jazz, art, and photography, and when combined with modern digital technology, results in a rare way to experience the art of the music.
...January 3rd, 2020
Greetings, and Happy New Year, Folks:
…..Two things happen today. We bring in a new year, and with it a new decade.
…..There is great hope for the decade. We have to hold that long-term hope, right?
...January 1st, 2020
stepping up the stairway
I carry my trumpet up here
*****
up here in the partial dark
at seventy-two years
December 31st, 2019
. . The 1954 recording Buddy DeFranco and Oscar Peterson Play George Gershwin (Norgran) was produced by Norman Granz, and includes the guitarist Herb Ellis, the bassist Ray Brown, the drummer Bobby White, as well as Russ Garcia and His Orchestra . ___ . …..In his new book, Summertime: George Gershwin’s Life in Music, the … Continue reading “On the Turntable: Buddy DeFranco and Oscar Peterson Play George Gershwin“
...December 30th, 2019
There will be no presents, wrapped or not.
Gifts can be sought, bought, ought to
Anytime, occasion rhyming with a need one’s own.
Food? By all means, and of course!
Lots of courses, for it’s fun to cook,
Break traditions, keeping some.
Summing up a feel and food one’s own.
December 24th, 2019
Jazz music — complex, ground breaking and brilliant from its early 20th century beginnings — would eventually become America’s popular music. That it did so in the face of the severe obstacles of blatant racism and sexism, organized crime and corrupt labor exploitation so prevalent in America at the time is at the heart of historian Gerald Horne’s new book, Jazz and Justice: Racism and the Political Economy of the Music.
...December 21st, 2019
Arlena Sawyer’s mother had spent all seventeen years of her life warning her against what seemed like every last thing under God’s creation. With her thin, trilling voice she had done her best to hammer fear and caution into her only daughter’s head like the beak of a woodpecker into a tree.
...December 17th, 2019
What song sings the earth’s Requiem
The end note in the last stanza of the final chorus
A screaming sax? A trumpet’s ache?
In the Amazon, in California, blazes of wildfires
...December 14th, 2019
Paul Lopes — associate professor of sociology at Colgate University — talks about how ethnicity, class and hypermasculinity impacted the work of these two visionary, independent artists.
...December 13th, 2019
The New York Times’ top jazz album for 2019, as chosen by Giovanni Russonello, is one that I admit to having been smitten by for the past month – the New York pianist Kris Davis’ Diatom Ribbons.
...December 13th, 2019
This legendary saxophonist has worked with Lionel Hampton, Johnny Hodges, Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey, and Art Farmer, and has become known as much for his compositions as the greatness of his horn playing, having written standards like “I Remember Clifford,” “Killer Joe,” and “Along Came Betty.” Who is he?
...December 11th, 2019
In Central Park, New York,
a vigil for dead Lennon.
Sandra, living in Merthyr Tydfil
(the kids now ten and eight),
shooshes them, and Barry’s said
he’ll get them off to bed.
December 8th, 2019
I have had the privilege of publishing John Stupp’s poetry for several years now. Every time he gifts me with an email stuffed with submissions, I eagerly open it like a kid unwrapping the shiniest package under the tree. His creativity is really, honestly, that special.
...December 4th, 2019
“Great Encounters” are book excerpts that chronicle famous encounters among twentieth-century cultural icons. In this edition, Con Chapman, author of Rabbit’s Blues: The Life and Music of Johnny Hodges, writes about Hodges’ early musical training, and the first meeting he had with Sidney Bechet, the influential and legendary reed player who Hodges called “tops in my book.”
...December 3rd, 2019
The stars would burn out before the Constellation Club would fall silent.
No matter the hour, no matter the day, a constant hum of life echoed through the walls.
...December 2nd, 2019
It was a rainy Thanksgiving when
everyone I was related to
or knew even somewhat
were out of town.
I found some semi-edible
turkey at Hughes Market, along
with frozen stuffing that proved
reasonably tasty, adequate
November 28th, 2019
From the artist’s series Pastoral Scenes of the Gallant South, this edition features the Brooklyn-based photographer and visual artist Nona Faustine.
...November 26th, 2019
Few people knew that the great jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong was also an accomplished ballet dancer. It was said that his Arabesque variations were breathtaking.
...November 24th, 2019
I remember a Polish jazz combo I once saw in a movie
about Jews and nuns and suicide. It was after the war
and the band played in basement clubs –
November 20th, 2019
In this edition, Mr. Oakland’s photographs and stories feature Mal Waldron, Jackie McLean and Joe Henderson
...November 18th, 2019
In this edition, producer Creed Taylor tells Jarrett about the recording session and marketing strategy for the 1962 Verve album by Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd, Jazz Samba.
.
...November 16th, 2019
2008. On the seafloor of the Stockholm archipelago near Ingarö the tides swept a body not yet dead back and forth, in eddies of dust that tornadoed up into black, cold water. Jazz had missed its chance again.
...November 15th, 2019
I’ve been bitter a long time. It’s like sucking a wedge of lemon on and on and on, pulp disintegrating, everything dissolving until the flavor turns mellow and mild, almost sweet. I’ve been bitter so long it’s hard to know anymore how anything should feel, or which part of me navigating the world each day is tainted with bitterness and which part is how I always was, even before Ty Greggor smashed through my life.
...November 13th, 2019
Twenty-eight poets contribute 37 poems to the Jerry Jazz Musician Fall Poetry Collection, living proof that the energy and spirit of jazz is alive — and quite well.
(Featuring the art of Russell Dupont)
.
...November 11th, 2019
. . Boston-based writer Con Chapman is the author of two novels, over thirty stage plays, and fifty books of humor. Most recently, he is the author of Rabbit’s Blues, The Life and Music of Johnny Hodges. I had the good fortune of interviewing Mr. Chapman recently about Hodges. That discussion will be published in … Continue reading ““Father Kniest, Jazz Priest”…a short story by Con Chapman”
...November 7th, 2019
In this excerpt, author Paul Lopes writes of how “two starkly different biographical legends (of Miles Davis and Martin Scorsese) emerged: one of an ‘unreconstructed’ black man who lambasted the relentless indestructible power of Jim Crow America, and another, of an ‘unmeltable’ Italian American who became, over time, a quintessential white ethnic American.”
...October 30th, 2019
gee baby
hurt is just
…………………a thought away;
let the blue the color
of your true love’s eyes
…………….as you slow dance
with their departing memory.
October 25th, 2019
His style is unique, expressive, bombastic, heavy and rolling. He became one of the most famous drummers, making vast contributions to the hard bop and post-bop jazz movements. He had great influence on all the jazz musicians he played with, but more importantly, they influenced him.
...October 24th, 2019
The rain had simply just stopped, as suddenly as it had started, with only an occasional leftover droplet now falling from a street sign or lamppost. Some made it to the sidewalk where they joined the puddles in tiny splashes; others were interrupted in their descent, hitting the folded newspapers held overhead by those caught without an umbrella.
...October 21st, 2019
My striking wife
is the cat’s strut—
cello sass
with a syncopated
escalator to
move
October 19th, 2019
“The Birth of the Cool” is a fun, personal, and infectious video by the performance poet Tony Adamo.
...October 18th, 2019
This guitarist was an original member of the Chico Hamilton Quintet, toured with Ella Fitzgerald, and was part of Sonny Rollins’s quartet that recorded the 1962 album The Bridge. Who is he?
Joe Pass
Pat Martino
Grant Green
Tal Farlow
Herb Ellis
Kenny Burrell
Johnny Smith
Jim Hall
...October 17th, 2019
Jonathan was only eight years old the first time he fell. It was the first winter in the new house, and he wasn’t used to the biting cold yet. It was a large, Gothic structure that scared him at first, but he had grown accustomed to the imposing house on the hill.
...October 14th, 2019
Like the song,
“Autumn Leaves,”
thoughts of him
drifted by her windowsill.
October 11th, 2019
Steve Dalachinsky, the brilliant New York-based avant-garde poet whose work often appeared in Jerry Jazz Musician, died on September 16.
...October 10th, 2019
The girl lived on the outskirts of town. It was mainly deserted, save for a few wild beasts that roamed the lands. But she lived with the wolves, and couldn`t breathe without feeling their fur across her lips and teeth. She asked them: what would you do if I left? And the wolves shook their grey eyes and stared at her until she cried.
...September 30th, 2019
Where blood pulses, where
nerves thrum, fingertips
hum with scrape of strings,
September 20th, 2019
In this edition, Michael Jarrett interviews producer Nat Hentoff about his experience of producing recordings for Candid Records, and in particular the 1961 album, Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus
...September 18th, 2019
There’s a new song going around, with a maddening refrain as catchy as that flu plotting its course around the world, killing venerable ancients and babies newly out of the womb. You hear it everywhere and, no matter how much you hate it, you’ll find it bursting out of your head.
...September 15th, 2019
From the series Pastoral Scenes of the Gallant South
...September 14th, 2019
It’s all about the jazz…
Sonny Fortune at Boomer’s
Illinois Jacquet on 58th Street
Duvivier and Cheatham at Highlights
September 12th, 2019
Jerry Jazz Musician regularly publishes a series of posts featuring excerpts of the photography and stories/captions found in Jazz in Available Light by Veryl Oakland. In this edition, Mr. Oakland’s photographs and stories feature Art Pepper, Pat Martino and Joe Williams.
...September 11th, 2019
They
start
right now.
Something new?
Some chords, progression.
...September 8th, 2019
warped certified gold hangs over the shoulder,
…………………………………blue on the wall,
……………..notes on Trane (Coltrane).
September 7th, 2019
Nate Chinen, the former New York Times jazz critic who is now director of editorial content for WBGO Radio, talks about his book, Playing Changes: Jazz for the New Century
...September 4th, 2019
Zoot blew this earth
into a friendlier place—
I can still see,
at the Half Note,
his rough angel face
September 3rd, 2019
Robert Shines lifted his sweat stained fedora just enough to wipe his brow. Stuffing his handkerchief back into his breast pocket he repositioned his hat at a slight angle, rakish style, just enough for a breeze to cool his skin, should one happen by. As luck would have it the Mississippi air was stagnant and sticky this August evening.
...September 3rd, 2019
. . CC0 Public Domain Power house mechanic working on steam pump photo by Lewis Hine, 1920. . . . Vespers In the foundry men made engine blocks ate dirt ate sand made fire Henry Ford was the captain and his word was law when a shift was done there was a … Continue reading ““Vespers” — a poem by John Stupp”
...September 2nd, 2019
A recently released jazz album of significance is Abdullah Ibrahim’s The Balance (pictured), a distinctive and brilliant integration of contemporary exploration with the traditional nod to those who have influenced him over the years – in particular Ellington and Monk.
...August 30th, 2019
Bent over his guitar, bobbing
to its rhythm, he sits on the center wall
that runs the length of the breakwater
August 24th, 2019
In a brilliant August 20, 2019 essay posted on the NPR website titled “Billie Full of Grace,” Professor Fessenden, author of Religion Around Billie Holiday,writes about the effect the convent reformatory Billie Holiday attended as a young woman – Baltimore’s House of the Good Shepherd – had on her life, and on her singing.
...August 22nd, 2019
Being slight of build and juvenile looking was a mixed blessing for Alicia. On the one hand, people tended to be cloyingly condescending towards her – as if she were nine years old instead of seventeen.
