Rengay!

This evening I would like to post some rengay, a collaborative form of poetry, that Leslie McKay sent me a while back.  I hope that those of you who know and love this form will also enjoy these pieces.  Those of you who are just learning about rengay are in for a treat.  I am also really pleased that Leslie included some jazz rengay, too!

Incantations 

between a laugh and a sigh
sonic threads
pollinate the mother tree

off rides the current
slides under the bedroom door

exhilarating chords
heard late and early
making the leap

moss on the ground
boomed syncopation
intricate spiderweb

black panthers' sure moves
long incantations

harmonic heights
silver scales leaping
shatter stars

-- Ingrid Bruck and Leslie McKay

Wild Air

murmurs tease
suddenly the air is wild
roaring and incendiary

isolation moves
giddy giraffe gait

singing alone
africas catwalk model
kills with her sensual gravity

chez papa's pumping
the back streets of paris
open mike night

satchmo louder than the world
on Saturday night

sister jazz
twisting our butts
to Gunhild Carling
on the bagpipes

-- Leslie McKay and Benita Kape

Rare Among Them

renders a breakneck solo
Tranes altered chords
in quest of magic

danger alley
woman floats above cacophony

rare among them, Alice
harpist, pianist, composer
band leader

testosterone 
richocets
the rhythm subconscious

supreme scat team John and Cleo
both sides of the ditch

front row seats
gliding on an undercurrent
maintaining cool

-- Leslie McKay and Benita Kape

Chain Reaction

deep indigo valley
sultry saxophones riff
around my honey bees

melody
the tui mimics my tune

west coast salvation
fluid notes in every cup
back east was hunger

exploring new terrain
wind twangs the fence wires
stretching harmonies

subversion
a chain reaction to fiery bop

between velocity
and spare sounds
the jazz of a twilight sky

-- Benita Kape and Leslie McKay

For more information about the rengay, see this link:  http://www.baymoon.com/~ariadne/form/rengay.htm

I had no idea that this poem was a relatively new Americanized form!

Onto the music.  Although Bennie Maupin was not born in the 1930s, I'd like to include some of his music since it fits into what I've been listening to lately.  I learned about him from YouTube and the recent documentary about Lee Morgan.

Here is Maupin's "Ensenada":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZcGsuDPvOU

Maupin wrote "Neophilia," and this version was on Lee Morgan's Live at the Lighthouse:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHThSADuIeo

I'm going to move on to Alice Coltrane's "Blue Nile":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9Dd4UGt5rg  It is from an album that she did with Pharoah Sanders and others.

Dorothy Ashby's "Joyful Grass and Grape" includes the koto: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fcihdck42Zg

I'll finish with Roy Brooks' "The Free Slave," which is part of a live album.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1ay4rmkE1s