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Trading Fours with Douglas Cole is an occasional series of the writer’s poetic interpretations of jazz recordings and film.
A recording of Mr. Cole reading this work is found at the conclusion of the poem.
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“When Frida, Sang Jazz” by Jennylynd James
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Roots and Threads
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—
like the soul trapped in a balloon
drifting down the street,
a little ash flake floating before me,
but as I draw my breath to blow it away
it leaps right into my mouth.
Joshua Redman plays this drop note,
going down from wherever he is
in the melody to land on a squat-buzz,
down-rumble he might have picked up
from Stan Getz, another register jumper.
And Bill Evans on “Blue in Green”
references “When You Wish Upon a Star.”
I wished so hard I’ve been paying ever since.
And in Cleo Brown’s “Cleo’s Boogie”:
you hear the words squeeze down
in a sped-up way like the piano ripples,
fast notes more like hip hop, so
the boogie woogie beat was an opening
swing and let loose the jazz thing
and spoken word and battle rap—
boogie woogie in old movies on TV:
Cab Calloway, Andrews Sisters, Ella Fitzgerald,
Louis Armstrong are all deep inside those
side panels vibrating boom beat in
cars rolling down the boulevard.
You become good enough at anything
and people want to know you.
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Listen to Douglas Cole read “Roots and Threads”
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Listen to “Spring” from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons violin concertos [Naxos]
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Listen to the 1993 recording of Joshua Redman playing Thelonious Monk’s composition “Trinkle Tinkle,” with Christian McBride (bass) and Clarence Penn (drums) [Warner Bros]
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Listen to Cleo Brown perform “Cleo’s Boogie”
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photo by Jenn Merritt
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Douglas Cole has published six collections of poetry and The White Field, winner of the American Fiction Award. His work has appeared in several anthologies as well as journals such as The Chicago Quarterly Review, Poetry International, The Galway Review, Bitter Oleander, Chiron, Louisiana Literature, Slipstream, as well Spanish translations of work (translated by Maria Del Castillo Sucerquia) in La Cabra Montes. He is a regular contributor to Mythaixs, an online journal, where in addition to his fiction and essays, his interviews with notable writers, artists and musicians such as Daniel Wallace (Big Fish), Darcy Steinke (Suicide Blond, Flash Count Diary) and Tim Reynolds (T3 and The Dave Matthews Band) have been popular contributions. He has been nominated twice for a Pushcart and Best of the Net and received the Leslie Hunt Memorial Prize in Poetry. He lives and teaches in Seattle, Washington.
Click here to visit his website.
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The poet’s collection, The Blue Island
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Jennylynd James is an award-winning artist, writer, and soprano. She was born in Trinidad and Tobago and grew up in a musical family, with her love for music and the arts being nurtured from a young age. Her paintings have been accepted into Juried exhibitions at the Rotunda Gallery, The Office of Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago, 2020 to 2023. Jennylynd’s artwork is held by collectors in the Caribbean, the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, and Mexico.
Click here to visit her website
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Click here to read previous editions of Trading Fours with Douglas Cole
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Click here to read The Sunday Poem
Click here to learn how to submit your poetry or short fiction
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