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Jazz Poetry

1

Head Chart

Read "Head Chart" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic


As rain falls on Gethsemane angels on the highway crew fix the roads in heaven Sing acapella big band Head chart Blue Trane Hoist a shot head for home Headlong into the headwinds Sans the dismal river The smoke dust sky The steady indictment of time ...

2

Miles Runs The Voodoo Down

Read "Miles Runs The Voodoo Down" reviewed by Ronald Bremner


Miles boils his bitches brew in a night of worlds much blacker than black His demons and angels let out slack for pharaohs dancing into the true Miles runs the voodoo down and serves it up with the taste of free for those whose spirits would otherwise drown without such wild, mad sanctuary. ...

1

A Little Rain In Arkansas

Read "A Little Rain In Arkansas" reviewed by George Wallace


Professor fear & his longhair piano sat on the bandstand he was just about to play some boogie-woogie when somebody fresh from pontchartrain with a three-piece suit walked in--did you see that thing go down, bartender? Walked right in & the door slapped shut tight as a tornado behind him  a man in a three piece suit & he walked right up to ruby  (some people called her needle of smoke) who was addicted to jazz & yes he was a  handsome man, a blues pantomime,  ...

4

6jazzhaiku

Read "6jazzhaiku" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic


Mingus and the moon over Mohonk the myths the mountain melodies in small rooms without windows the high humor of comrades lost in jazz crescent moon hangs low above brooklyn saxophone blues a sad guitar Trane blowing truth to every corner of the room big blue westside moon Dolphy and winter's first snow Dolphy's blue flute and the winter's first snow

4

Solo Monk: A Poem By Steve Kowit

Read "Solo Monk: A Poem By Steve Kowit" reviewed by AAJ Staff


One day back in the '60s, Monk was sitting at the piano, Charlie Mingus pulling at his coat how Monk should put the word in so the Mingus group could play the Five Spot, seeing as how Monk's already legendary gig down there was ending--Mingus all persuasion & cajolery, ran it down for twenty minutes till he capped it with the comment: ..."Dig it, Thelonious, you know we Black Brothers ...GOT to ...

6

My Uncle Played The Sax

Read "My Uncle Played The Sax" reviewed by Louis Bryan


Russet face glistening from another realm, eyes dancing to, A Love Supreme, he be-bopped through my boyhood, fingering those keys like crazy, taking and making them notes his own, empyrean melodies to fill the whole room, my ears entirely, too-cool evocations of heroes who've remained mine, and so I still hear Charlie, John, Ornette, Rashan, Lester, all my ethereal idols whose music I first heard, coming from the bell of ...

4

Poetry and Jazz: A Chronology

Read "Poetry and Jazz: A Chronology" reviewed by Duncan Heining


My intention here is to offer a detailed but inevitably incomplete chronology of poetry and jazz. The focus is solely on the combination of the two art forms in performance, not on poetry about jazz or jazz musicians or poetry inspired by jazz but not performed to music. My definition of 'poetry' is fairly broad and extends to spoken word/text combined with jazz. Hopefully, readers will be able to add to the chronology by contributing further examples of which I ...

6

The Fire in Coltrane’s Lungs

Read "The Fire in Coltrane’s Lungs" reviewed by Larry Jaffe


When the horn sounds the jazz begins Unity rediscovered A crisscross divergence of souls Coltrane steals the birthright of his heritage makes it into music The horn blasts loud and not so pure-- Life lives between the notes not at the end of the song Painfully hidden tones magically appear dragged out one by one by one breathless gasps of tonal agony Coltrane plays tears of subjugation between notes of joyous rhapsody

7

Kissing Cousins: Jazz + poetry = jazz poetry

Read "Kissing Cousins: Jazz + poetry = jazz poetry" reviewed by Jeff Winke


Believe it or not there have been times when jazz and poetry intertwine. The music inspires the poetry and creates a non-mainstream style of writing... jazz poetry. Innovations in music and poetics in the early part of the 20th century surfaced in the 1920's. The simultaneous evolution of poetry and jazz music was not lost upon musicians and writers of the time. The two art forms merge and form the genre of jazz poetry. However, note that there's ...

4

The Answer is Jim

Read "The Answer is Jim" reviewed by William DeLancey Adamson


The freshening breeze slides off the shadowed slope past the warming land the sand the sapphire bay then smacks the spinnaker with its surging power and suddenly we're flying! through the spray and fiery sun down to Aruba with you Jim on your music Oh I can't get started any more it's no use when I heard your name on the radio today my ...


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