For Mike Litt and Bob Bamberg
Listening to Paul Desmond play East of the Sun
Is like watching JFK sipping the sound
Of a dry martini in the oval room
While Marilyn Monroe
Bats her silky eyelashes at him
Gently as a butterfly coming in for a landing
On his waiting lips.
When the embers of our waning passion
Finally grow stone cold
Who gives a damn anyway?
So what if we’re too old to jump and jive
Each time Basie swings the blues
Or Armstrong sings
Struttin’ with some barbecue.
Not for us The Sound of Music
And its chorus line
Of dancing nuns in bacchanalian rut.
Give us instead a ballad by Chet Baker
Which calms our nerves
With an influx of evocative notes
Light as cannabis smoke
Mixed with twilight mist
And stippled with fireflies
Which flutter down from the sky
And settle in our deeps forever.
After John Coltrane kicked his habit
He gave praise to God in sheets of sound,
Thunder and blast, a love supreme,
His art a vision he blew heavenward
Through the mouthpiece of his saxophone.
Distant as Latin the look in Bill Evans’ eyes
As his fingers weave
Jade Visions’ unearthly melody
Into transcendental patterns
Of everything there is out there
Beyond the stars,
Ethereal jazz that makes us feel
Like we were going to heaven
Instead of Peru.
When Lester was a Young hipster
He was so ultra super icebox cool
Billy Holliday nicknamed him
The prez-id-ent.
Listening to the breathy tone
Of his saxophone’s contagious rapture
Is like driving a black Cadillac
Through the streets of Manhattan
At midnight
While our two best friends
Are having sex in the back seat.
Drive on, baby, drive on,
Keep your eyes on the road
And accept the night for what it is,
A ride on the wild side
Played out in sweeps
Of sweet sixteenth notes,
The prez-id-ent’s gift to us----his alpha
And omega salute to joy.
Great things endure----bread and wine
And Thelonius Monk
Never surpassed or overlooked.
His compositions, nutty songs
Like Misterioso and Humph,
Take us to the edge of the world
And drop us over.
No longer safely wedged
Between the ceiling and the floor
We listen enchanted and perplexed
To the jangly tremulous path
His fingertips follow
As they wander in short choppy strides
Across the keys----creating Jerky rhythms
Which lead us to believe
We are his privileged guests
In the strange oasis of his dreams,
Mirages, rainbows, sunsets, phantoms,
Reflections on water and beautiful women.
Either that or what he’s doing
Is pursuing jeweled illusions
In carnival halls filled with ornamental
Distorting echoes
The likes of which we’ve never heard before.
***
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