Requiem for Elvin and Philly Joe

I really love it when a new-to-me poet submits some poetry and it's about a (slightly) less well known musician. Thank you, Glen Armstrong, for sending along this tribute to Elvin and Philly Joe Jones.

Requiem for Elvin and Philly Joe

I’ve heard bodies

become music / become other bodies

beats

experimental at first then

breathing / catching

asynchronous as all

phantasms must be

until

warming / returning

to a pulse

sometimes at night Pontiac Michigan

and the so-called Badlands

of Philadelphia

echo / ring / divide

as if by hand

and stick

dividing a ride cymbal

into unexpected 3s / galloping 4s

as if these cities

might at any moment

return.

Bio:

Glen Armstrong holds an MFA in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and teaches writing at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. He edits a poetry journal called Cruel Garters and has three recent chapbooks:Set List (Bitchin Kitsch,) In Stone and The Most Awkward Silence of All (both Cruel Garters Press.) His work has appeared in Poetry Northwest, Conduit and Cream City Review.

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With all this emphasis on the drums, I feel like I am back grading papers again, playing lots of drum-heavy YouTube videos to keep me going.  (I just can't drink coffee anymore.)  But let's take a listen to some videos featuring both Philly Joe Jones and Elvin Jones.

This is their "Le Roi":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXEinbbqtGY

Here they play their version of "Brown Sugar": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8bOWhK6sB8

If you want to watch Philly Joe Jones in action, watch this clip of him from 1978: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPIl4sSTtgo

It's not Halloween, and vampires are out of vogue now, but you might like "Blues for Dracula":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz3d8C6xnmU

My husband has just vetoed "Blues for Dracula," so here is a video of Elvin Jones in action:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YVOd1hK0_w

I'll finish up with his "Anti-Calypso":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcxNPlGMsAE

There is a lot more that I could post, but I will finish now.  Enjoy!

Bill Cushing & Will Mayo

Tonight I'd like to post Bill Cushing's "On Modest Mussourgsky's 'Bydlo'" -- a poem inspired by one movement of Pictures at an Exhibition, a suite composed in memory of Victor Hartmann, Mussourgsky's close friend, an artist who had died at the age of thirty nine.  

ON MODEST MUSSOURGSKY’S "BYDLO"

                        A shape appears

                        and is gone,

                        comes into view,

                        disappears, until,

                        cresting the hill,

                        the spot

                        blotting the sun,

                        a cartload of hay,

                        takes shape.

                        Emerging,

                        the wagon,

                        oxen-drawn, a juggernaut pulled

                        by two thousand pounds,

                        rolls between fields--

                        grinding dirt,

                        crushing stones.

                        Sweating flanks

                        of coarse,

                        matted hair

                        cause slow,

                        rhythmic hammering,

                        dull thunder

                        as hooves pound earth.

                        The ground moves

                        to the sound

                        of these hardened

                        timpani.

                        Beast and wagon pass,

                        processional,

                        as if solemn,

                        and then recede

                        slowly

                        out of sight.

  

                        A wake is left--

                        strong pungent odor

                        of musk

                        mixed

                        with the sweet sharpness

                        of the cut stalks

                        being carried

                        to the village beyond.

Here is one of Hartmann's surviving works, a sketch of a clock:

Another is a plan for a city gate in Kiev:

Bill Cushing's bio is below:

I earned an MFA in creative writing from Goddard College and currently teach English classes at both Mount San Antonio and East Los Angeles colleges while living in Glendale with my wife and our son.

This piece was inspired by my lifelong love of Mussourgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, a piece of music written in honor of an artist he knew well, which makes my poem a piece of writing inspired by a piece of music that was inspired by a painting. I have embedded an appropriate link below.

 

I have previously had poems published by Avocet, Brownstone Review, Mayo Review, Metaphor, Penumbra, Spectrum, and West Trade Review. I was a contributor to two recently-released anthologies, Getting Old and the award-winning Stories of Music, vol 1. Also, I am scheduled to appear in volume 2 of the latter anthology.

Bill also sent me a link to a performance of Pictures at an Exhibition:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqBCUunaTtE

You may be familiar with the version conducted by Sir Georg Solti: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAXQ3ifvnLo

If you'd like to listen to "Baba Yar" and "Great Gate of Kiev" (see pictures above), you may want to listen to the video at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZkoW1Ta3ew

I think that Thelma prefers this music.  She is looking very content.

