Jazz Poetry
Solo Monk: A Poem By Steve Kowit
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 ...
read moreMy Uncle Played The Sax
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 ...
read morePoetry and Jazz: A Chronology
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 ...
read moreThe Fire in Coltrane’s Lungs
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
read moreKissing Cousins: Jazz + poetry = jazz poetry
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 ...
read moreThe Answer is Jim
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 ...
read moreMind
by Gordon Marshall
For Yoko MiwaShe knocked me out for a yeartook me to the tombsof Egypt, where she embalmedthe brains of the first tribeof jazz... with kindest careshe put them in their jarslabeled calligraphicallywith multi-colored lettersindicating Duke and 'Tranein a quicksand of sadness they reign,under her sash of silkin all her sweet milk,nursing it all in ...
read moreThe Business of 'Trane
by Gordon Marshall
Carlos Santana turned me on to himin an article in Guitar Player magazineI read at the Hingham library,at 14: spiritual centerof his Baja brain,and mine now,for 35 years,in Boston, in the rainafter a storm...the storm--it lasted years,years when I couldn't listen to the fellow,so powerful his song,so powerful the memories of lossand pain, in ...
read moreBirds with Long Red Tails
by Adriana Carcu
[Written during guitarist Stian Westerhus' solo show, June 4, 2012 at Green Hours Jazz Fest, Bucharest.]I see things, scary things,wars and ghosts,planes and meadows.I hear my pulse and the bloodrushing through my veins,I see an old clock on a marble mantelpieceand I see the time falling apartin seconds I have already forgotten.The city traffic stops at the crossroadsto listen to ...
read moreNovember (for Yoko Miwa)
by Gordon Marshall
On the ebony off-keys, your hands,your head in a veil of black mist, tonicto your turquoise evening gown. Poised as a turtle dove on an eave,you press an index finger on the ivory,liberating a passel of scales zooming down like falcons in a swarm,your colony and command,to a Japanese baseball diamond playing field for a perfect game,blossoming cherries shaking
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