“Resilience: For David Sanborn” – a poem by Alan Yount

May 20th, 2024

photo by Rene Jakobson/Flicker/CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 DEED

Resilience: For David Sanborn
…………..“An Alto Sax Jazz Man.”

my claim to jazz fame:
I have had fun telling people …
I got to know david sanborn
in high school band.

times could be rough though, for you:
& while still young, you beat polio
taking up the alto sax
for respiratory therapy.

and later, you beat
other troubles:
a gift,
possibly from your playing …

conveying an essence
to conquer misfortune,
and how to
keep on continuing.

*****

what we remember most
is sanborn’s distinctive sound.

you just knew it was him, you heard.

just like you knew who was playing:
like when they played cannonball adderley,
coltrane, or charlie parker.

you knew
when he played
those special notes,
he learned from living life …

you were there, yourself
with his life sound …
coming out of his
golden selmer paris, alto sax.

*****

what kept sanborn,
going for so long?

was it to hear, the audience
giving you those cheers …

for your jazz music,
and for years of playing on & on:

back again, night after night

with resilience …

for over …

sixty-five years.

…originally published by Westward Quarterly/Summer Issue; 2020

David Sanborn died on May 12, 2024, at the age of 78

___

Alan Yount has published poetry for over 50 years. His poems have appeared in WestWard Quarterly (featured poet for summer, 2018). Big Scream, Spring: the Journal of the E.E. Cummings Society, and Waterways. He has been in three anthologies: Passionate Hearts, Sunflowers.and Locomotives: Songs for Allen Ginsburg, in which Alan was one of 31 poets, along with Gary Snyder and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Alan plays trumpet and has led his own dance band.

Listen to the 1991 recording of David Sanborn performing “Dukes & Counts,” which features Mulgrew Miller (piano); Marcus Miller (bass); and Jack DeJohnette (drums). [Rhino/Warner Bros.)