I'd like to add some new pieces by Will Mayo.  Although this spring/summer I've been posting pieces by new-to-The Song Is... authors, I always welcome work by people who've been here before.

Journeyer


by


Will Mayo


"My God," Father Merton said one day. "Where am I headed?"


There was no answer. The wind blew still. He kept walking. Ahead in the distance he could see the shifting horizons. Then no more.






Lost!


By


Will Mayo


Another one of my recurring dreams is one where I find myself set in what appears every time to be an unfamiliar neighborhood. And I am a child again who longs to return to his childhood home. Walking about the street on which the houses lie I soon comprehend that it is a circular avenue of homes, there are no roads in and there are no roads out. And no one appears to be at home in any of the houses set on immaculate yards. One thing I do know: these are all well to-do homes far beyond the means of me and my simple family. I do not belong here. I am here a boy set at will among the absent strangers of a strange place and that feels wrong, so wrong.


Sighing at my loss, I sit upon the curb of the curving street and ease myself back into dreamless sleep. Only to waken and then dream once more.

hallways

by

Will Mayo

Yet always in these wondering, these meanderings of mind there's a hallway to be found. One hallway leads to a desert highway along which I tried to catch a ride. Another to a mountain down whose most treacherous path I slid. Still another to a distant sea where dolphins led me home. And then another to old schoolgrounds, whether the Old College or to the Academy where fundamentalist kids taunted me with “To the Devil you go!” Onward to distant homes I called my own, whether in Maryland or Alabama or to the faraway asylum where they held me caged for a year. But always, always down a long dark hallway of desire...

Unwanted

by

Will Mayo

Once again, I tried to befriend a stranger who would prove to be no friend. The wild haired man led me up a winding stair, not to his apartment as he had promised, but to the rooftop of the busy bodega. With a staggering stride, he walked forward to the roof's edge across dried and crumbling tar. He pointed to the street below.

"One day," he said. "I threw a man below. The fall broke every bone in his body."

He paused. Then added:

"What do you think of that?"

"I don't know what to think," I replied matter of factly.

"But does it scare you?" he asked.

"No," I replied.

He then led me away to the stairs. I made my way back down and past an angry storekeeper who didn't want me around either. Ahead, the crowd roared. I made my way forward.

Tonight my husband and I went to hear the Todd Marcus Quartet featuring Don Byron.  We were impressed, so I am going to post some of his songs.  The first is "Blues for Tahrir (Reflections)":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0AcqxCxyxQ  The next is their version of "Bye Bye Blackbird":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NAJGtltNLY  I thought I'd finish with their version of Monk's "Epistrophy": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTcX4E7ODT4  And here is Don Byron playing the music of Mickey Katz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qaf4jisVpek

Enjoy!

Welcome to Sergio A. Ortiz!

This morning as I prepare for another day of grading papers I'd like to post some new poems. I am especially pleased to be able to post Sergio A. Ortiz's entries into the Latino/a Culture contest.  The pictures above and below are of Mercedes Sosa.  For more information about her, see her obituary in the Guardian:  http://www.theguardian.com/music/2009/oct/05/mercedes-sosa-obituary  I'll be posting some of her songs below.

Requiem for Mercedes Sosa

Just in case Mercedes returns,

in case a bombó or a zampoña bring her back,

maybe she’ll return in the gallop of a chacarera,

or in the swell of a samba.

Hopefully a tango brings her back.

And if, once and for all, the songs she left,

the palpitations, the flora and fauna (happy

to have been conceived by the voice

of La Negra) bring her back: that is to say,

in case an airplane doesn’t,

or yet another concert, and even then,

Mercedes returns with her pure voice purer,

with her unadulterated voice

capable of making bread or birds appear;

and just in case Mercedes does return.

I’m buying two front seats,

one to sit down and watch her,

another one to dance and sing

until I’ve been revived.

Latino/a Culture is more than just music as this next poem "Yellow Flowers" shows:

Yellow Flowers

I saw flowers in mi abuelas garden,

perhaps they were not flowers,

maybe they were candy, my childhood,

yellow memories, lips, time,

little piles of light, echoes of the sun

immersed in darkness, golden orioles perching 

in the air or on the stems;

I saw flowers and possibly not flowers,

Perchance it was mi abuela,

my grandmother in yellow,

in multiple portraits,

portraits in the petals.

