War. Remembrance. Walls. The High Price of Authoritarianism – by editor/publisher Joe Maita

An essay inspired by my recent experiences witnessing the ceremonies commemorating the 80th anniversary of liberation of several World War II concentration camps in Germany.

“With Ease in Mind” – poems by Terrance Underwood

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of Terrance Underwood’s poetry.  I am also quite jealous of his ease with words, and of his graceful way of living, which shows up in this collection of 12 poems.

“Dear Nina” – a poem by Jerrice J. Baptiste

I first heard your voice singing in my dormitory room. My roommate Sheila played your song I Want Some Sugar in My Bowl. She showed me the albums that proved your deep voice was female…

Interview with Sascha Feinstein, author of Writing Jazz: Conversations with Critics and Biographers

The collection of 14 interviews is an impressive and determined effort, one that contributes mightily to the deepening of our understanding for the music’s past impact, and fans optimism for more.

The Sunday Poem: “The Subtle Art of Dinner Music” by Fred Shaw

Even as another purpled sunset curtains
this bistro’s leaded windows, letting
dinner talk turn to hush while we pour
red wine with a burble, none of us can recall
when our glass-eyed piano man became
the lucky piece we fist bump at the threshold.

“Ahmad Jamal’s Piano Comes Home” – a poem by Robert Gibb

Some assembly required,
It might have said on that
Half-ton worth of furniture
Dollied from the back

Monk, as seen by Gottlieb, Dorsett and 16 poets – an ekphrastic poetry collection

Poets write about Thelonious Monk – inspired by William Gottlieb’s photograph and Rhonda R. Dorsett’s artistic impression of it.

“Is Jazz God?” – an essay by Allison Songbird

A personal journey leads to the discovery of the importance of jazz music, and finding love for it later in life.

The Sunday Poem: “4tet at Fiesta” by Catherine Lee

sound
to a place
where tomorrow
is too
am
arrow
like
pain
from
brain chatter

Trading Fours, with Douglas Cole, No. 25: “How I Hear Music: ‘Feel the Sway,’ A Song in Three Movements”

In this edition, due to a current and ongoing obsession with drummer Matt Wilson’s 2006 album The Scenic Route, Douglas Cole writes another poem in response to his experience listening to the track “Feel the Sway.”

“Thinking of Mr. Davis on the Fourth of July” – a poem by Juan Mobili

t was Miles who taught me
that so what was a declaration
of independence from your mind
when it seduces you
to wish you were like everyone else,

“J.A. Rogers’ ‘Jazz at Home’: A Centennial Reflection on Jazz Representation Through the Lens of Stormy Weather and Everyday Life – an essay by Jasmine M. Taylor

The writer opines that jazz continues to survive – 100 years after J.A. Rogers’ own essay that highlighted the artistic freedom of jazz – and has “become a fundamental core in American culture and modern Americanism; not solely because of its artistic craftsmanship, but because of the spirit that jazz music embodies.”

“Summer Wind” – a poem (for July) by Jerrice J. Baptiste

He smells residue of wind on wet skin
her long fingers caress his chin
she lives in the summer wind.

The Sunday Poem: “Hours of Jazz” by David Dephy

“She is a constellation,” I thought
listening to Ella Fitzgerald.
The magic spell has been cast,
and time has been stopped. OK,

here is the thing about hours:

Excerpts from David Rife’s Jazz Fiction: Take Two – Vol. 14: World War II and Jazz

A substantial number of novels and stories with jazz music as a component of the story have been published over the years, and the scholar David J. Rife has written short essay/reviews of them. In this 14th edition featuring excerpts from his outstanding literary resource, Rife writes about stories whose theme is World War II and jazz

“Eight is Great!” – a playlist by Bob Hecht

The cover of the 1959 album The Greatest Trumpet of Them All by the Dizzy Gillespie Octet.   A song from the album, “Just by Myself,” is featured on Bob Hecht’s new 28-song playlist – this one devoted to octets.

Memorable Quotes: Martin Luther King...

“We have guided missiles, and…”

The Sunday Poem: “Chet Baker” by John Zheng

a veined leaf

shriveling
into a soft tune

of ‘Leaving’

21 jazz poems on the 21st of June, 2025

An ongoing series designed to share the quality of jazz poetry continuously submitted to  Jerry Jazz Musician.

“Juneteenth” – a poem by Erren Kelly

I sit in coffeehouses
And read
Because Lincoln freed
My ancestors

I can live ( almost )
Anywhere because Martin
Luther King had the Audacity
To believe we were as good
As them

The passing of a poet: Alan Yount

Alan Yount, the Missouri native whose poems were published frequently on Jerry Jazz Musician, has passed away at the age of 77.

The Sunday Poem: “Licorice Stick” by Russell Dupont

My parents had this big Crosley
and a stack of albums —
Goodman, the Dorsey Brothers —
and some nights I’d get up from bed
and peek into the living room
where my mother and father
slowly waltzed in place.

What is This Path – a collection of poems by Michael L. Newell

A contributor of significance to Jerry Jazz Musician, the poet Michael L. Newell shares poems he has written since being diagnosed with a concerning illness.

“Every Night at Ten,” a short story by Dennis A. Blackledge

Smothering parents, heavy-handed school officials, and a dead President conspire to keep a close-knit group of smalltown junior high kids from breaking loose. But the discovery of a song on late-night radio — one supposedly loaded with dirty words — changes everything.

