Jazz Poems
ART PEPPER
It’s the broken phrases, the fury inside him.
Squiggling alto saxophone playing out rickets
And jaundice, a mother who tried to kill him
In her womb with a coat hanger, a faltering
God-like father. The past is a bruised cloud
Floating over the houses like a prophecy,
The terrible foghorns off the shore at San Pedro.
Lightning without thunder. Years without playing.
Years of blowing out smoke and inhaling fire,
Junk and cold turkey, smacking up, the habit
Of cooking powder in spoons, the eyedroppers,
The spikes. Tracks on both arms. Tattoos.
The hospital cells at Fort Worth, the wire cages
In the L.A. County, the hole at San Quentin.
And always the blunt instrument of sex, the pain
Bubbling up inside him like a wound, the small
Deaths. The wind piercing the sheer skin
Of a dark lake at dawn. The streets at 5 a.m.
After a cool rain. The smoky blue clubs.
The chords of Parker, of Young, of Coltrane.
Playing solo means going on alone, improvising,
Hitting the notes, ringing the changes,
It’s clipped phrasing and dry ice in summer,
Straining against the rhythms, speeding it up,
Loping forward and looping back, finding the curl
In the wave, the mood in the air. It’s
Splintered tones and furious double timing.
It’s leaving the other instruments on stage
And blowing freedom into the night, into the faces
Of emptiness that peer along the bar, ghosts
Shallow hulls of nothingness, Hatred of God.
Hatred of white skin that never turns black.
Hatred of Patti, of Dianne, of Christine.
A daughter who grew up without him, a stranger.
Years of being strung out, years without speaking.
Pauses and intervals, silence. A fog rolling
Across the ocean, foghorns in the distance.
A lighthouse rising from the underworld.
A moon swelling in the clouds, an informer,
A twisted white mouth of light. Scars carved
And criscrossed on his chest. The memory
Of nodding out, the dazed drop-off into sleep.
And then the curious joy of surviving, joy
Of waking up in a dusky room to a gush
Of fresh notes, a tremoring sheet of sound.
Jamming again. Careening through the scales
For the creatures who haunt the night.
Bopping through the streets in a half-light
With Laurie on his arm, a witness, a believer.
The night is going to burst inside him.
The wind is going to break loose forever
From his lungs. It’s the fury of improvising,
Of going on alone. It’s the fierce clarity
Of each note coming to an end, distinct,
Glistening. The alto’s full-bodied laughter
The white grief-stricken wail.
EDWARD HIRSCH
from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
William Stewart was born on October 1, 1957 in Glasgow, Scotland and started playing classical violin at the age of 10. After winning first prize in the Scottish Central Counties Music Festival in 1970, 1971, 1972 and first prize in the Glasgow Music Festival in 1973, he won the McFarlane scholarship to attend the Royal Scottish Academy of Music in Glasgow at the age of fourteen.
While at the Academy he won the first prize in the Robert Highgate Scholarship for violin in 1975, and went on to play with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, BBC Scotland, Scottish Opera, Scottish Baroque Ensemble, Virtuosi Scotland. At 19 Stewart toured Britain as leader of the Scottish Ballet Orchestra.
When he turned 21 William left Scotland to take a position as leader of the Passau State Opera Orchestra in Germany before joining the world famous Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Herr. Prof. Karl Munchinger. By twenty-six, as a member of the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra Quartet, he had played in some of the most famous concert halls in the world, including Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York City.
For a few years now Stewart has been working on his own compositions and music, blending influences from his traditional Scottish up-bringing, classical music, and love of Eastern-European fiddle music. After many solo concerts, and support for, among others, Nikki Sudden, and Hazel O’Conner at the “Left Bank”, he began playing with local groups like the Jazz Lads and Ellamental. He formed the Klazz with whom he played at the Derry Jazz Festival.
He has recorded with his own quintet “The Bill Stewart Quintet”, and with the gypsy-jazz trio “Gitane Swing”. Violinist William Stewart is now playing jazz, swing jazz, and composing his own works, blending influences from classical and Eastern-European violin music to create a sound that is truly unique.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Basia was born Barbara Stanisława Trzetrzelewska on September 30, 1954 in Jaworzno, Poland. Growing up in a musical household she enjoyed singing from an early age and had an extensive collection of vinyl records. Her mother played piano and gave her first music lessons.
She began singing professionally in various Polish bands in the late Sixties in a local band Astry. During her first year at Jagiellonian University, the manager of the popular Polish all-female band Alibabki asked her to join the group. She accepted, dropped out and toured with them in 1972 around Poland and abroad until 1974. She performed in Polish rock band Perfect.
Relocating to London, England with her partner in 1981 recorded demo tracks for various artists. It was there she met Danny White and his collaborator Mark Reilly. The trio performed as Bronze, but later changed the name to Matt Bianco and released their debut album Whose Side Are You On? that became a hit across Europe. This catapulted her rise to fame.
She signed on with Epic Records and enjoyed a successful international career between 1987 and 1995, particularly in the US where her first two albums Time and Tide and London Warsaw New York both sold more than a million copies. She released several successful albums throughout the 1990s and into the new century.
She took a lengthy hiatus due to personal tragedies, then made a comeback to regular recording and performing in the late 2000s. Vocalist Basia, currently releases her music through independent labels.
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PATRICIA BARBER
Songwriter, composer, singer, and pianist, was born in Chicago and her father Floyd was a jazz saxophonist who played with Bud Freeman and Glenn Miller. She played saxophone and piano from a young age, sang in musicals in high school, and studied piano at the University of Iowa in the early 1970s. From there Barber went to Chicago and began performing regularly in bars and clubs. She won a Guggenheim Fellowship in music composition in 2003, an unusual accomplishment for someone working in the field of popular songwriting.
The Band: Patricia Barber – piano, vocals | Emma Dayhuff – bass | Greg Artry – drums | Neal Alger – guitar
Cover: $27.75 ~ $37.75
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DENISE THIMES
Over the course of a multi-faceted career spanning just a little under 3 decades, Thimes is no stranger to the music world, growing up in a home surrounded by all types of music from her father & radio icon, the late Lou “Fatha” Thimes. She has performed with such jazz notables as Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra in St. Louis, MO; the late Clark Terry at the Blue Note-NY; Dr. Billy Taylor, Earl May, Benny Powell, in Flushing Town Hall; and James Moody again at the Blue Note-NY. She has also graced the stage with the likes of Houston Person, Jimmy&Tootie Heath, Bobby McFerrin, and Bucky Pizzarelli.
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