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Tom Marcello Webster, New York, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Dexter Gordon at the Village Vanguard, 1977
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Joyous Evening With The Blues
Dexter Gordon blew blue
blue notes for hours in his visit
to my CD player,
accompanied by wicked syncopations
rapped on window and roof
by bursts of rain as it came and went
and returned again, as Mr. Gordon
and the Junior Mance Trio entranced
Montreux back in 1970, along
with me and my two friends
silently nodding in (more or less) time
to music from over forty-five years ago
and icy rain in the here and now;
we spent time consuming “Fried Bananas,”
dreaming of a “Sophisticated Lady,”
bouncing and dancing in chairs and on sofa
to “Rhythm-a-Ning,” slow swaying
to “Body and Soul,” tears in our eyes,
rediscovering the essence of the blues
in “Blue Monk,” and bopping out
freely and wildly around the room
in response to “The Panther.”
When the CD concert ended, we all
smiled and silently went our various ways,
and the rain continued a slow serenade,
as if it too had been taken on a journey
that led to a joyous copious weeping.
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Michael L. Newell lives on the Atlantic Coast of Florida. His most recent book of poems is Passage of a Heart.
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Dexter Gordon performs “Body and Soul,” filmed live at Montreux, 1970, with Junior Mance (piano); Martin Rivera (bass); and Oliver Jackson (drums).
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