I told you,

they beat us

now come down

from that cross

and follow me

Short Bio:

           

Sergio A. Ortiz is the founding editor of Undertow Tanka Review. His collections of Tanka, For the Men to Come (2014), and From Life to Life (2014) were released by Amazon.  He’s a two time Pushcart nominee and a four time Best of the Web nominee.  His poems have been publish in over four hundred journals and anthologies.

What a wonderful way to begin!  Now for the music.....

We'll start with Mercedes Sosa's "Todo Cambia": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98XkPHcmCv0

Here is her "Gracias a la Vida": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyOJ-A5iv5I

Let's include her "Zamba para Olvidar": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDAi4bI3mEc

I'll finish with a live version of her "Seranetero de Bombos": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWkH9O_4WFY

Enjoy!

Welcome to Chani Zwibel

This evening I'd like to post some poems by Chani Zwibel, a member of the Southern Collective Experience and the poetry editor of The Blue Mountain Review.  I trust that this first poem will put you into a summery mood.  (It has been so gray lately in Maryland that I really need to be reminded of summer lightning, heat, and humidity.)

SOLAR PLEXUS

There is a room inside my soul with an altar to fire and the fire burns day and night, making that room sweltering, hotter than a Valdosta night with heat lightning flashing over fields of cotton.

Priestesses garbed in yellow tend the altar and keep it lit.

The fire room plays only Jimi Hendrix “Let me stand next to your fire” and I can strut through the room in six inch platform black leather heels.

I am riding a white stallion in the fire altar, blazing flame of queen upon a wild mount, crushing the heads of my foes.

I am the dragon queen here, claws on my golden hoard of gems, goblets and cases made of precious woods and metals.

The dragon queen devours enemies, terrible beast of fire; she reduces foes to ashes.

The room in my soul holds the fire, holds it like a palace of burnished marble in the darkness, and it glows, white, hot, luminous, burning. 

Often the dragon queen visits the marble room, and roars through the windows her all-consuming blast, a stream of flames. 

Birds are roasted mid-flight, and fall to the ground where she eats them after, and smiles, her fangs all gold and gore. 

CASHIER LIFE

Dreams used to be more than wishing for a working credit or debit machine.

No negative thoughts, but do not use the word “no”. 

Just a cashier today, not head cashier or customer service or even a writer; just a cashier.

To scan and bag, to answer phone, to spray citrus cleaner and wipe off dirt.

An old man’s fingers,

Long and bony,

His hands are hairy spiders with skinny legs.

To take money and drink water and joke with the guys.

Electric starlight on the cove of nowhere

Blessed edge of forgotten worlds

Find me here, and in dreams. 

Circular swing of time

Going round, spinning back in on itself,

Carries me to a place

Where all my past lives converge

And everyone I ever knew

Is there.

Memories live in the wings of music

Vegetables pay us no mind

We are poor vagabonds beside the doors of commerce

Echo me no angel’s cry

I can’t go back to those old days

The new me is where the old me cannot go

I am time’s prisoner.

It’s the slips of debit and credit cards held together with a paper clip.

It’s the cloying smell of old ladies’ perfume.

It’s the dull headache at the top of the head.

It’s the bump of the shark on the ankle, brief brush with the Dark Agency.

It’s the face that haunts, vampire-like, the common place healthfood store that is my purgatory. You know the people from past lives. The same ones who broke you heart with their beauty, the same ones who rush in every Fall, Autumnal like the dying season, their poignant nostalgia, their cloves and crumpled leaves.

For every thick-headed slow-witted customer, for every Senior who demands their discount, the balances are disrupted with changing weights.

For dollars and cents

For returns and rents.

PLEASE REMEMBER:

I have been trying

To peel the world like my personal grape

But the skin will not come off

Under every layer is a new layer.

Whenever I write it sounds

Like your mother is calling you home for dinner;

I am only trying to explain how

Rocks whisper rocky songs

Trees can easily interpret for me. 

Whenever I write it sounds like

Heavy metal rock music blasting

From your adolescent neighbor’s car stereo.

Sometimes it morphs into hip-hop

And you unconsciously roll your windows up

And lock your door.

You have been watching local news too closely.

