Jazz Poems

ELEGY FOR THELONIOUS

Damn the snow

Its senseless beauty pours a hard light through the hemlock. Thelonious is dead. Winter drifts in the hourglass; notes pour from the brain cup. Damn the alley cat wailing a muted dirge off Lenox Ave. Thelonious is dead. Tonight’s a lazy rhapsody of shadows swaying to blue vertigo & metaphysical funk. Black trees in the wind. Crepuscule with Nelly Plays inside the bowed head. “Dig the Man Ray of piano!” O Satisfaction, hot fingers blur on thosewhite rib keys. Comingon the Hudson. Monk’s Dream. The ghost of bebop from 52nd Street, footprints in the snow. Damn February. Let’s go to Minton’s & play “modern malice” till daybreak. Lord, there’s Theloniou wearing that old funky hat pulled down over his eyes.

Yusef Komunyakaa | 1947

from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young

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A DAY IN THE LIFE | WES MONTGOMERY

One of my favorite jazz albums that I first heard during my freshman year in college was the 1967 album A Day In The Life by Wes Montgomery. It was recorded on June 6 & 26, 1967 at the Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey and released on the A&M/CTI label later that year in September.

The 34:21 minute album is filled with covers of rock and pop songs selected by the guitarist who opens Side One with the title track, A Day In The Life by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, originally released on their Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. It’s a great opener that builds from a quiet start into a cavalcade of strings by its end. Watch What Happens is from the 1964 musical romantic drama film The Umbrellas of Cherbourg written and directed by Jacques Demy, with music by Michel Legrand.

The Calvin Lewis and Andrew Wright #1 tune When a Man Loves a Woman is the third addition to the side and first recorded by Percy Sledge in 1966. California Nights is a song written by Marvin Hamlisch and Howard Liebling and recorded by Lesley Gore in 1967. The final song is Angel and is the only composition contributed by Montgomery.

Side Two is opened by another Lennon/McCartney song, Eleanor Rigby. One premise is that the inspiration for the title is the actress Eleanor Bron who starred in the Beatles movie Help!. Rigby came from the name of a store in Bristol, Rigby & Evens Ltd. Next up is Willow Weep For Me, that once again accounts the inspiration for the song is that Ann Ronnell, while at Radcliffe College, had been struck by the loveliness of the willow trees on campus, and this observation became the subject of an intricate song.

Windy, another No. 1 tune recorded by The Association, and was composed by Ruthann Friedman. Trust In Me was composed by Milton Ager, Jean Shwartz and Ned Wever and was made popular in 1937 by Mildred Bailey. Closing out the session is The Joker, a song by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley, and is taken from the 1964 musical The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd. It’s a lament of a person, seen by the outside world as a jester and a comedian especially when they fail.

The recording session was produced by Creed Taylor, was arranged and conducted by Don Sebesky, the engineer was Rudy Van Gelder and the principal photography was performed by Pete Turner.

The guitarist did little more than play the melody using his distinctive octaves. A Day in the Life  is a collaboration of guitar and strings. For these ears it was a  pleasurable listening experience.

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Jazz Poems

SHAKING HANDS WITH MONGO

for Mongo Santamaria

Mongo’s open hands

huge soft palms

that drop the hard seeds

of conga with a thump,

shaken by the god of hurricanes,

raining mambo coconuts

that do not split

even when they hit the sidewalk,

rumbling incantation

in the astonished dancehall

of a city in winter,

sweating in a rush of A-train night,

so that Chano Pozo,

maestro of the drumming Yoruba heart,

howling Manteca in a distant coro,

hears Mongo and yes,

begins to bop

a slow knocking bolero of forgiveness

to the nameless man

who shot his life away

for a bag of tecata

in a Harlem bar

forty years ago

Martín Espada | 1957

from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young

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CONCEPTION: THE GIFT OF LOVE | BOBBY HUTCHERSON

Conception: The Gift of Love is a post bop album by vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson. The album was  recorded over a two day period on March 15 & 16, 1979 at A&R Recording Studios in New York City and at the Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. The 37 minute, 52 second album was produced and arranged by Cedar Walton and released on the Columbia Records label.

Vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson’s quintet includes pianist George Cables, bassist James Leary, drummer Eddie Marshall and percussionists Bill Summers and Kenneth Nash. He brings a stellar horn section to the session with flutist Hubert Laws, trumpeters Jon Faddis, Danny Moore, Anthony Tooley, Joseph B. Wilder, tenor trombonists Robert Alexander, John Gale, Urbie Green, bassoon and bass clarinetist Romeo Pinque, alto saxophone Lenny Hambro, and tenor saxophonists Daniel Trimboli and Frank Wess.

The seven originals were composed by the band members. Side One opens with the leader’s composition No Siree Bob (7:00), followed by Clockwise by Cedar Walton (6:39), and closes with James Leary’s Remember to Smile (5:38). Side Two commences with Dark Side, Light Side by George Cables (4:06), then another Leary composition Hold My Hand (3:58), Eddie Marshall’s Dreamin’ (6:07) and closes with a second Cable composition titled Quiet Fire (4:24).

Though some critics have claimed this album to be one of his lesser releases with nothing memorable occuring, there are some who state it is a masterpiece of lyrical, straight ahead jazz that is melodically beautiful. I found it to be an enjoyable escape and leave it to you to discover for yourself.

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Jazz Poems

FOR ERIC DOLPHY

on flute

spinning    spinning    spinning

love

thru / out

the universe

i

know

exactly

whut chew mean

man

you like

titter

my sister

who never expressed LOVE

in words (like the white folks always       d

she would sit in the corner                      o

and cry                                                   i

everytime                                               n

I                                                             g

got a whuppin

Etheridge Knight

from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young

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