Jazz Poems
BIX BEIDERBECKE (1908~1931)
January, 1926
China Boy. Lazy Daddy. Cryin’ All Day.
He dreamed he played the notes so slowly that
they hovered in the air above the crowd
and shimmered like a neon sign. But no,
the club stayed dark, trays clattered in the kitchen,
people drank and kept on talking. He watched
the smoke drift from a woman’s cigarette
and slowly circle up across the room
until the ceiling fan blades chopped it up.
A face, a young girl’s face, looked up at him,
the stupid face of small-town innocence.
He smiled her way and wondered who she was.
He looked again and saw the face was his.
He woke up then. His head still hurt from drinking.
Jimmy ws driving. Tram was still asleep.
Where were they anyway? Near Davenport?
There was no distance in these open fields–
only time, time marked by a farmhouse
or a barn, a tin-topped silo or a tree,
some momentary silhouette against
the endless, empty fields of snow.
He lit a cigarette and closed his eyes.
The best years of his life! The Boring “Twenties.
He watched the morning break across the snow.
Would heaven be as white as Iowa?
DANA GIOIA
from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young
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Terence Michael “Terry” Clarke was born August 20, 1944 in Vancouver, Canada. He studied percussion with Jim Blackley and played with Chris Gage and Dave Robbins early in his career. From 1965 to 1967 he toured in a quintet with John Handy, and joined The Fifth Dimension in 1967, remaining until 1969.
In 1970, he moved to Toronto, Canada where he began a longstanding association with Rob McConnell’s group, Boss Brass. He also played with Ed Bickert, Ruby Braff, Jim Galloway, Sonny Greenwich, Jay McShann, Emily Remler, and Frank Rosolino. In 1976, he toured with Jim Hall for the first time and in 1981 did an international tour with Oscar Peterson.
Relocating to New York City in 1985 he played or recorded with Toshiko Akiyoshi, Eddie Daniels, Oliver Jones, Roger Kellaway, Helen Merrill, Ken Peplowski, and Joe Roccisano, among others. He played with the Free Trade ensemble in 1994, a quintet composed of Clarke, Ralph Bowen, Neil Swainson, Renee Rosnes, and Peter Leitch.
Returning to Toronto in 1999, he joined The Rob McConnell Tentet. His 2009 debut album It’s About Time won a Juno Award for Traditional Jazz Album of the Year. Drummer Terry Clarke, who recorded 29 albums as a sideman and was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada in 2002, continues to perform and record.
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Ric Powell was born on August 19, 1942 in New Orleans, Louisiana. He attended and initially studied music at St. Augustine High School in New Orleans, before his family moved to the Bronx, New York where he went to Morris High School. Upon graduating he went on to study at New York School of Music in Manhattan, then in the U.S. Naval School of Music in Washington, D.C. and finally matriculated through Howard University in Washington, D.C.
He beganhis professional life as a member of the youth percussion ensemble Kalypso Kids, then became a member of the Apollo Theatre House Band under the direction of Ruben Philips. He toured with the Jimmy Castor Band before becoming a studio and freelance musician in New York City and Chicago, Illinois.
He formed a trio under his own name featuring Donny Hathaway, became a member of the CBS Staff Orchestra in Chicago, and then a record producer for Atlantic, Atco and Stax. Drummer Ric Powell, who formed Don-Ric Enterprises and is an Adjunct Professor of Percussion at Northwestern University, continues to perform.
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David William Sanborn was born July 30, 1945 in Tampa, Florida where his father was stationed in the US Air Force, and grew up in Kirkwood, a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. Contracting polio at the age of three and confined to an iron lung for a year, the polio left him with impaired respiration and his left arm shorter than the right.
While confined to bed he was inspired by the saxophone breaks in songs he heard on the radio by Fats Domino’s Ain’t That a Shame and Little Richard’s Tutti Frutti. At the age of eleven David changed to saxophone from piano lessons when doctors recommended that he take up a wind instrument to improve his breathing and strengthen his chest muscles. By 14 he was good enough to play with blues Albert King and Little Milton in local clubs. Alto saxophonist Hank Crawford was an early and lasting influence.
Sanborn studied free jazz in his youth with saxophonists Roscoe Mitchell and Julius Hemphill. He continued his education at Northwestern University and transferred to the University of Iowa, where he played and studied with saxophonist J.R. Monterose. In 1967 he took a Greyhound bus to San Francisco, California to join the Summer of Love, and was invited to sit in on a session with The Paul Butterfield Blues Band and stayed with the band for five years. He went on to play with the Brecker Brothers, Al Jarreau, and Tim Berne.
Finding life on the road increasingly difficult he continued to tour, was active as a session musician, and played on numerous albums by artists including Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Aretha Franklin, Sting, the Eagles, Rickie Lee Jones, James Brown, George Benson, Carly Simon, Elton John, Bryan Ferry and the Rolling Stones.
As a leader he recorded twenty-five albums and his discography as composer and sideman is extensive and includes videos, television and film. Sanborn won six Grammy Awards and had eight gold albums and one platinum album and was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame.
Alto saxophonist David Sanborn, who was known primarily as a smooth jazz musician, died of complications from prostate cancer in Tarrytown, New York on May 12, 2024.
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Denman Maroney was born on July 25, 1949 in Durfort-et-Saint-Martin-de-Sossenac, Occitanie, France. He went on to receive his Bachelor of Arts from William College and his Masters of Fine Arts in composition and piano from the California Instute of the Arts.
He plays what he calls hyperpiano involves stopping, sliding, bowing, plucking, striking and strumming the strings with copper bars, aluminum bowls, rubber blocks, plastic boxes and other household objects. This is sometimes done with one hand while the other hand is used to play the keys.
He received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for his work and worked on a new soundtrack to go with German horror film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. As an educator he held a position of adjunct professor at Ramapo College of New Jersey in 2010 and is currently at Fairleigh Dickinson University.
Pianist and composer Denman Maroney continues to explore and create music.
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