...August 20th, 2019
. . Photo by. Marco Chilese .on. Unsplash . . Prayer to the Three Rivers in Pittsburgh . Who I love who I pray for more than anyone but my wife and children do you think of me beautiful Allegheny when you reach the Gulf of Mexico? Monongahela what about you? and … Continue reading “Poetry by Michael L. Newell and John Stupp”
...August 14th, 2019
. . Carol Friedman’s 1976 photograph of Chet Baker . _____ . …..For many of us who revere jazz music – especially those fortunate enough to have grown up during the era of the 12 x 12 record album jacket and coffee table photography books– the images of great musicians taken by photographers like William … Continue reading “The Jazz Photography Issue”
...August 11th, 2019
. . Carol Friedman . ___ . …..During a career now spanning over three decades, the esteemed New York portrait photographer Carol Friedman’s iconic images have appeared on hundreds of album and CD covers. Her poignant, often spontaneous work – a generous sampling of which is on display within and following the interview – includes … Continue reading “Interview with renowned jazz photographer Carol Friedman”
...August 11th, 2019
. . William Gottlieb, c. 1940 . . ___ . …..The first interview I ever hosted for .Jerry Jazz Musician was in 1997 with William Gottlieb, best known as a jazz photographer but who only came into that field when the Washington Post — for whom he wrote a jazz column — determined they could … Continue reading “Interview with jazz photographer William Gottlieb”
...August 8th, 2019
Mosaic Records co-founder Michael Cuscuna shares news concerning the availability of previously unreleased photographs of Blue Note Records sessions taken by Francis Wolff
...August 8th, 2019
. . “Oswald,” a story by Rolli, was a finalist in our recently concluded 51st Short Fiction Contest. It is published with the permission of the author. . . . Photo by. Jolanda van der Meer .on. Unsplash . Oswald by Rolli . _____ . …..Mom was talking to the guy behind the … Continue reading ““Oswald” — a short story by Rolli”
...August 5th, 2019
. . Rahsaan Roland Kirk at the Jazz Workshop, San Francisco April, 1967 (photo by permission Veryl Oakland) . . FROM FLYTOWN When I die I want them to play the Black and Crazy Blues, I want to be cremated, put in a bag of pot and I want beautiful people to smoke me … Continue reading “Poems for Rahsaan Roland Kirk — by John L. Stanizzi”
...August 1st, 2019
In this edition, Michael Jarrett interviews producer John Snyder about the experience of working with Ornette Coleman at the time of his 1977 album Dancing in Your Head for Horizon Records — a division of A & M Records (under Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss)
...July 26th, 2019
Seventeen poets contribute to a collection of jazz poetry reflecting an array of energy, emotion and improvisation
...July 25th, 2019
From Ingham’s series Pastoral Scenes of the Gallant South
...July 24th, 2019
One of the last of the great pianists who emerged from Detroit following World War II, in addition to playing with Benny Goodman, Charles Mingus (pictured), and the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra, he was given knighthood from the President of Liberia in 1970. Who is he?
.
Hank Jones
Roland Hanna
Barry Harris
Tommy Flanagan
Kenny Drew
Wynton Kelly
Randy Weston
Ahmad Jamal
.
Go to the next page for the answer!
...July 23rd, 2019
The shimmering bulb of the brown Long Island sunset was barely enough to illuminate the silently flailing figure in the water. The flaming ball stared down at the commotion from beneath its skin of smog, but the girl simply picked the loose sand up in her hands, running the granules through her stubby fingers, fascinated by the way it felt on her palms, but irritated by how it stuck under her bitten nails.
...July 22nd, 2019
. . . Climate Change If the sea keeps rising it will reach Pittsburgh tomorrow and I will put on new clothes and forget Myrtle Beach and Charleston and the Outer Banks and I will pray with the fish over rusty mills and trade places with ore cars and cranes roses are red … Continue reading ““Climate Change” — a poem by John Stupp”
...July 20th, 2019
A multi-episodes film about the musical and personal life of David Friesen, the legendary American jazz musician, composer, educator.
...July 19th, 2019
I have not heard
all the jazz
or understand
it all.
July 16th, 2019
Do you ever have a time in your life when you feel like you’re about to step off a cliff?
I don’t normally have those moments. If I could organize my entire life playing by the rules, I think I could mosey along and get through living just fine. I am the student my teachers wish me to be. I am the daughter my parents desire. I am the perfect best friend to the girls in my class. According to choirmaster, I am one of the best sopranos in the church choir.
...July 9th, 2019
There can be bebop and billowing skirts,
hot pastrami and cold beer, but only if
we’re good.
July 8th, 2019
Jerry Jazz Musician regularly publishes a series of posts featuring excerpts of the photography and stories/captions found in Jazz in Available Light by Veryl Oakland. In this edition, Mr. Oakland’s photographs and stories feature Art Pepper, Pat Martino and Joe Williams.
...July 6th, 2019
“Thinking about the Truesdells,” comes from a seven-work series entitled Pastoral Scenes from the Gallant South (from Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit”).
...July 1st, 2019
all night I dreamed I was lost
at sea in an alley on a battlefield
in a junkyard in a waterfront dive
when suddenly I found a room
filled with music where fear
was eased where losses were mourned
June 28th, 2019
This musician has been an inspiration to many contemporary jazz artists. An original member of the Chico Hamilton Quintet, he also worked with Sonny Rollins, toured with Ella Fitzgerald, co-led a quartet with Art Farmer (pictured), and occasionally recorded with Paul Desmond and Bill Evans. Who is he?
...June 26th, 2019
Jazz
is
a charged trap in chill-charmed, ginger jams.
Chaz
says
their charts changed the channel from the jejune chants.
June 25th, 2019
In addition to being an accomplished saxophonist, composer, arranger, and leader of his own groups, New York-based Peter Furlan is an avid reader of contemporary literature.
...June 20th, 2019
Nineteen-seventies half-heard-of place.
You needed to tread up through the garlic
and the raspberry canes to the hall,
a sort of hall, with a lovely grained
and golden floor. Sometimes committees
of a kind would sit around there
June 17th, 2019
I am thinking of my dad today, and devote this space to honor him.
...June 16th, 2019
my grandmother always said
my father had all the luck.
he was in all the right places
at the right time.
June 15th, 2019
Harry Delaney is a night janitor, and he is teaching himself to fly. As he works his mop up and down the dim corridors of Waterville Public High School, he can feel what it would be like, floating, say, four feet above the floor, moving easily through the air, though not fast.
...June 15th, 2019
. . Speak No Evil, a 1964 recording session by saxophonist Wayne Shorter (released in 1966), was among those listed by noted critics, authors and musicians as their all-time favorite Blue Note albums . __________ . “Reminiscing in Tempo” is part of a continuing effort to provide Jerry Jazz Musician readers with unique forms of … Continue reading “Reminiscing in Tempo: “What are 4 or 5 of your all-time favorite Blue Note albums?””
...June 14th, 2019
Interview with jazz record producer, discographer, and entrepreneur Michael Cuscuna.
...June 13th, 2019
In this edition, Michael Jarrett interviews producer Creed Taylor about how he came to use tape overdubs during the 1957 Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross Sing a Song of Basie recording session
...June 8th, 2019
In this month’s collection, with great jazz artists at the core of their work, 16 poets remember, revere, ponder, laugh, dream, and listen
...June 6th, 2019
swollen with spring rain
creek sings in crooked path round
boulders trees down mountainside
a song wild as Coltrane solo
...June 1st, 2019
. . . _____ . . New Jazz Music Recommendations . . While much of the listening for this month’s edition of “On the Turntable” took place, as always, while walking the sidewalks and paths of Northeast Portland neighborhoods and parks, much of it also took place during … Continue reading ““On the Turntable” — June, 2019 edition”
...May 31st, 2019
“Thinking about Charlie Parker,” comes from a series entitled Pastoral Scenes from the Gallant South (from Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit”).
...May 31st, 2019
In an April 28, 2019 post on Jazz Journal, journalist Mark Gilbert talks with Webb about his love for jazz music, and where it intersects with country music.
...May 26th, 2019
A low tide
in South Carolina recedes
like the end of a Sonny Rollins solo
until
sand leaves its resume in the inlet
or until
pelicans take the remaining choruses
out where the ocean says I am the God
May 24th, 2019
Although he was famous for modernizing the sound of the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra (“On the Sunny Side of the Street” was his biggest hit while working for Dorsey), this arranger will forever be best-known for his work for the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra. Who is he?
...May 22nd, 2019
Watching the documentary
I CALLED HIM MORGAN
it began to gnaw at me
that I’d been unfair to Helen
May 15th, 2019
We had many excellent entrants in our recently concluded 50th Short Fiction Contest. In addition to publishing the winning story on March 11, with the consent of the authors, we have published several of the short-listed stories…
...May 12th, 2019
Jeffrey Stewart, National Book Award-winning author of The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke, discusses the life of the man known as the father of the Harlem Renaissance
...May 12th, 2019
This empty quarter inside him,
inside his still-beating heart,
was full of song and fun.
There was loud pizzicato music
and air and spirits flying about
all bright things in sight.
May 12th, 2019
Stelle eyed herself in the bathroom mirror, nodded firmly at her reflection, and tore her wig off.
Her new shingle cut was so sharp it could have sliced through paper like scissors, and it gleamed the same glossy hue as ink. She smoothed the pads of her thumbs against her head to straighten the curls that had bloomed beneath the wig, and examined herself with satisfaction.
May 9th, 2019
This month, in a special collection of poetry, eight poets contribute seventeen poems focused on stories about family, and honoring mothers and fathers
...May 8th, 2019
. . . . Trajet Introspeculative — to Sun Ra, Saturday night: on one (actually, Sun Da morning) — terrible swift disin- clination to forgive the equally terrible tyranny of time signa- ture, attesting to what can, which must not — that, that ken abundant wherever choi- ces be told: rs, joints, and drums, … Continue reading “Two poems by John Jack Jackie (Edward) Cooper”
...May 7th, 2019
On my second date with Samantha, I told her, “We shouldn’t fall for each other.”
...May 6th, 2019
Jerry Jazz Musician regularly publishes a series of posts featuring excerpts of the photography and stories/captions found in Jazz in Available Light by Veryl Oakland. In this edition, Mr. Oakland’s photographs and stories feature Stan Getz, Sun Ra, and Carla Bley.
...May 5th, 2019
This month, a playlist of 19 recently released jazz recordings, including those by Branford Marsalis, Joe Martin, Scott Robinson, Allison Au and Warren Vache
...May 4th, 2019
choirs of insects serenade night
couples bury faces in lovers’ hair
distant train’s cry soars through dark
May 2nd, 2019
“The Cardinal Club” a story by Carole Ackelson, was a finalist in our recently concluded 50th Short Fiction Contest.
...April 30th, 2019
“Thinking about Homer Plessy,” comes from a seven-work series entitled Pastoral Scenes from the Gallant South (from Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit”).
...April 29th, 2019
It sounded like, “Che ate Pat’s grandma”!
And I’m like…. Before I forget, the “Check Engine”
April 27th, 2019
Before his tragic early death, this trumpeter played with Max Roach, Abbey Lincoln, and John Coltrane, and most famously during a 1961 Five Spot gig with Eric Dolphy. Who is he?
.
Fats Navarro
Booker Little
Howard McGhee
Kenny Dorham
Red Rodney
Lee Morgan
Blue Mitchell
Clifford Brown
Go to the next page for the answer!
...April 25th, 2019
She aimed her horn at my left ear and blasted it for 16 seconds that lasted the rest of my life. Even though the trumpet was pressed to her lips, I could see the smirk her mouthpiece couldn’t quite hide.
