Jazz Poems
FEBRUARY IN SYDNEYDexter Gordon’s tenor sax
plays “April in Paris”
inside my head all the way back
on the bus from Double Bay
Round Midnight, the ‘50s,
cool cobblestone streets
resound footsteps of Bebop
musicians with whiskey-laced voices
from a boundless dream in French.
Bud, Prez, Webster, & The Hawk,
their names run together riffs.
Painful gods jive talk through
bloodstained reeds & shiny brass
where music is an anesthetic.
Unreadable faces from the human void
float like torn pages across the bus
windows. An old anger drips into my throat,
& I try thinking something good,
letting the precious bad
settle to the salty bottom.
Another scene keeps repeating itself:
I emerge from the dark theatre,
passing a woman who grabs her red purse
& hugs it to her like a heart attack.
Tremolo. Dexter comes back to rest
behind my eyelids. A loneliness
lingers like a silver needle
under my black skin,
as I try to feel how it is
to scream for help through a horn.
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA
from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young
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Jazz Poems
THE JOURNEY
Miles was waiting on the dock,his trumpet in a paper bag.
Lady was cold—
wind lashed the gardenias
I stole for her hair.
We were shabby, the three of us.
No one was coming so I started to row.
It was hard going—
stagnant, meandering…
The city moaned and smoldered.
Tin cans on the banks like shackles…
To be discovered, in the open…
But Miles took out his horn
and played.
Lady sang. A slow traditional blues. The current caught us— horn, voice, oar stroking water… I don’t know how long we floated— our craft so full of music, the night so full of stars. When I awoke we were entering an ocean, sun low on water warm as a throat, gold as a trumpet. We wept. Then soared in a spiritual. Never have I been so happy. LAWSON FUSAO INADA
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Daily Dose Of Jazz
Siegfried “Sigi” Schwab was born in Ludwigshafen, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany on August 5, 1940. He played in a wide variety of styles, including baroque and jazz. He played in German groups like Et Cetera with pianist Wolfgang Dauner, bassist Eberhard Weber, and drummers Fred Braceful and Roland Wittig.
With Embryo he was joined by drummer and percussionist Christian Burchard, Mal Waldron on piano, and bassist Dave King, and with percussionist Ramesh Shotham. He played with the Diabelli Trio, Peter Horton, Freddie Santiago, Guillermo Marchena, and Andreas Keller.
In 1980 he played with flutist Chris Hinze at the 5th North Sea Jazz Festival. In addition, Schwab has also published several books about various guitar playing styles. He was a teacher, and performed on more than 15,000 recordings for film, television, and as an accompanist to various artists.
Sigi Schwab, who recorded twenty-eight albums as a leader and died after a long illness on January 11, 2024 at the age of 83 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany.
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Jazz Poems
PREZ IN PARIS, 1959
By 1959 he’d moved to ParisPrez wouldn’t eat. Sweet alcohol harassedhis system. Cooled, the jazz “To Be or Not to Be” –withdrawn, a whisper–seemed a jot.
Once there’s been ways to get bak at the world;Ex-G.I. Prez had tried and tired. He hurledhimself now–hearsay, smoky horn–down-stage.“Well, Lady Gay Paree, it’s been a dog’s age.”
he might’ve said. Or “Ivy Divey! Wrong!The way that channel swims–toocold. “This song–the lyric’s weak. We’ll drown. No eyes, my man.No, let’s don’t take it from no top. The band
can skip it.” Prez. Monsieur le Président, who played us what can work, and what just won’t.
Al Young | May 31, 1939 – April 17, 2021
Poet, novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and professor. He was named Poet Laureate of California by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger from 2005 to 2008.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Rubén “Baby” López Fürst was born July 26, 1937 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. From the age of five he studied music and piano, and was soon attracted to jazz. In 1951 the 14 year old Ruben got the nickname Baby from the other musicians because he was a child. He made his debut on the jazz scene performing at the concerts organized by the Hot Club de Buenos Aires.
In 1953 Baby played in a string ensemble led by the López Fürst brothers who performed a jazz concert at the Provincial Hotel in the city of Mar del Plata, Argentina. With his brother Héctor on banjo and him on piano they created the Hot Jammers group and made two 78-single records for Victor. He went on to be part of the Dixie band, The Picking Up Timers.
In 1957 the big succes of Oscar Alemán inspired Baby to leave the piano and take up the guitar, trying to emulate one of his idols: Django Reinhardt. Then began regular performances with a string-group named the Blue Strings. It was a quartet in the vein of gypsy string swing.
Modern jazz captivated him in 1959, when he listened to Gerry Mulligan at the Hot Club de Montevideo in Uruguay. Trying to play those new sounds, in 1962 he joined the modern group of pianist Sergio Mihanovich. On the two albums recorded in 1962, the work began Argentine cool jazz with saxophonist Leandro “Gato” Barbieri, Sergio Mihanovich on piano, drummer Osvaldo “Pichi” Mazzei, trumpeter Rubén Barbieri, Oscar López Ruiz on electric guitar, Rubén López Furst on piano, Domingo Cura on percussion, Osvaldo Bissio vibráphone, and baritone saxophonist Julio Darré.
Fürst is one of the most important pianists in the history of Argentinean jazz and opted to stay in Buenos Aires and make a name for himself at home unlike his counterparts Barbieri and Lalo Schiffrin. He played for over 20 years, mainly with his own trio or quartet.
The hard bop musician also formed a swing group. Pianist and guitarist Baby Fürst, whose primary influences were Teddy Wilson and Bill Evans, died on July 26, 2000 at the age of 63 in Buenos Aires.
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