I am only trying to ask you for a cigarette.

Whenever I write it sounds like

Someone is dying;

I am only trying to harness the shadows,

But they keep slipping back into the stream.

Slick little grey minnows,

With curious mouths,

They examine the bread crumbs I toss.

If all I get are watery grey streaks,

I am only trying to paint with rain.

Whenever I write it sounds like

Someone is hammering a violin to death,

Like someone is yanking the strings

With the prongs at the back of the hammer,

Someone ripping its musical body

With grotesque vigor. 

I am only trying to capture these little white moths.

With Chani's last line, I have to play "Pannonica," which is both the name of the Jazz Baroness and a moth.  This version is by a very young Chick Corea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRqcobYcDoc

This is his "Now He Sings, Now He Sobs"--what a great title for a song!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytHCfy6a7jw

I feel like I should play something even more dramatic, though--such as Jimi Hendrix' "Fire": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u4Fv4D-ETI

I'll finish with a version of his "Spanish Castle Magic": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E1qCAPJJPE

Spring/Summer Begins.....

Given the week of rain that we are expecting in Maryland, I thought that Angelee Deodhar's "Rainforest" would be a fine way to begin the spring/summer.  The haibun was previously published in Albatros 2006, the bilingual (Romanian English) international print journal of the Romanian Haiku Society.

Tea is always nice in the evening.

For a moment, it looks like it has stopped raining, but I'd like to share with you "Rain Raga," Angelee's collaboration with the haiku poet Raamesh Gowri Raghavan.  (I will post his interview with her later.)

Below are Angelee's notes on "Rain Raga":
http://giftingtrees.blogspot.in/2011/03/favourite-tree-of-god.html In Hindu mythology, the tree was the favourite tree of Lord Krishna, who is usually depicted playing his flute under it. He also used to plays with his friends under the Kadamb tree using the unique globular flower of the tree. Hence the tree is also known as Haripriya , God's favourite.

A raga is a word derived from Sanskrit word is one of the melodic modes used in Indian classical music and means an act of coloring or dyeing  and therefore metaphorically means 'any feeling or passion especially love, affection, sympathy, desire, interest, motivation, joy, or delight.'

 image credit http://www.dollsofindia.com/product/miniature-paintings/cowherd-krishna-with-friends-miniature-painting-on-silk-cloth-AP30.html

Ragamala Paintings are a series of illustrative paintings from medieval India based on Ragamala or the "Garland of Ragas", depicting various Indian musical modes called Ragas. They stand as a classical example of the amalgamation of art, poetry and classical music in medieval India. In these paintings each raga is personified by a color, mood, a verse describing a story of a hero and heroine.  It also elucidates the season and the time of day and night in which a particular raga is to be sung; and finally most paintings also demarcate the specific Hindu deities attached with the raga

Have you ever listened to a raga?  The first is a morning raga.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7mameo-mA0

More appropriately, this is an evening raga:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpFCaovSk2U

We'll finish with "Write Me a Song" and "Sunyata."  Sunyata appeared in Contemporary Haibun Online July 2013.

Here is the link to Raamesh Gowri Raghavan's interview with Angelee Deodhar:  http://gloxtalk.blogspot.in/2014/06/angelee-deodhar-life-in-haiku.html?m=1GLO-TALK
The interview focuses on Angelee's career as a writer and advocate of haiku.

Raamesh Gowri Raghavan moonlights as an award-winning copywriter by day and daylights as an award-wanting poet by night.   He thinks he is funny, but his friends vehemently disagree.

She also sent me some music for this entry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX64bXgNFpo

Summer in Music : Classical Music for summer

A collection of classical music that perfectly fits summer! 
Corelli, Mendelssohn, Vivaldi, Chopin and Mahler 's masterpieces 

Corelli - Concerto Grosso No. 10 - Allegro (00:00)
Mendelssohn - B. Brezze (02:13)
Vivaldi - Symphony RV 149 Allegro molto (04:56)
Chopin - Mazurkas op. 7 No.1 (06:34)
Mahler - Symphony No. 1 2 Mov (08:58)

https://www.nyjazzacademy.com/programs/summer-jazz-intensives/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzGKjhCSKHA

Piano Jazz & Jazz Piano: Parisian Summer (2 Hours of Best Smooth Jazz Piano Music)

Enjoy!