...April 23rd, 2019
I only rose after I heard the horn
Good Mary gave up
On me
But my soul only knows the
Song Miles sing
He made it with notes
April 21st, 2019
Steve Dalachinsky, a New York poet whose work is often published on Jerry Jazz Musician, is currently in Paris, and contributes two timely poems…
...April 20th, 2019
I’ve suffered Winter
enough America says
shoveling the 1930’s
and scraping
and shivering
April 19th, 2019
Galinsky was killing my buzz. I could not see his face behind a fuming joint, clenched between his tarry teeth, but I could see his hands—one holding a deck of playing cards, one opened gesturally. They wove with the languid rhythm of a Greek rhetorician as Galinsky droned on about the pratfalls of legalized cannabis: how the government had screwed up a good thing, how the government was greedy, how the government had put the kibosh on a thriving subculture—a tribe to which we after all, at this game, belonged. The black market had provided a beautiful service, in his words, without all the red tape and
...April 13th, 2019
it was inevitable that eventually the voodoo would run you down
catch you and carry you away so you left with him on the sorcerer’s train
April 12th, 2019
In 1964, along with the orchestra of arranger Lalo Schifrin (pictured), this flutist/alto sax player recorded one of the first “Jazz Masses,” and soon after studied transcendental meditation in India. He would eventually become well known as a composer of music for meditation. Who is he?
Paul Winter
Herbie Mann
Anthony Braxton
John Tchicai
Paul Horn
Arthur Blythe
David Sanborn
Paul McCandless
Go to the next page for the answer!
...
April 11th, 2019
Maxine Gordon, author of Sophisticated Giant: The Life and Legacy of Dexter Gordon, discusses her late husband’s complex, fascinating life.
...April 11th, 2019
Seventeen poets contribute 21 poems in this month’s edition…
...April 10th, 2019
“Thinking About Ida B. Wells” is the second image published on Jerry Jazz Musician from Ingham’s seven work series “Scenes From the Gallant South” (from Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit”)
...April 5th, 2019
This month, 22 recently released jazz recordings are recommended, including those by Chris Potter, Sons of Kemet, Joey DeFrancesco, Stephan Crump, Julian Lage, Antonio Sanchez and Brittany Anjou
...April 4th, 2019
The poets Ed Coletti, Arlene Corwin, Roger Singer and Michael Keshigian celebrate jazz music…
...April 3rd, 2019
In this edition, Dexter Gordon tells the story of joining Louis Armstrong’s band in 1944, and how they enjoyed their intermission time.
...April 2nd, 2019
“Strings of Solace” was a finalist in our recently concluded 50th Short Fiction Contest.
...March 31st, 2019
has 10 Picasso’s in Timbuktu
says the sand dunes in the sahara are
sensual & soft
refers to that desert as “she”
carries secrets in his water sack
March 29th, 2019
In this edition of Veryl Oakland’s “Jazz in Available Light,” photographs of Red Garland, Dizzy Gillespie and Rahsaan Roland Kirk are featured.
...March 27th, 2019
Weathered and calm,
A slight, gray haired saxophonist,
Peers out at the world around him,
He steps forward,
and begins a conversational discourse,
March 22nd, 2019
It is tempting to say that this story took place a long time ago, but that would not be accurate. The place where this story unfolds did not suffer Time as we know it—the linear time of beginnings and endings, of what once was, of what might never be.
...March 20th, 2019
Upon replacing Cootie Williams (pictured), this trumpeter’s very first night with Duke Ellington’s Orchestra was fully documented during the band’s famous November 7, 1940 Fargo, North Dakota concert. Who is he?
Ray Nance
Rex Stewart
Cat Anderson
Lawrence Brown
Shorty Baker
Johnny Coles
Go to the next page for the answer!
...March 16th, 2019
. . . . Miles In five notes …all the sadness of life A pause___ long enough …for another sorrow ………to slip in And then___ a note so piercing, …it hurts . by Susandale . . ___ . . . Susandale’s poems and fiction are on .WestWard Quarterly, Mad Swirl, Penman … Continue reading ““Miles” — a poem by Susandale”
...March 15th, 2019
Gary Giddins, Jimmy Heath, Fred Hersch, Joe Hagan, Maxine Gordon, Tim Page, Veronica Swift and Marcus Strickland are among the 25 writers, musicians, poets, educators, and photographers who responded to our question, “What are some of your favorite record album covers of all time?”
...March 12th, 2019
And so we left for Paris, you in the green jacket I’d made you with the picture collar and turned back cuffs, and I in my blue pinstripe, which made me look like a handsome young man.
“You look like a boy,” you said, laughing as we stumbled to our carriage on the train.
“I suppose it would be easier if I were.”
“Not at all, darling,” you said, and pulled the window shade down so you could kiss me. “Anyway, who wants it to be easy?”
March 11th, 2019
Mary Schmidt Campbell, author of .An American Odyssey: The Life and Work of Romare Bearden,discusses the remarkable life of this important American artist in a Jerry Jazz Musician interview.
...March 9th, 2019
“Thinking about Robert Johnson,” comes from a seven-work series entitled Pastoral Scenes from the Gallant South (from Billie Holliday’s “Strange Fruit”).
...March 9th, 2019
18 poets contribute 20 poems to the March collection
...March 8th, 2019
The short film follows the story of a young jazz musician who attempts to survive aggressive grannies and other terrifying beasts at a post-concert reception. “Say What!” features voice acting from Tony-nominee Charles Busch, original artwork by iconic American illustrator, Bob Ziering, and music performed by top New York’s jazz musicians including guitar legend, Bucky Pizzarelli.
...March 8th, 2019
in the toilette
in front of gate 73
Louis Armstrong sings & plays
i can’t see him but i know he’s here
he’s soloing
March 7th, 2019
On a couple of days, stretched that to a week, yeah,
that’s how you gonna be.
Akin to the ravaged beauty
that serenaded jazz clubs in late 70’s France.
March 7th, 2019
A month of walking the dog around the (often frigid) park, ear buds in place, resulted in lots of interesting. discoveries from artists known and unknown (at least to me). This month, an eclectic blend of 18 recently released recordings from all over the globe.
...March 5th, 2019
On March 11, 2019, .Jerry Jazz Musician.will publish the 50th.winning story in our thrice-yearly Short Fiction Contest. To celebrate this landmark event, we have asked all the previous winners (dating to 2002) to reflect on their own winning story, and how their lives have since unfolded.
This week’s edition covers authors of winning stories #’s 45 – 49
...March 4th, 2019
I intended to be up there – way up there –
Vermont, perhaps,
playing jazz
into the blue
predawn hours
sipping something strong.
March 1st, 2019
Among the many important events of the civil rights movement were the demonstrations known as the “Freedom Rides, in which activists rode interstate buses in the south in 1961 and beyond in protest of local laws enforcing segregation in bus seating and in bus terminals in defiance of the United States Supreme Court decisions Morgan v. Virginia (1946) and Boynton v. Virginia (1960) ruling segregation of buses unconstitutional.
...February 28th, 2019
He must
have been separated
from a herd of boys
thus he was lost
in his early ‘20’s
blue jeans and an old J & L mill jacket
from Goodwill
February 26th, 2019
On March 11, 2019, .Jerry Jazz Musician.will publish the 50th.winning story in our thrice-yearly Short Fiction Contest. To celebrate this landmark event, we have asked all the previous winners (dating to 2002) to reflect on their own winning story, and how their lives have since unfolded.
This week’s edition covers authors of winning stories #’s 39 – 44
...February 25th, 2019
Before he became popular with a non-jazz audience by recording swing standards and show tunes with his quartet, this artist was an important trumpeter for two decades, playing on a riverboat in the 1920’s, and in the orchestras of Horace Henderson, Lil Armstrong, McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, Stuff Smith (pictured) and Cab Calloway. His first hit was “On the Street Where You Live.” Who is he?
...February 23rd, 2019
Storyville a bit of hell in the city of Saints
Piano men played ragtime and honky-tonk
It was there Buddy Bolden with his cornet
February 22nd, 2019
In an interview originally published on Jerry Jazz Musician in 2004, Jack Johnson biographer Geoffrey Ward talks about the first black heavyweight champion in history, the celebrated — and most reviled — African American of his age.
...February 21st, 2019
In this edition, Paul writes about jazz album covers that offer glimpses into intriguing corners of the 1950’s culture
...February 20th, 2019
Like rivers
bubbling to the surface
he brings
the vibrations
of jazz
blending into
shadowed corners
where light pushes in
February 19th, 2019
On March 11, 2019, .Jerry Jazz Musician.will publish the 50th.winning story in our thrice-yearly Short Fiction Contest. To celebrate this landmark event, we have asked all the previous winners (dating to 2002) to reflect on their own winning story, and how their lives have since unfolded.
This week’s edition covers authors of winning stories #’s 35 – 38
...February 18th, 2019
The photography of Sigitas Kondratas — a resident of Vilnius, Lithuania — caught my eye this week. His interesting technique conveys the music’s movement, artistry and intimacy. It is refreshing to see contemporary jazz musicians interpreted by an artist from Eastern Europe.
...February 17th, 2019
. . . . In an interview originally published on Jerry Jazz Musician in 2003, Rosa Parks biographer David Brinkley talks about the life of “the first lady of the civil rights movement,” whose refusal to move to the back of the bus in 1955 led to the Montgomery, Alabama Bus Boycott , the … Continue reading “A Black History Month Profile: Rosa Parks”
...February 16th, 2019
when thinking
of this idea,
I always,
think of someone playing
February 14th, 2019
On March 11, 2019, .Jerry Jazz Musician.will publish the 50th.winning story in our thrice-yearly Short Fiction Contest. To celebrate this landmark event, we have asked all the previous winners (dating to 2002) to reflect on their own winning story, and how their lives have since unfolded.
This week’s edition covers authors of winning stories #’s 29 – 34
...February 11th, 2019
It is the silent song
inside his head
inside his heart
inside his ear,
February 10th, 2019
The classic song “My Funny Valentine” was part of a musical, .Babes in Arms, that also included the songs “Where or When,” “I Wish I Were in Love Again,” and “The Lady is a Tramp.” Who wrote the music and lyrics of this 1937 musical?
...February 9th, 2019
In Help! The Beatles, Duke Ellington, and the Magic of Collaboration, Duke University musicologist Thomas Brothers – author of two essential studies of Louis Armstrong – tells a fascinating account of how creative cooperation inspired two of the world’s most celebrated groups.
The following interview with Mr. Brothers about his book — hosted and produced by Jerry Jazz Musician. publisher Joe Maita — was conducted on December 10, 2018.
...February 5th, 2019
John Coltrane
A bitter wind blows thru A LOVE SUPREME
& people are still waiting for the Ascension
with their eyes closed teeth clenched & fingers crossed
February 5th, 2019
Recommended listening…20 recently released jazz tunes by, among others, Brad Mehldau, Matt Penman, Ethan Iverson/Mark Turner, Ben Wendel, Julian Lage, and Don Byron
...February 5th, 2019
Twelve poets contribute 15 poems to this month’s collection
...February 5th, 2019
On March 11, 2019, .Jerry Jazz Musician.will publish the 50th.winning story in our thrice-yearly Short Fiction Contest. To celebrate this landmark event, we have asked all the previous winners (dating to 2002) to reflect on their own winning story, and how their lives have since unfolded.
This week’s edition covers authors of winning stories #’s 24 – 28
...February 4th, 2019
. . . . SERENDIPITY As I walk down the dirt road from my job, headed slowly home, I pass a few people wandering here and there as their work day ends; I amble past an old home with a corrugated metal roof, bricks holding down the sheets of metal from blowing away, a … Continue reading ““Serendipity” — a poem by Michael L. Newell”
...February 1st, 2019
In this edition, Paul writes about the album art of classical label Westminster Records
...January 31st, 2019
“Great Encounters” are book excerpts that chronicle famous encounters among twentieth-century cultural icons. In this edition, Joe Hagan, author of .STICKY FINGERS: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine, writes about how co-founders Wenner and legendary San Francisco music critic Ralph Gleason came upon the name for their revolutionary publication, Rolling Stone
...January 30th, 2019
Apollo Blue, come blow harmonica.
