In February with Felino A. Soriano

Today I'd like to continue the fall/winter contests with Felino A. Soriano's poems.  The first is his celebration of Poncho Sanchez.

Oh, the joy

                —after Poncho Sanchez’s Baila mi gente

we this aggregation of

fluid wings this

                        articulation of rhythm’s

                        mobile language and prosaic

              function

            to

reinterpret movement

                                           we’ve been an attribute of tonal miracles

and

 the feet of our listening

erupt and configure

elation’s

                   pronounced figurines of multilingual

excavations 

The other is his invocation of Marian McPartland, the long time NPR host who interviewed everyone from Dizzy Gillespie to Lionel Hampton to Kenny Burrell to Steely Dan to Elvis Costello.  Born in 1918, she inspired Felino's poem for the contest of poems inspired by musicians born in the 1910s.

Each crow suspends prior to dedicating movement

          —for Marian McPartland (born 3/20/18)

                                               

personal geography

the dance of the body’s turning

                                                toward

an age of trend     an arc of proving rhythms—

near-morning, the

mist of air’s whispering welcome

nothing here hallucinates under the

fingering tributes of wing and plurals of

reconfiguring devotion—

a prose writes

its wandering purpose

into gaze and promise to etch meaning from absence

and within the voice a

curtain of horizontal hands

pause and continue . . .                                             a bowing of

internal reliance with

SUDDEN symmetry :: each rounded sounding

pound of memorizing measure, the associated

figurines of air’s crisscrossing angular levels

paralleling music with the flight of handmade veneration—

the tribute will arrive again, ongoing

mentioning toward the hearers of tonal

                                                             camaraderie
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Let's listen to some Poncho Sanchez and Marian McPartland.

Here is a live version of Baila Mi Gente, the song that Felino references:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7VfVvLntW4

Yumbambe is also live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zId8oULYto4

I will also include his version of Cantaloupe Island: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOpmMDj8IZI

Marian McPartland's version of "Things Ain't What They Used To Be" dates from 1964, the good old days!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1JGCXECmFg

Here she and Dave Brubeck perform parts of "Take Five" on her show.  This recording is from 1984:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUPKeZ7tLaA

She joins Steely Dan on "Hesitation Blues": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-zo0FggV3c