Memorable Quotes: Louis Brandeis…on lawbreaking government

“Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker…

The Sunday Poem: “Vamping” by Michel Krug

1. Morning light pours into my mind
driving out the blur of last night’s
torrential rain that sketched today’s agenda.

The Photographs of Giovanni Piesco: Art Farmer and Benny Golson

Beginning in 1990, the noted photographer Giovanni Piesco began taking backstage photographs of many of the great musicians who played in Amsterdam’s Bimhuis, that city’s main jazz venue which is considered one of the finest in the world. Jerry Jazz Musician will occasionally publish portraits of jazz musicians that Giovanni has taken over the years. This edition features the May 10, 1996 photos of the tenor saxophonist, composer and arranger Benny Golson, and the February 13, 1997 photos of trumpet and flugelhorn player Art Farmer.

From the Interview Archive: Paul Desmond biographer Doug Ramsey

In a 2005 Jerry Jazz Musician interview, Paul Desmond biographer Doug Ramsey discusses his subject – a jazz artist who transcended genres to establish one of the most immediately recognizable sounds in all of music.

The Sunday Poem: “Nights of Cool Struttin'” by Connie Johnson

& I only know how to do it
with Sonny Clark in my ear
classic jazz iconography
shrouded in mystery

Where I’ve Been…and a brief three-dot-update

Brief news about an important life experience, and an update about what’s going on at Jerry Jazz Musician

“Steven and Mira: Paris May 1968” – a short story by Steven P. Unger

The story – a finalist in the recently concluded 68th Short Fiction Contest – is a semiautobiographical tale of a café-hopping tour of Paris in the revolutionary summer of 1968, and a romance cut short by the overwhelming realities of national strikes, police violence at home and abroad, and finally the assassination of Bobby Kennedy.

The Sunday Poem: “’Piano Hands’ My Uncle Says” by Bradley Samore

as if it were a standard you could scat
at a jam session and any cat with a horn
could blow over the changes,
but as he continues to boast
about his friend’s playing,

“Stuck in the Groove” – a short story by David Rudd

The story – a short-listed entry in the recently concluded 68th Short Fiction Contest – is about a saxophonist who moves away from playing bebop to experimenting with free jazz, discovering its liberating potential and possible pitfalls along the way…

Jazz History Quiz #181

Before recording his most notable work (to that point) as a saxophonist in Miles Davis’ “Birth of the Cool” nonet, his initial reputation was as an arranger, including a stint in 1946 as the staff arranger in Gene Krupa’s Orchestra. He would eventually become one of the leading voices on his instrument for almost 50 years. Who is he?

“Albert Ayler; Flying Home” – a poem by Stephen C. Middleton

At the Fondation, where he fell in love with Chagall.
In St Paul, where that painter lived
(And Albert played al fresco)
And in interview with Daniel Caux
He seemed positive

“Postpartum” – a short story by Anastasia Jill

The author’s story – a short-listed entrant in the recently concluded 68th Short Fiction Contest – is about a couple coming to terms with the unimaginable; the loss of a child…

The Sunday Poem: “Kansas City Lights” by Jennifer Maritza McCauley

Touchdown or Something,
back to you: crisping, lighted place
my swift escape, humble
glitz, jazz’d instrument
blowing quavers, shaking, from the cave
of your trumpet sounding like
all of my loving memories

“To Langston Hughes” – a poem by Connie Johnson

Father of jazz poetry
Known for your artistry
Harlem-bred pedigree
In lines designed for spoken word
Like Montage of a Dream Deferred
Collabs you did with Monk & Mingus

“The Fire Each Time” – an interview with New York Times best-selling author Frederick Joseph, by John Kendall Hawkins

A conversation with the two-time New York Times bestselling author of The Black Friend and Patriarchy Blues, who in 2023 was honored with the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Vanguard Award,. He has also been a member of The Root list of “100 Most Influential African Americans.”

Short Fiction Contest-winning story #68 — “Saharan Blues on the Seine,” by Aishatu Ado

The author’s award winning story is about Aminata, a displaced Malian living in Paris who is haunted by vivid memories of her homeland. Through a supernatural encounter with her grandmother, she realizes that preserving her musical heritage through performance is an act of resistance that can transform her grief into art rather than running from it.

Interview with Ricky Riccardi, author of Stomp Off, Let’s Go: The Early Years of Louis Armstrong

The author discusses the third volume of his trilogy, which includes the formation of the Armstrong-led ensembles known as the Hot Five and Hot Seven that modernized music, the way artists play it, and how audiences interact with it and respond to it.

Community Bookshelf #4

“Community Bookshelf” is a twice-yearly space where writers who have been published on Jerry Jazz Musician can share news about their recently authored books and/or recordings. This edition includes information about books published within the last six months or so (September, 2024 – March, 2025)

Creatives – “This is our time!“…A Letter from the Publisher

A call to action to take on political turmoil through the use of our creativity as a way to help our fellow citizens “pierce the mundane to find the marvelous.”

Announcing the book publication of Kinds of Cool: An Interactive Collection of Jazz Poetry

The first Jerry Jazz Musician poetry anthology published in book form includes 90 poems by 47 poets from all over the world, and features the brilliant artwork of Marsha Hammel and a foreword by Jack Kerouac’s musical collaborator David Amram. The collection is “interactive” (and quite unique) because it invites readers – through the use of QR codes printed on many of the book’s pages – to link to selected readings by the poets themselves, as well as to historic audio and video recordings (via YouTube) relevant to many of the poems, offering a holistic experience with the culture of jazz.

Community Bookshelf #3

“Community Bookshelf” is a twice-yearly space where writers who have been published on Jerry Jazz Musician can share news about their recently authored books and/or recordings. This edition includes information about books published within the last six months or so (March – September, 2024)