The blues in the meadow, the brass in the horn.
The drum hammers beating where thunder is born.
January 29th, 2019
On March 11, 2019, .Jerry Jazz Musician.will publish the 50th.winning story in our thrice-yearly Short Fiction Contest. To celebrate this landmark event, we have asked all the previous winners (dating to 2002) to reflect on their own winning story, and how their lives have since unfolded.
This week’s edition covers authors of winning stories #’s 17- 23
...January 28th, 2019
I will soon be interviewing Ms. Maxine Gordon, author of Sophisticated Giant: The Life and Legacy of Dexter Gordon, whose biography of her late husband is a creatively and beautifully told account of the essential mid-20th century saxophonist.
...January 22nd, 2019
On March 11, 2019, .Jerry Jazz Musician.will publish the 50th.winning story in our thrice-yearly Short Fiction Contest. To celebrate this landmark event, we have asked all the previous winners (dating to 2002) to reflect on their own winning story, and how their lives have since unfolded.
This week’s edition covers authors of winning stories #’s 12 – 16
...January 21st, 2019
in the Cincy club
drowning Gary’s vibes.
Stan asked them to stop.
January 19th, 2019
The snow flows
across the night
each flake a note
one pure blues note
unrepeated unequalled
throughout all recorded time
January 17th, 2019
Guitar has provenance:
American women, Baez, Mitchell,
lingered over thrumming strings,
hair flopped in absorption.
January 14th, 2019
On March 11, 2019, .Jerry Jazz Musician.will publish the 50th.winning story in our thrice-yearly Short Fiction Contest. To celebrate this landmark event, we have asked all the previous winners (dating to 2002) to reflect on their own winning story, and how their lives have since unfolded.
This week’s edition covers authors of winning stories #’s 7 – 11
...January 14th, 2019
. . “The Wailing Wall” by Justin Short was the winner of the 48th Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest. It was originally published in July, 2018, and is one of six pieces published on. Jerry Jazz Musician. in 2018 nominated for the prestigious Pushcart Prize . . __________ . . . … Continue reading ““The Wailing Wall” — a short story by Justin Short”
...January 11th, 2019
. . . This trumpeter began his career in California, where he organized a big band that had a residency in China in 1934, and, during a trip through Kansas City in 1936, was invited to join Count Basie’s orchestra, replacing “Hot Lips” Page. Who is he? . Ray Nance Buck Clayton Charlie Shavers … Continue reading “Jazz History Quiz #122”
...January 8th, 2019
. . “Billie Holiday” by Steve Dalachinsky . . Billie Holiday someone’s special greatness hides inside us somewhere like a strange fruit……..unexplainable hard ripe rotten..fine..fractured but mellow filled with love…disappointment & solitude & heavy like…a rock in one’s heart you may make it or you may die in your room overlooking the park….or an … Continue reading ““Billie Holiday” — a poem (with collage) by Steve Dalachinsky”
...January 7th, 2019
. . In this collection, nine poets contribute ten poems celebrating jazz in poems as unique as the music itself . . . . I Am Jazz . I Am Jazz. It is my nature to evolve, to change and adapt. I’m restless. I move towards a future I cannot see or predict. … Continue reading “A collection of poetry celebrating the culture of jazz — January, 2019”
...January 7th, 2019
. . . . I am having time to listen to new music more regularly these days, and finding great pleasure in many of the “grooves.” (Full disclosure…investing $10 per month in a Spotify account — while not the sensual experience of laying the needle on the vinyl — effortlessly gets your ears to … Continue reading “On the Turntable — January, 2019 edition”
...January 7th, 2019
On March 11, 2019, .Jerry Jazz Musician.will publish the 50th.winning story in our thrice-yearly Short Fiction Contest. To celebrate this landmark event, we have asked all the previous winners (dating to 2002) to reflect on their own winning story, and how their lives have since unfolded.
This week’s edition covers authors of winning stories #’s 1 – 6
...January 7th, 2019
. . . …..While Langston Hughes, Billie Holiday and Ralph Ellison are not known as being “religious” figures, they have, in a way, become “sacred” figures. Revered, iconic and inspirational, their essential work contributed mightily to the creative climate of twentieth-century America, and did so in the midst of complex and evolving religious … Continue reading “A Roundtable conversation — “Religion ‘around’ Langston Hughes, Billie Holiday and Ralph Ellison””
...January 7th, 2019
. . “If you can dance at all, you can dance to [Guy] Lombardo’s music,” the Metronome writer George T. Simon wrote in 1942. The Lombardo band’s popularity was once so immense and widespread that he set attendance marks wherever he went, including at Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom. His appeal came despite what Simon described as … Continue reading “Guy Lombardo, “about as artistically creative as the average comic book””
...January 1st, 2019
. . . . AS DAY ENDS . Clark Terry’s horn unleashes a silvery note ……………….that ascends ………………………ever higher ………………………………to join a golden full moon ………………………………………rising into early evening orbit. When the note ends, listeners discover they have forgotten ……………….to breathe, ………………………and slowly rejoin ………………………………………their quiet neighborhood and prepare for sleep ………where they will drift … Continue reading “Two poems for the New Year…by Alan Yount and Michael L. Newell”
...December 31st, 2018
. . “Arabesque,” a story by Anisha Johnson, was a finalist in our recently concluded 49th Short Fiction Contest. It is published with the permission of the author. . . . Arabesque by Anisha Johnson . ___ . …..The first notes of Debussy’s First Arabesque soared through the air, each note so light … Continue reading ““Arabesque” — a short story by Anisha Johnson”
...December 27th, 2018
. . . . . He Wrote a Song for Tina Monk’s first love was Ruby, McCoy Tyner wrote of Aisha, Miles, Back Seat Betty and he wrote a song for Tina the one who broke his heart, led astray only to creep back in again with someone else’s baby, I nursed his wounds gave … Continue reading ““He Wrote a Song for Tina” — a poem by Aurora Lewis”
...December 26th, 2018
…..I have to wonder how many friendships have been forged over mutual love of Miles Davis’ album, Kind of Blue. The one I want to tell you about came to pass in an unlikely setting back during the winter of 1963…
...December 19th, 2018
. . . Cool Blue He leaned back, closed his eyesand blew and knewthat next to him a string bass twirled,was plucked and plinked, and the drumwas a follow-up man with a tin cancollecting coins from flat handsmeeting in the darkto celebrate the soulfulsound of his breathbecause the moon was fulland the night cooland … Continue reading “Three poems by Phyllis Wax”
...December 19th, 2018
. . 12 poets contribute 19 poems dedicated to the culture of jazz music, and to the holiday season… . . Collage by Steve Dalachinsky John Stupp’s third poetry collection Pawleys Island was published in 2017 by Finishing Line Press. His manuscript Summer Job won the 2017 Cathy Smith Bowers Poetry Prize and will … Continue reading “Poetry celebrating jazz and the holiday season”
...December 14th, 2018
SONGBIRD a blues note broken in the middle the songbird in the brambles startled into silence shame for the intrusion all autumn I have wandered in search of a music which would still this dull grief for every person I see wandering alone every child I see looking at the world with a … Continue reading ““Songbird” — a poem by Michael L. Newell”
...December 14th, 2018
“The Man Who Lives in My Head,” a story by Luke Bergvist, was a finalist in our recently concluded 49th Short Fiction Contest. It is published with the permission of the author. The Man Who Lives in My Head by Luke Bergvist ___ {A handwritten manuscript, fished from the … Continue reading ““The Man Who Lives in My Head” — a short story by Luke Bergvist”
...December 13th, 2018
FOR CHET BAKER, TRUMPET PLAYER, AT AGE TWENTY FOUR I saw a picture of you, in 1954 on the today t.v. show with host dave garroway. you both looked so happy. dave held up his own trumpet too. your trumpet playing was being witnessed & … Continue reading ““For Chet Baker, Trumpet Player, at Age Twenty Four” — a poem by Alan Yount”
...December 7th, 2018
. . . The Graystone Ballroom 4237 Woodward Ave. Detroit, Michigan . _____ . On February 27, 1922, when dancing in giant ballrooms was wildly popular, Detroit’s Graystone Ballroom – a block long structure on Woodward Avenue — opened with the All-University Ball. According to Dan Austin of HistoricDetroit.org, the property’s original owners … Continue reading “Historic Venues: Detroit’s Graystone Ballroom”
...December 7th, 2018
_____ During a 1927 session with the McKenzie-Condon Chicagoans, he became the first musician to use a full drum set on records. Who is he? Vic Berton Dave Tough Ben Pollack Gene Krupa Baby Dodds Zutty Singleton Sonny Greer Go to the next page for the answer!
...December 4th, 2018
. . Photo William Gottlieb/Library of Congress Charlie Parker is frequently found on the lists of noted critics and musicians answering the question, “What are 3 or 4 of your favorite jazz record recordings of the 1940’s?” This photograph by William Gottlieb was taken at Carnegie Hall in New York, c. 1947 . __________ … Continue reading “Reminiscing in Tempo: “What are 3 or 4 of your favorite jazz recordings of the 1940’s?””
...December 4th, 2018
Uncle Joey Blows Trombone at Le Jazz Hot by Lawrence J. Klumas _____ You would think that for such a momentous occasion my memory would be crystal clear. This is not so. I have no personal memory of hearing my Uncle Joey at Le Jazz Hot, that Friday night on … Continue reading ““Uncle Joey Blows Trombone at Le Jazz Hot” – a short story by Lawrence J. Klumas”
...December 4th, 2018
Jerry Jazz Musician is fortunate to have had hundreds of accomplished writers and poets submit their work for consideration of publication during this calendar year. Many thanks to everyone who thinks enough of this website to desire sharing their creative vision with our readers. The works published are outstanding examples of the connections that exist between jazz music, its culture, and the literary arts.
I am proud to report that I have nominated six exceptional published pieces for the prestigious
...December 4th, 2018
I drifted off into the best sleep I’ve had in weeks. In months even. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to get into Fat Daddy’s as a regular. It’s the hottest – no, it’s the coolest jazz club there is. On any given night you’d find the club cradled with sweet melodies and rocked by spoken word poetry. And on Friday nights, you used to be able to catch us…
Thing is, my band and I got banned last year. But before then, we had lines out the door with folks wanting to hear us play. The whites, the blacks, the browns and those that fell in between because their parents had jungle fever. The attention can become quite addicting. There wasn’t any fortune though, it’s a small town.
Fast forward to now – a year later. I managed to befriend
...November 26th, 2018
So many great poetry submissions of late, for which I am incredibly thankful. The spirit within every poem received — whether published or not — is evident and cheered and appreciated.
Here are three recent arrivals…
Happy Thanksgiving, peace and blessings to all.
_____
The Keyboard Player
by Robert Nisbet
Daily, he worked from nine o’clock till five.
His life and family and things were fine.
For some the moment, the anticipatory one,
...November 21st, 2018
In Sunday’s New York Times, Giovanni Russonello writes a splendid short history of Louis Armstrong, and shares news about how Armstrong’s personal writings, recordings and artifacts have been digitized, allowing people who register access to his great body of work via the Louis Armstrong House Museum’s website.
In addition to Russonello’s report, there are several wonderful short recordings of Armstrong in the
...November 20th, 2018
Those interested in the power and possibility of mingling poetry and music – especially jazz music – will find great joy in a 10 minute conversation between Brazilian singer and composer Luciana Souza and NPR’s Lisa Mullins, in which Souza discusses her 2018 album, The Book of Longing. The album features poems by
...November 17th, 2018
In honor of Veterans Day
Eight poets — John Stupp, Aurora Lewis, Michael L. Newell, Robert Nisbet, Alan Yount, Roger Singer, dan smith and Joan Donovan — write about the era of World War II
...
November 12th, 2018
two hepcats scat sing
drum the hippest
of hip music
advertise “Love for Sale”
in wild musical riffs
dancing through air
nothing held back
all is passion
imagination
total physical commitment
November 9th, 2018
The first time I saw her, she was puffing softly on a cigarette in the girls’ bathroom. She looked all too much the devil incarnate, with tattered jeans and a band shirt that left no doubt at all that their songs would consist of guitar smashing and angsty screaming. She had dyed her hair this brilliant shade of blue that was almost black it was so dark. Upon her exhale, a long strand of smoke twirled from her ruby stained lips and curled around a nose ring that
...November 7th, 2018
I saw the nod of the piano-man —
Launched into the written introduction
Of melody & theme weaving practiced notes
Inside and around the bass & percussion’s tempo.
Delightful eight bars — an in-unison quartet
November 5th, 2018
You were reading Bukowski.
The trio was playing Imagine.
Pretty sounds for our satisfaction.
I said Bukowski was a tough mother.
October 31st, 2018
Gary Giddins, his generation’s most eminent jazz writer and author of the award winning biography Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams: The Early Years, 1903 – 1940, talks with us about his brilliant second book on Crosby, Swinging on a Star: The War Years, 1940 – 1946. The interview is a fascinating read — a virtual history of Crosby’s life and his impact on America during its most consequential decade. Featuring photos, music and film clips, and information about Giddins’ experience studying Crosby for 25 years.
...October 25th, 2018
On November 21, Universal Pictures will release Green Book, a film directed by Peter Farrelly, and starring Mahershala Ali as African-American pianist Don Shirley, and Viggo Mortensen as “Tony Lip,” a New York bouncer who worked as Shirley’s driver during his 1962 concert tour of the South.
Shirley’s musical style can most easily be described as varied. His cabaret-style jazz playing at times sounds like “Eric Satie meets Erroll Garner,” while his impressive classical work took him to, among others, performances with the Boston Pops Orchestra, the London Philharmonic, and Detroit and Chicago Symphonies. He also composed several symphonies, string quartets, and classical piano pieces. His work caught the attention of Duke Ellington, who hired Shirley to play at his 1955 Carnegie Hall performance. His career featured a long stint with Cadence Records, where, during the 1950’s and 60’s he recorded 16 albums, including 1965’s
...October 9th, 2018
Ilya Bernstein, Freddington, Michael L. Newell, Stephen R. Walsh and Dan Franch contribute to this fine collection of poetry…
...October 8th, 2018
Before recording with Benny Carter in 1956 and then recording three albums for Riverside between 1957 – 1959, Anna Maria Woolridge was a “lightweight” supper-club singer who went through several name changes, ultimately becoming “Mrs. Max Roach.” Who was Anna Maria Woolridge?
Mary Lou Williams
Dinah Washington
Abbey Lincoln
Melba Liston
Sheila Jordan
Lorez Alexandria
Irene Kral
Go to the next page for the answer!
...
October 5th, 2018
FULL OF FAT From discarded crumbs, like falling stars onto stage horns and strings form dreams from blues and tears, where fear has no place and lies provides promises past midnight while jazz makes people hungry and rhythm tops off the soul like cities next to rivers smothering the seeds of … Continue reading “Two new Roger Singer poems”
...September 26th, 2018
While the civil rights movement may not have officially begun until the December, 1955 day that Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus, the stage for it was set years before that. Religious leaders and institutions, jazz and athletics all famously played important roles in building a foundation for the movement,
...September 24th, 2018
I am always happy to report when a writer published on Jerry Jazz Musician finds success with their work. Michael L. Newell informs me that a new book of his poetry, “Meditation of an Old Man Standing on a Bridge,” is now available from Seattle’s Bellowing Ark Press. This is particularly rewarding as I have proudly published many of the poems Michael has submitted to me since 2015 – two of which appear in this collection.
Michael’s poetry is a gift to those of us who love and appreciate the culture inspired by jazz music. His creative spirit is aligned with those musicians he writes about, maintaining a sensitivity critical to communicating the music’s cultural aesthetic.
Whenever I receive submissions from Michael, I know I will be reading the poetry of a well-traveled man whose work can lead me anywhere – a rainy window in Kigali, a snowy stroll in Tashkent, a Christmas spent alone in Jordan, a puzzling evening in
...September 22nd, 2018
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,
September 19th, 2018
Nothing can spoil today, not even our Sue. It’s the third Saturday in September, 1978. I’m 11 years old and like every other girl in our street, (and some of the boys), I’ve waited months for this. I know all the singles off by heart, I’ve watched the videos on Top of the Pops, posters of John Travolta have replaced Starsky and Hutch on my bedroom wall, and finally, FINALLY, after hearing the songs all Summer, the people of England can go to the cinema and watch Grease.
All the Brook Street lot are going; kids from six different families with four of their mums; The Thompsons, the Maguires, the Connollys, the Yips, the Browns and us. I’m as excited as the rest of them, but the difference is, I can’t tell anyone who the flutters in my stomach are for.
We all get the bus together. It’s packed and we have to stand in the aisle, fingers slippery on the
...September 18th, 2018
Part 1: Confirmation (1969)
It wouldn’t be the first time my penchant for whistling jazz tunes got me in trouble…nor the last.
I’d been crazy about whistling from my boyhood. Perhaps I inherited my obsession from my late father. He wasn’t a jazz fan like I am, and I barely even remember him whistling—he wasn’t around much when I was a boy and he died when I was twelve—but my mom later told me he was an outstanding whistler. “He could do triple tonguing and everything,” she said.
So maybe it was in my DNA. But at any rate, after his death I determinedly taught myself to whistle. I have a good ear and decent sense of pitch, so I found I could easily get in sync with whatever music I was hearing. And then I practiced and practiced, whistling along with jazz compositions and solos for years until I got
...September 17th, 2018
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
September 13th, 2018
In a wonderfully entertaining and informative 2004 New Yorker piece titled “Ralph Ellison’s Record Collection,” Richard Brody reminds us of the Invisible Man author’s passion for jazz music — what he referred to as “American music” — and of his somewhat controversial (for the time) opinion of the musicians coming up. While often revering the music of Armstrong, Ellington, and Lester Young (and who can blame him?), of Charlie Parker’s music, he wrote “there is in it a great deal of loneliness, self-deprecation and self-pity,” and, in a letter to friend Albert Murray following a 1958 Newport Jazz Festival performance, described Miles Davis as “poor, evil, lost little Miles Davis.” He famously characterized bebop as “a listener’s music” that “few people are capable of dancing to it” — although this critique was probably more of a lament of a lost culture.
But the crux of the story is not Ellison’s opinion about music, rather the recordings he collected, reported by Brody as
...September 12th, 2018
Baltimore, Maryland. 1960. DAVID, a white boy in his late teens, is standing in the rain under an umbrella, waiting for the morning school bus. There is a bench behind him. Enter CLARE, a black girl his age.
CLARE
It’s so cold.
Long pause. DAVID is uncomfortable.
CLARE
Would you mind sharing your umbrella?
...September 11th, 2018
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
...September 6th, 2018
Born Edward Chester Babcock, this American composer wrote songs for films, television and theater, and won four Academy Awards for Best Original Song, including in 1944 for “Swinging on a Star,” co-written by Johnny Burke and made famous by Bing Crosby in the film Going My Way. Who is he?
Jimmy Van Heusen
Irving Berlin
Harold Arlen
Cole Porter
Jerome Kern
Harry Warren
Richard Rodgers
Go to the next page for the answer!
...
September 5th, 2018
Mac’s Restaurant and Nightclub in Eugene, Oregon is where the blues aficionados in Central Oregon congregate to enjoy Cajun type bar food and dance joyously to pounding, power guitar driven blues. Our friends Alan and Susan go there a couple times a month to satisfy their boogie dance cravings. Whenever my wife and I pass through Eugene, we end up at Mac’s with Alan and Susan. They also attend a lot of blues festivals around their neck of the woods and can be considered connoisseurs.
I too love the blues. I also love jazz. Susan loves the blues. She does not love jazz, “modern” jazz to be specific. Susan explains that when she’s dancing at Mac’s, she feels the pounding bass and drums and screaming vocalist and Fender Stratocaster vibrating her bones and muscles and eyeballs. That’s her heaven. That’s how she wants to
...September 3rd, 2018
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
...August 29th, 2018
You’ve played this gig at the Tennyson Lodge at least a hundred times by now you figure—three years times twice a week, Wednesdays and Thursdays. You just took a solo and now The Kid is thumping on his oversized instrument, oversized by comparison to his body. He’s a five-foot-nothing of a chubby student bassist having joined the quartet two weeks prior. His dark, stylishly teased hair is stuck in place by product, his eyes just barely open and he rocks left to right in a manner offensive to you for some reason.
You don’t need a reason. You’ve been doing this long enough to call it like you see it and The Kid is nothing more than a vaguely promising hack. You might want to talk to him on break, get a better idea where his head is at, but meanwhile he’s wiggling around and you kind of hope he gets caught under a
...August 28th, 2018
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
August 21st, 2018
The passing of Aretha Franklin yesterday hits hard on a variety of levels. I am sure we all have wonderful Aretha memories. For me, she will always be remembered as the singer who opened my world to the sounds of soul and gospel music, and doing so during the height of the civil rights movement, when so much important work was being achieved — and cutting edge art was being created in response to it — virtually every day.
Aretha learned to sing at the New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit, where her father, the Reverend C.L. Franklin, was minister — “the most famous African American preacher in America,” according to his biographer Nick Salvatore. Franklin’s style of “booming, soaring, flashy and intense” preaching “revolutionized the art, and his call for his fellow African Americans to proclaim both their faith and their rights helped usher in the civil rights movement.”
Rev. Franklin had an intense influence on daughter Aretha, “…[Aretha] always sang from her inners,” Ray Charles once said. “In many ways she’s got her father’s feeling and passion,’ [for when C.L.] — one of the last great preachers — delivers a sermon, he builds his case so beautifully you can’t help but see the light. Same when Aretha sings.”
...August 17th, 2018
The late, great trumpeter Clark Terry once offered one of the most pointed, and humorous, comments about the perennial controversies in jazz over race and the perceived abilities of white versus black musicians…
He said, “My theory is that a note doesn’t give a
...August 16th, 2018
In the underground of how it used to be, in days long ago when things were quite good, when the only bad thing, if you want to call it bad, was poverty, which was longstanding, a dull ache of years that traveled with you through good times and bad and sometimes sang you to sleep like a sad horn, bwa la la la (high note) bwa la la la (high note) bwa la la, in that time, the song of poverty that belonged to everyone belonged also to Noname.
Noname, pronounced Noh-nameh, ran the bleak streets then 60 years ago when the world was kinder, a better place, where murder was just, well, murder, and horror, ordinary, conceivable, and every person, regardless of how they appeared, who they were, part of a diverse evolving unique American gyroscopic system. Even the most jaded soul understood being different was natural, even if your difference was made of so many facets, no one thing stood alone and nothing alone could capture it–save poverty herself, true interpreter of shades and depths of differences, which we celebrated on saxophone streets, in piano bars and when looking to the heavens for inspiration in the form of
...August 14th, 2018
In July of 2012, Arya Jenkins’ short story “So What”—a story about an adolescent girl who attempts to connect to her absent father through his record collection – was chosen as the 30th winner of the Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest. When that outstanding work was soon followed up with another quality entry with jazz music at its core, I invited her to contribute her fiction to this website on a more regular basis. We agreed to a commission of three stories per year, and tomorrow’s publication of “The Piano Whisperer” is her 15th story to appear on Jerry Jazz Musician.
I recently received word from Ms. Jenkins that Fomite Press, a small, independent publisher out of Vermont whose focus is on exposing high level literary work, will be publishing these stories in a collection titled Blue Songs in an Open Key. Publication date is
...August 13th, 2018
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…
...August 10th, 2018
In June of 2017, the American president chose to leave the Paris climate agreement because, he said at the time, it is an agreement that “disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries.” It seems that climate change knows no borders, and nobody benefits from our dear leader’s willful ignorance — witness the record heat and fires across the U.S., and indeed now all over the globe.
Oh well, we too can willfully ignore climate change today by finding a cool corner of our world and cranking up Cole Porter’s “It’s Too Darn Hot,” a song written for the Broadway musical “Kiss Me Kate” in 1948, and made famous by
...August 9th, 2018
This artist sang with Paul Whiteman, and later with the Casa Loma Orchestra. In 1939, she became the first singer to devote an entire album to the music of one composer – George Gershwin. It was such a success that she followed it up with the music of Cole Porter (1940), Rogers and Hart (1940 and 1954), Harold Arlen (1943) and Irving Berlin (1951). Who is she?
Helen Ward
Mildred Bailey
Lee Wiley
Ella Fitzgerald
Maxine Sullivan
Helen Forrest
Helen Humes
Go to the next page for the answer!
...
August 8th, 2018
Gas lamps lined the street lifting their warmth out into the world to stave off the night. Their flickering orange reflected in the puddles along the curb and the cobble still shiny with rain long gone. A storm had passed. Leaves now settled in clumps along the gutters and at the feet of a slumped musician folded forward on a stoop. The curve of his instrument’s dark case towered above him, concealing an elegant bass within.
Brownstones framed the scene extending stoops from hidden entryways. A newspaper fat with rain hung over a wrought-iron rail, the upside-down words “Congress Overrides Veto of Taft-Hartley” visible even in the obscurity of predawn. A five-and-dime, closed for business until morning, hosted a shadowy window display advertising dry shampoo and
...August 6th, 2018
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
August 2nd, 2018
As someone who both adores the best qualities that jazz has to offer, and abhors our current national politics of polarization, I’m often struck by how the two realms of jazz and politics so dramatically conflict, in their respective expressions of two great American inventions.
It’s not supposed to be like that, though, because jazz and democracy, theoretically at least, share so many core principles.
Jazz, I believe, contains the best of democratic values. In jazz, everyone has a ‘voice’ and a
...August 1st, 2018
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
July 26th, 2018
Chris Chisholm’s suit jacket landed beside his foot in a black pinstriped heap. He studied his fragmented reflection in a mosaic of mirrors, raised his eyebrows and his glass and said, “A toast!”
There was only one other person within view, within earshot. Phil the bartender stood beneath a clock whose hands were both pointed to the number one. “What’re we toasting, Chi Chi?”
Chris opened his mouth to say, “To Reggie!” But what came out were the lyrics of a Led Zeppelin song: “The cup is raised, the toast is made again…” He trailed off, humming, as if he’d forgotten the rest. He hadn’t.
Phil smirked and reinserted a rag into the glass he’d been drying. “Thanks a lot. Now I’ll have that love song stuck in my
...July 25th, 2018
I have been fortunate – thus far – to have avoided the many summer colds going around this season, but I have been afflicted, once again, by “Miles Fever.” Every so often, I am struck by an irresistible urge to dig into the catalog of this artist so present during virtually every season of my life, and rediscover the thrill of his sound, and of his cultural significance.
I contracted the virus this morning, and spent the morning (in bed, of course) listening to Miles Ahead, the 1957 recording featuring Miles Davis and 19 musicians under the direction of Gil Evans – his first collaboration with Miles since the Birth of the Cool sessions of 1950, and one of his earliest recordings for Columbia Records. An early example of
...July 23rd, 2018
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
July 20th, 2018
This jazz pianist was considered a child prodigy. At the age of 11, he soloed in the first movement of a Mozart piano concerto with the Chicago Symphony. His 1962 debut Blue Note album, Takin’ Off, included a song that the Afro-Cuban Latin jazz percussionist Mongo Santamaria recorded and made popular – reaching #10 on the pop song charts in 1963. The pianist reworked the song in 1973, which he included on an album that helped redefine jazz music. Who is he?
Keith Jarrett
Cecil Taylor
Horace Silver
Les McCann
Ramsey Lewis
Erroll Garner
Herbie Hancock
McCoy Tyner
Go to the next page for the answer!
...July 18th, 2018
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
July 16th, 2018
When they came to build the wall, I played Mingus.
I stood in the blistering sun, watched them arrive, and did my best to blow my lungs clean out. They climbed down from hissing dew-sprinkled trucks, adjusted their hard hats, and went to work setting up the barricades. They ignored me completely.
They didn’t ignore me long. I was off-key, and I was loud. Ain’t always about hitting all the right notes, man. A clarinet’s gotta be raw. Real. None of that philharmonic fast food commercial stuff.
I could almost hear Tony taking the high notes right beside me. He would have, too. He always loved a good
...July 13th, 2018
Her name practically scats itself,
Say it out loud, and you’re on your way,
It’s a grand stand big band criss-cross delivery,
An overnight town to town swing set deluxe,
July 9th, 2018
From a small balcony above the stage of the Maybeck Recital Hall in Berkeley, I’m looking down on the jazz duo of bassist Red Mitchell and pianist Roger Kellaway, while tapping my foot to the earthy, swinging beat they are laying down.
It’s a Sunday afternoon in 1992 at this unique venue. The recital hall is part of a house originally built by the famed architect Bernard Maybeck in the early twentieth century. (Maybeck designed the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, along with many other notable buildings in that city.) The hall accommodates only about 50 people, and it’s a warm, redwood-paneled room with beautiful leaded glass windows on three sides. It actually feels a lot like being in a little chapel—but the religion being worshipped here is that of acoustic jazz, primarily of the pianistic variety.
For several years now, ‘The Maybeck’ as it’s familiarly called, has hosted a who’s-who of
...July 5th, 2018
In a 2016 Business Insider post, the physicist Stephon Alexander – author of The Jazz of Physics: The Secret Link Between Music and the Structure of the Universe – writes about the connections between John Coltrane, described by Alexander as a “musical innovator, with physics at his fingertips,” and Albert Einstein, who “was an innovator in physics, with music at his fingertips.”
Coltrane’s music, particularly his final three records, helped Alexander realize that improvisation is a characteristic of both music and physics. “Much like Einstein working with his thought experiments, some jazz improvisers construct
...July 2nd, 2018
Midnight and we sail on a boundless sea
nothing in sight but a vast pool of black
dimly lit by starlight sprawled without end
June 28th, 2018
Camp looked through glass doors and across the shoulderless highway. A patch of grass across the road was covered with white trailers washed clean by the rain. He stared out a side window at the brown back of a gas station. A red and yellow sign, mounted so high he had to twist his neck to see it, seemed like it should have been turning but sat still against a gray sky.
What do you find in a bus station? Long waits under dirty fluorescents, grimy floor and seats, gloom on scattered faces. Soup, coffee and candy vending machines. If someone could gather it up, all the pieces a bus station’s handed down through the years, you could start a museum. You could cover the walls with black and white photos, pictures of a million people. Pick out any one person, nobody special, just someone with some
...June 27th, 2018
While he was a jazz pianist known to frequently accompany blues singers, he was also a composer (“Royal Garden Blues,” “West End Blues,” “Taint Nobody’s Business If I Do”), show producer, song publisher, emcee with a minstrel show, artist manager (including Bessie Smith, whom he helped get started), A & R man for Okeh Records, and one of the most successful African American businessmen of his era. Who is he?
Meade Lux Lewis
Albert Ammons
Eddie Heywood
Teddy Wilson
Jimmy Blythe
Clarence Williams
Tommy Flanagan
Herbie Nichols
Jimmy Rowles
Go to the next page for the answer!
...
June 22nd, 2018
This ground is mine.
I sweat it into growing.
My eyes water the sound
while my hands grasp
the dirt,
holding its generations
of dust and stone
with a blending of
June 21st, 2018
Seen from above, the motion probably exhibited some coherence. Like how the particles on the surface of a liquid jiggled around each other. What did they call it? Brownian motion. Seen from a distance, the mass of people no doubt also swirled in patterns that had a great deal of regularity. Was there perhaps even a meaning in the group activity, a secret swaying cadence that couldn’t be discerned just from watching the constituent parts?
Carl found how he engaged in metaphysical speculations when in these situations distressing.
But God, you had to do something.
Or else this dance club, The Edge of The World, the apotheosis of all that he had come to hate during this year and a half spent in
...June 18th, 2018
Besides doing his best to help raise three kids, during my 1960’s childhood my father worked his heart out at two jobs — one of which was as owner of a restaurant on Oakland’s Telegraph Avenue, and the other as a musician, playing trumpet and viola throughout the San Francisco Bay area, mostly on evenings and weekends in “casual” jobs. For years he was part of a strolling quartet that entertained San Francisco’s elite at the World Trade Club — an ensemble that at its peak toured the Philippines, playing to an audience that included
...June 17th, 2018
sitting on the top of my dad’s tombstone
… in sedalia, missouri,
I was thinking
of how much
we practiced
our horns together.
you played
...June 17th, 2018
Oh Lord
I was thinking is there anything better
than chorus girls dancing in unison to Thelonius Monk
I beseech thee Lord on my deathbed kick my
June 15th, 2018
While legendary as a saxophonist, his first instrument was a violin and his second the piano — which he played well enough to work as an accompanist to silent movies. Ultimately it was Lester Young’s father who taught him the saxophone well enough that he switched instruments for good. (It was during this time that he also saved Lester from drowning in a river). Who is he?
Ben Webster
Chu Berry
Gene Ammons
Budd Johnson
Coleman Hawkins
Johnny Hodges
Don Byas
Herschel Evans
Go to the next page for the answer!
...June 13th, 2018
When the needle touches
the wax that will sing
the collected prayers
of A Love Supreme, it’s
like the
June 11th, 2018
“How dare you play it like that!”
I look up from my sight-reading piece, certain I had correctly executed all of the rhythms and notes, all of the articulations and embellishments. My questioning eyes found a passionate face, lined with wrinkles that were now quivering in angst.
“I don’t care if you play a couple wrong notes here and there, but to play it so flat like that… so dull… that is inexcusable.”
“Play it again.”
I started again, trying to sense the life behind the ink, and I felt like the blind fool who
...June 8th, 2018
The carpenter (whose hands have grown
too large for the twenty house town
he was born in) sticks out his thumb
and catches a jet to Los Angeles where
he drowns off the Santa Monica beach trying
to ride a wave to beautiful downtown Burbank.
II.
His sister stays home and marries
the county’s star high school running back
who turns into the
June 2nd, 2018
Here in this place
forces are in motion.
Truth is in the notation.
Beauty in improvisation.
Forward, forward, forward
speak the drums
to our spirituality.
The ritual function of
May 26th, 2018
Before recording his most notable work (to that point) as a saxophonist in Miles Davis’ “Birth of the Cool” nonet, his initial reputation was as an arranger, including a stint in 1946 as the staff arranger in Gene Krupa’s Orchestra. He would eventually become one of the leading voices on his instrument for almost 50 years. Who is he?
Kai Winding
Gil Evans
Lee Konitz
Gerry Mulligan
J.J. Johnson
Al McKibbon
Max Roach
Sonny Stitt
Go to the next page for the answer!
...
May 23rd, 2018
I’m driving up Raymond Boulevard toward downtown Newark. In the darkness the huge lighted sign atop the Public Service Electric & Gas Company serves as a beacon for approaching the city. Yet tonight something is off with the sign, and I laugh out loud as I see that its ‘L’ has burned out…and that it is now offering ‘PUBIC SERVICE’ to the community!
I am on my way to work at radio station WHBI where I am a staff announcer but also produce a nightly jazz show. On the car seat next to me is my
...May 21st, 2018
You are amused
by my passion
for taxicabs.
Their drivers know
where we are
going.
We don’t need a
...May 19th, 2018
The “record” business continues to make an impressive comeback. Although actual record sales make up a small fraction of the $8.7 billion music industry, according to Nielsen, the 14.32 million records sold in 2017 was up 9% over the previous year, and the Lp format accounted for 14% of all physical album sales.
This resurgence is evident in my city, Portland, where many neighborhoods are anchored by restaurants and coffee shops spinning record albums, and often include
...May 17th, 2018
“Who,” you ask.
“Chris Connor,” I repeat.
“Oh, sure, right,” you say
(with little enthusiasm.)
“You have to listen, really listen,” I say.
“O.K.” (an acquiescence).
I carefully place the vinyl record
on the Rek-O-Kut turntable.
May 15th, 2018
An early interview I conducted as publisher of Jerry Jazz Musician was with Stephanie Stein Crease, whose 2002 biography of Gil Evans, Out of the Cool, was an illuminating history of a man the jazz writer Gary Giddins refers to as “one of the great figures in American music, a composer and orchestrator of breathtaking originality.”
In the interview, Crease talks of Evans’ life as having
...May 14th, 2018
Jacko the Jazzman, office hack,
computer screen by day. At nights
he roams the pubs and village halls,
blowing his sax’s rise and fall.
May 10th, 2018
The wind blew all afternoon,
blue my mood, moody the blues
on the box, bleak and blue when
Robert Johnson took over the airwaves;
the wind blew louder and then
May 3rd, 2018
Albert Ayler, the Cleveland-born saxophonist whose unorthodox style was inspirational to a generation of free jazz-era and contemporary musicians, is noted in four poems, by four poets
...May 1st, 2018
He had beautiful hands — hands with long, slender fingers meant to caress ivory piano keys. Knuckles, she knew, were never the most flattering part of anyone’s body — gnarled and raisin-like skin stretched over delicate bones. And yet, there was a certain beauty in the way his knuckles bent and flexed over the piano, so she protested bitterly when he became a mechanic to make ends meet.
“We’ve got bills to pay,” he said with a matter-of-fact shrug, “And I can always
...April 28th, 2018
It doesn’t help
that my guitar starts complaining
ok
a 1935 Epiphone Broadway
probably had owners who were better players before me
sure
and probably was in show business
when there was such a business
and probably
April 24th, 2018
This bassist played in Ornette Coleman’s early bands before eventually leading the Liberation Music Orchestra, where he became known as one of free jazz’s founding fathers. Who is he?
Jaco Pastorius
Charlie Haden
Stanley Clarke
Dave Holland
Ron Carter
Jimmy Garrison
Steve Swallow
Go to the next page for the answer!
...
April 18th, 2018
One afternoon at the age of ten, lightning strikes.
Alone in our ramshackle wood-frame house in Hartford, I decide to listen to some of my parents’ 45 RPM records. I watch one slide down the fat spindle and plop onto the turntable to receive the tone arm and needle. The music starts and like a bolt captures not just my ears but my whole being. It’s a guy with a gravelly voice singing something about
...April 17th, 2018
April 15th, 2018
This is one of those parties I’ve heard about, thrown by people with new money in a house they don’t own; like Hipster Gatsby. This is not to disparage our host: he is a sincere human. When one finds one’s self in a cliché, the moment should be chronicled. I’m sitting on a mausoleum chair in the foyer of an upscale Seattle home with my glass of vodka perched on a music stand, chronicling.
The jazz musicians in the living room are playing “Some Day My Prince Will Come.”
“Oh, good, it’s the Disney segment,” I say to nobody in particular. The drunk woman who earlier complimented my
...April 10th, 2018
And a daughter is not enough or a son
or be a couple with someone who would stick thru all the shit
or the idea of a family
and god or the belief to a higher being is not enough.
The cheap girls and empty sex are always there but never
April 9th, 2018
In 2003, as part of the Jerry Jazz Musician “Conversations with Gary Giddins” series, I was fortunate to interview Giddins — his generation’s most esteemed jazz writer — about Cecil Taylor, who died earlier today at age 89. It is an excellent read for anyone with an interest in Cecil (or Gary). You can access it by
...April 6th, 2018
The sightless pianist,
Presents the information,
The ideas,
Ornate and complex,
yet always grounded in logic,
The practical applications
of a mountain of details,
and the harmony hidden
April 5th, 2018
Tansy steps up to the microphone, and the world shifts into slow motion. Behind her, the band pulsates, big brass, booming beat, and howling saxophones like foreplay. Before her, the shadowy movement of caliginous figures, backlit to opacity, a murky mob breathing as though one, daring her to entertain with the melodies stored in her throat and heart, perversely seeking the pleasure to be derived from her anticipated failure to enthrall.
The mike’s silver orb becomes her focus, its aura a tight dome that pulls at her breath, sucking the notes from her depths, the rushing air inverting her
...April 3rd, 2018
Snow & Ridge our rock n roll Mecca.
The Tastee Shoppe jukebox our holy of holies
best for miles around was our Kaaba
where Elmore James’s Dust My Broom
sent shock waves through my hormone addled brain
& Night Train by Rusty Bryant & his Carolyn Club orchestra
was a bump & grind fantasy of rockin’ & rollin’ ecstasy.
April 2nd, 2018
In a March 29 post on Slate, Fred Kaplan writes about the newly released bootleg recording of Miles Davis’ quintet (featuring John Coltrane), The Final Tour, a four-CD box set of live concerts in Europe from 1960. The tour happened a year after the release of Kind of Blue, so many of the tunes played during it is from that classic album. According the Kaplan, the music found on this Columbia/Legacy set is “radically different” and such a “jarring departure” from the album that “it demands we revise the conventional wisdom about these two musicians (Miles and Coltrane) and fills in some blanks…in the story of jazz, and where it was going, in those pivotal years.”
Kaplan’s essay includes a critique of the music itself – but of particular interest is his reminder of the
...April 1st, 2018
I was recently at a speakeasy in Tbilisi, drinking wine and tapping my foot in time with a jazz quartet, when I noticed a dishevelled French magician approach the mysterious black-haired girl I’d had my eye on for the past ten minutes. This irked me less than it might have, because the Frenchman was clearly a drunkard of dubious repute, and the girl was plainly uninterested in him, not deigning to respond to his advances with so much as a word. He performed endless coin tricks and card tricks for her, and loudly complimented her exotic
...March 26th, 2018
a girl dances alone in a room
to an old blues tune sung
on a boom box by Mance Lipscomb
she whirls leaps and floats
on her toes with
March 25th, 2018
At the piano
his two hands pump fingers
wide in unison
one hand does one thing
the other another
his eyes fixed on the sheet
music sheathed in
March 19th, 2018
“Repeat after me: I will not hunt alligators while Désirée runs deliveries.”
Léon blinks at me, rich hickory eyes peering up from a face darker than any glancing touch of the sun could produce. He wriggles in a barely-perceptible fashion, bare heels grinding ringlets into the muddy deck, a creature of obstinacy and faux innocence whose smile mystically exiles all suspicion from my mind.
“’course, Dezzy,” he says. “There aren’t any alligators around right now, you know—they ain’t come out ‘til nighttime.”
“They don’t come out ‘til nighttime,” I correct him, swiping a hand over the top of his
...March 15th, 2018
March 14th, 2018
February and early March have been consumed by my work as Board Chair of PDX Jazz (Portland, Oregon), the presenting organization of the PDX Jazz Festival, which this year took place Feb. 15 – 25. Immediately following the Festival, I spent some time out on the road with a dear friend, exploring the clubs and museums of Kansas City and the surrounding prairie. Some highlights of the Festival events and
...March 12th, 2018
Theirs’ was a kind of mediation between then and now
No, it was a meditation on their only freedom: the deliverance of their music
No, no: a melding. One musician calling out: another answering.
Or maybe, a metaphor for the chorus of life
The way Lady-Day lamented the brief glory of
February 27th, 2018
For those with the time (and a strong nostalgic gene), you may enjoy viewing the 90-minute performance of a 1965 benefit entitled The Rat Pack Captured. This benefit – billed originally as a “Frank Sinatra Spectacular” benefiting “Father Dismas Clark’s Halfway House for Excons” – took place in St. Louis and was broadcast via closed circuit television in theaters all over the country. (Father Charles Dismas Clark was known around the country as “The Hoodlum Priest,” and his ministry included the successful rehabilitation of felons).
A youthful Johnny Carson hosts (in place of an ailing Joey Bishop who, Carson jokes, “slipped a disc backing out of Frank’s presence”), Dean Martin is at his
...February 20th, 2018
Excursions in free-fixed melodic,
A quirk-offering; dust of suitcase-bearing dreams
Plucking away sobriety in taps of steps
Blending day chords with night rhythms
An immediate perfume, instinctively
February 19th, 2018
In anticipation of Valentine’s Day, I recently invited many of our contributing poets to submit work that combines the themes of jazz music and love, with the result being a collection of voices expressing their own contributions to the language of love…
Dozens of writers submitted over 100 poems, and the best of the submissions — 29 poems by 18 poets — are found on the following 12 pages. Advance through the selections by utilizing the page monitor at the bottom of each page.
Many thanks to everyone who submitted their work.
JJM
...February 14th, 2018
the music’s so profound
so round & loud
& full of love
her word not mine
how stupid to argue over little
nothings
stupid to wrap ourselves around
February 6th, 2018
I could make the argument that jazz being marketed as a “popular music” officially died on January 12, 1975. Why? Because that was the date of the last Super Bowl halftime show that featured jazz music, in this case a “Tribute to Duke Ellington” performed by the Grambling State University Marching Band and Mercer Ellington. Sure, in subsequent years there was the occasional Pete Fountain/Al Hirt exhibition to pump local tourism when the game was held in New Orleans, but Madison Avenue officially ended all attempts at presenting jazz to a mass audience at the conclusion of the halftime show for the ’75 Steelers/Vikings game. What followed was an era of musical malaise for
...February 4th, 2018
Recognized as jazz fusion’s most prominent drummer, he was a key contributor on some of the genre’s most successful early recordings – including with Miles Davis and the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Who is he?
Billy Cobham
Billy Hart
Jack DeJohnette
Tony Williams
Steve Gadd
Alphonse Mouzon
Lenny White
Go to the next page for the answer!
...February 3rd, 2018
I like the jazz because it plays in different colors: deep green and blue, translucent purple, ivory black; city storefronts, magenta sunsets; watercolor splashes here and there like a yellow crocus on snow or an orange goldfish tail — sudden, surprising, but always carefully placed.
Like the way people come in different colors — they just don’t know it. People walk along in darkness daily, ignorant of the color that’s surrounding them or the beat their music plays. That’s what I’m lying here thinking about, in my dark bedroom between the folds of cotton sheets. Africans, Asians, Seminoles they all come in different colors — not their skins, but their insides. Each person glows from deep within, from a well that springs out of
...February 2nd, 2018
Jazz rich,
falling water
a stream of story’s
open bleeding
years releasing pain
backside alleys
whispers without words
tan and white
February 1st, 2018
While the romantic notion is to imagine that the music coming out of the clubs lining New York’s 52nd Street during the 1940’s was universally applauded, we of course know that is not the case. In an example of this dissent, consider the words of Los Angeleno Norman Granz, who told Downbeat this during his April, 1945 visit to New York:
“Jazz in New York stinks! Even the drummers on 52nd St. sound like Dizzy Gillespie!”
“I can’t tell you how disappointed I am in the quality of music here. We keep getting great reports out west about the renaissance of jazz along 52nd St. but I’d like to know where it is. Literally, there isn’t one trumpet player in any of the clubs with the exception of ‘Lips’ Page and he was blowing a mellophone the night I caught him. Maybe Gillespie was great but the ‘advanced’ group that Charlie Parker is fronting at the Three Deuces doesn’t
...January 30th, 2018
A wealth of excellent poetry has been submitted recently. Poems by Steven Dalachinsky, Michael L. Newell, John Stupp, Ron Kolm, and Freddington are examples…
...January 29th, 2018
An uncredited piece in the January 11, 2018 edition of AL.com titled “The Night Nat Cole was Beaten on a Birmingham Stage” recounts the April 10, 1956 evening in Birmingham, Alabama, in which Nat Cole was attacked on stage by local members of the Ku Klux Klan. It is not only an example of our not-so-distant racist past, but also concerns the complexity concerning Cole’s involvement (or lack thereof) in the civil rights movement. Consider this brief excerpt from the article:
“I can’t understand it,” Cole said of the attack. “I have not taken part in any protests. Nor have I joined an organization fighting segregation. Why should they attack me? I’d just like to forget about the whole thing.”
Roy Wilkins, the executive secretary of NAACP sent Cole a telegram after the attack, “You have not been a crusader or engaged in
...January 27th, 2018
It was the kind of New York night not fit for man nor beast. Sleet and wind whipping about, snow banks and ice everywhere. With my ‘49 Dodge slipping and sliding on the Village streets, I make my way to the Vanguard to catch the midnight set. The small sign outside the entrance inconspicuously announces: “Bill Evans Trio.” This is the 1962 edition of the trio, reformed after bassist Scott LaFaro’s death the year before; and this is the club where Bill had played his last sets with
...January 25th, 2018
Godmother of the gypsy tramp
half-breed goddess, unparalleled queen
of less is more, effortless weaver
of that old black magic—
your strength lay in the space between
the screaming sax and the scatting singer.
If midnight blue velvet were sound,
January 24th, 2018
In this short excerpt from David Amram’s 2002 biography Offbeat: Collaborating with Kerouac, Kerouac talks with Amram about how the “Beatnik crap” that Kerouac and his friends reluctantly represented was “distorting everything,” and “cheapening the memories of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Thelonious Monk.” It is an interesting and entertaining view of that era, filled with the vigor, passion, wit and wisdom Kerouac is remembered for.
_____
In January of 1959, we collaborated with a once-in-a-lifetime group of artists on the film Pull My Daisy. In addition to appearing in the film as Mezz McGillicudy, the deranged French horn player in the moth-eaten sweater, I composed the entire score for the film and wrote the music for the title song, “Pull My Daisy,” with lyrics by Jack [Kerouac], Neal Cassady, and Allen Ginsberg.
The idea of making a film based on Jack’s work was easier to
...January 22nd, 2018
(in response to an invitation
musical and raucous from the fingers
of Wild Bill Davis tickling the keys
of his organ seeking a musical response
by someone and something of equal stature)
Illinois I say accepted the challenge and blew
some blue some very blue blue blue notes
that set listeners
January 19th, 2018
Poetry is a courageous art form. No poet can possibly succeed without the willingness to create a completely transparent window into his or her soul. A poet rarely achieves by faking it.
A successful poet’s thoughts are naked to the world, and this full-on exposure — because it is so often blunt and painful for the poet — leaves the reader with a reasonable understanding of lives led and footsteps taken (or not). These revelations build a rewarding and intimate connection.
I have never met or spoken to Mike Faran, whose poetry I occasionally publish on Jerry Jazz Musician. I only outwardly know him by the short biography he sent me — retired lobster trap builder from Ventura who has had some work published in journals around the country. That’s it, really. I don’t even have a photo of him.
He has periodically sent me emails with a poem or two attached to them, seeking my interest in publishing them. (“Here is another poem that I hope will meet with your approval.”) Although I haven’t published them all, they almost always
...January 17th, 2018
Miles boils his bitches brew
in a night of worlds much blacker than black
His demons and angels let out slack
January 14th, 2018
I.
All those good times
might’ve been what Duke
had in mind when vamping
his silky-fingered B-flats,
letting Coltrane counter
until tenor notes cluster
close to the
...January 9th, 2018
The winter I ran away, I moved into a garret in Provincetown, where I wrote poetry under the light of a candle far into the wee hours. Out my window, two stories up, I could see snow glistening on slanted rooftops that led like an uneven staircase to the bay. Below me, a twisted narrow path led to Commercial Street, peaceful and stark as an unwritten page. It was 1973 and I had run to the end of the world as I knew it to find freedom.
I knew Provincetown from spending summers with my dad and Grandma Tess in her cottage in Truro. It seemed she’d lived most of her life since Grandpa’s passing as a beachcomber. I liked following behind her when we collected
...January 8th, 2018
In Robbie Robertson’s entertaining biography Testimony, the rock guitarist tells a short story about a conversation he overheard Bob Dylan having with The Byrd’s Jim (a.k.a. “Roger”) McGuinn concerning John Coltrane’s influence on McGuinn when he wrote “Eight Miles High.”
The setting was Los Angeles, 1966, during a Dylan tour that employed Robertson and, among others, bandmates Rick Danko and Richard Manuel, who are referred to in the excerpt. The “Levon” in the story was the drummer Levon Helm, who left the tour after a month out of frustration of playing with Dylan during his initial “electric” period, when folk music purists routinely
...January 7th, 2018
Halema
with the soulful jazz eyes
deep dreaming the notes
January 5th, 2018
The night I truly ‘got’ the shining genius of Charlie Parker I was in my girlfriend’s apartment on the Lower East Side. The year was 1961. I was nineteen, she was much older and hipper, and had turned me on not only to some great music but to getting high as well. She had all the essential jazz records, including the one on the turntable that night. It was The Fabulous Bird, on the old Jazztone label, consisting of reissues of some of Bird’s phenomenal 1947 Dial sessions. She had a very low-fi stereo—I can still see the nickel she had scotch-taped to the tone arm to keep it in the grooves. But the fidelity didn’t matter, in part at least because this evening I had just smoked a
...January 3rd, 2018
croons “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire;”
voice velvety as cocoa butter
warms listeners, seats them round a hearth;
every word, every idea, clear as a bell,
...December 25th, 2017
As Time.com’s Billy Perrigo reminds us in his excellent December 22 piece “How the U.S. Used Jazz as a Cold War Secret Weapon,” the U.S. State Department “hoped that showcasing popular American music around the globe would not only introduce audiences to American culture, but also win them over as ideological allies in the cold war,” and that jazz, in particular the music of Armstrong, Gillespie and Brubeck could help “keep communism at bay by whatever means possible.”
The history Perrigo brings up is itself well-traveled, having been explored in depth by several writers, notably
...December 24th, 2017
Jazz rained down in rivers
catching out strong soul
and soft hands
rising to the call of music prayers
among blind angels
who fail on color
and possess
December 22nd, 2017
According to BMI, “The Christmas Song”(a.k.a. “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire”) is the most performed Christmas song, made especially famous by Nat Cole. The song was written, according to one of the co-writers, during a blistering hot summer, and in an effort “to stay cool by thinking cool.” Bob Wells was one of the songwriters of this classic 1945 tune…Who was his co-writer?
Mel Torme
Irving Berlin
Cole Porter
Bing Crosby
Benny Goodman
George Gershwin
Lionel Hampton
Duke Ellington
Go to the next page for the answer!
...
December 21st, 2017
The slow tumble of snow past
my partially open window
recalls the year in Amman
I sat for hours watching
a bleak whiteness deepen
all through the abandoned farm fields
surrounding my apartment
while the cool sound of Miles
gave shape and form to my grief
thousands of miles from
December 19th, 2017
It’s like talking of a lemon light, a blue mist,
a pale moonlight. In this case a pink rain.
It was something to do with Christmas
and I was leaving the supermarket,
buzzed, bugged, by muzak’s soothe and slink.
I walked out, into December,
...December 14th, 2017
snow fell
like notes from
Jan Garbarek’s saxophone
as we stood in Raekoja Plats
drinking mulled wine and marveling
at the size of the Christmas tree.
It was crowded and festive; somewhat loud
sure, there was a
...December 12th, 2017
December 6th, 2017
Near the end of high school I thought myself sophisticated, a fan of Pink Floyd and King Crimson and Kevin Ayers, but at a Weather Report Concert in 1972 I had a nearly religious conversion. It was as though a stranger had run up to me and said, “hold this for minute” and ran off. Then the music exploded. I had never heard anything like this. Everything changed.
It was as though I grew hair in secret places and a new appendage. I became a different creature. After that night few of my suburban DC white friends’ guitar and lyrics-oriented ears could hear what mine could; the joy and heartbreak in this unfamiliar and ebonic timbre, this canvas painted in horn, acoustic bass, and polyrhythm; this blues, this brokenness, this homesickness.
There it was, though, for anyone who had ears for it—there, in the absence of verse, in the uncertainty and unpredictability of lengthy solos, in the timelessness of power beyond the moment from which
...December 1st, 2017
That old red Dodge maybe
has a new muffler –
sounds like soft jazz
Ol’ Leroy Gathercole thinks
he’s still in his
forties or fifties;
wears a bright yellow beret &
drives with one hand –
plays the blues if he can find
November 30th, 2017
Jerry Jazz Musician is fortunate to have had hundreds of accomplished writers and poets submit their work for consideration of publication during this calendar year. Thanks to everyone who thinks enough of this website to desire sharing their creative vision with our readers. The works published are outstanding examples of the connections that exist between jazz music, its culture, and the literary arts.
I am proud to report that I have nominated six exceptional published pieces for the prestigious Pushcart Prize, and they are
...November 29th, 2017
Gifts and Messages. Which
the more important?
Dissonance launches
me listening feels
more like I’m playing that
swooping of sax waiting counterbal-
answer slowly fading
November 24th, 2017
After you indulge on Thanksgiving, consider giving Duke Ellington’s “simply steak” diet a try! In his 1973 autobiography Music is My Mistress, from a chapter titled “The Taste Buds,” Duke Ellington writes about his special diet, losing thirty pounds while on it, and the resulting onstage antics.
__________
In 1955 my doctor, Arthur Logan, told me I would have to take off twenty-two pounds. I tore up his suggested menu and made one of my own. Mine was simply steak (any amount), grapefruit, and black coffee with a slice of lemon first squeezed and then dropped into it. With the exception of a binge one day a week, I ate as much of this
...November 23rd, 2017
The great jazz singer Jon Hendricks died in New York earlier today at the age of 96. In his New York Times obituary, Peter Keepnews writes that “Mr. Hendricks did not invent this practice, known as vocalese — most jazz historians credit the singer Eddie Jefferson with that achievement — but he became its best-known and most prolific exponent, and he turned it into a group art.”
His work with Lambert, Hendricks and Ross was one of my gateways into jazz music. My childhood home had only a few mostly dreadful record albums (and my beloved mother’s favorite radio station was KABL/San Francisco, with Mantovani and 101 Strings in heavy rotation on the Philco clock radio on the kitchen counter), but somewhere in the bowels of the house was Sing a Song of Basie LP that would somehow occasionally make its way on to our Hoffman stereo system’ turntable — in competition for time with Creedence and the Doors and Beatles 45’s. Even as a little kid I could tell this was “hip” music, and it ultimately led me to an unforgettable experience.
When I was living in Berkeley in the late seventies I went to see him on stage in a small North Beach
...November 22nd, 2017