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An ongoing series designed to share the quality of jazz poetry continuously submitted to Jerry Jazz Musician.
Thanks to the poets…and enjoy!
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“Sax in a Blue Suit” by Samuel Dixon
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Just Some Jazz on a Saturday Night
A bass man, head bopping,
…………….left foot tapping, eyes half-shut,
…………………………..a hint of a smile fading in
and out, kept a swinging,
…………….singing beat that wedded
…………………………..drum, piano, trumpet,
and sax into a medley
…………….that set fire to dancers’ feet,
…………………………..that lifted arms and shoulders
in wild ecstasy, and unleashed
…………….voices in shouts of joy
…………………………..and unmitigated praise;
the room was a conflagration
…………….of movement, sound,
…………………………..and raw explosive emotion,
all held together by a tall
…………….slender man stroking and plucking
…………………………..the strings of his bass.
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by Michael L. Newell
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Through a Jazzy Eye
Miles’ declaration
“If you understood everything I said, you’d be me.”
Prompted my perceiving
The artistry of others
Less judgmentally
Rather than say, I just don’t get it
Now, pell-mell pace be slowed
Dormant senses chance revive
Peripheral horizons manifest
In panoramic view
Open-mindedly revealing
Heartfelt concepts
Artists wish convey
Newfound wonders wholly absorbing
Sampling creations past refused
Finding joy in mediums
Imagination once betrayed
All humanities embracing
Enlightenment the prize
Stylish education
Feasting
Through a jazzy eye
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by Mike Mignano
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Little Girl Blue
(inspired by Nina Simone)
She’s alone again—
the raindrops on her window
count the years she’s been blue.
She bought a cake—
it’s her birthday,
and the sun forgot to come.
She’s a big girl now—
forty-five, fifty-five, sixty-five, or seventy-five,
going on thirty-five, twenty-five,
fifteen, or five?
She’s still that little girl who can’t forget
the time of her first and only party—
the invitations were sent, but no one came.
She’s much older now,
more invisible to happiness
than the year before.
She’s lonely—
the raindrops keep her company,
as well as the solitary blue candle
on the red velvet cake.
She’s angry—
she takes revenge on
the flickering candle,
blows out its dancing glory,
wishes for her birthday go up in smoke.
She’s crying and says, To hell with love—
her fork stabs the first slice,
her hopes grow slimmer,
her waistline grows broader.
She cuts another slice of caloric bliss—
the raindrops bang harder,
the blues feed her mood.
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by Patricia Carragon
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Briefly Culinary
It must have been heard during
A buttered sauté of white mushroom caps
Like an evocation long forgotten restored
Stan Getz & Bob Brookmeyer valving
Breath and Flow in Berkeley Square
That sauté ceased by a sound more savory
Trim polished harmony blending
Warm this moment’s pursuit
So nearly plush movement is halted
Nightingales arrive with quiet dates
In tuck feathered finery
Though nothing vocal from them yet
Understanding that in the wild
Among such instrumental geography
Clean tone attracts the songbird
After this I lightly graze your skin
Interest vanishes from this recipe’s ingredients
The mushrooms become wholly sauced
Those nightingales chorus the long darkness
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by Terrance Underwood
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In the Afternoon
a snowflake falls slowly
and a trumpet calls
and autumn is lost to
ashes
you dance around the
fire like an angel
and a little girl appears
even as the trumpet song
fades in the snowfall, hope
lingers…
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by Erren Kelly
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Sonny
5AM in the morning
Floating / flickering lights
In a darkened hallway
Your wordless presence
Has me keeping my guard up
I float from memory
To a strange trajectory
Of what we used to be
To each other / incendiary!
Liquored dreams
A life of dark pathos
And longing
Two doors down from me
Sonny Stitt is awake and
Blowing the blues
How can I sleep
In the midst of such
Hard beboperisms?
A lone wolf
Never sleeps
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by Connie Johnson
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Behind the Club
A low light struggles
to create shadows. Curtains
hang lifeless before an open
window. A radio playing jazz
in a back room
whispers out a sound between
static and humid air.
Men gather, choosing favorite
chairs. Cigarette and cigar smoke
drifts up forming its own
cloud. Working calloused hands
hold weathered playing cards.
Suspicious and curious eyes feign
confidence before a pile of wrinkled
money intended for rent and
groceries staring contemptuously
at them. A sleeping dog raises his head
when cards are thrown in disgust.
A chair tips over as harsh words
fill the space between men. Slowly
they leave for the fields. Work soothes
the anger but not the loss.
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by Roger Singer
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Amsterdam Gig
As Doug Raney called from the stand
‘Chet Baker – still the greatest trumpet ever!’
Some listeners were appalled –
Freddie Hubbard there ‘in the zone’
Fared on bravely with his graceful solo
While it seemed this guitar sideman
Had publicly put-down
The quartet’s lead musician in contempt
To others this was hardly so – considering
Freddie Hubbard built his early tone
Emulating Chet’s
Approaching lyric purity
Doug and Freddie each perhaps
Acknowledged there’s a step
An open window if you like
Where inner space and outer tempo
Form a perfect pivot and a fulcrum
Both difficult to balance
Then maintain
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by Bernard Saint
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Colorful
……………..(for Bob Blaze)
Until Long-Gone Miles,
replete with too-good weed,
came crashing down face forward
from the stage,
everything was going well enough
for the tourists having colorful
drinks in a colorful place, the bus
idling at the curb,
ready to take them back
to their hotel in predictableland.
Then here came Miles, cheap tabletops
cracking, collapsing,
drinks all over and broken glass,
Miles bleeding on them,
clawing at their taffeta
as he attempted to cope.
Real blood, leaving brown stains
on the seersuckers.
As if Lincoln from his marble chair
looked suddenly down
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by Malcolm McCollum
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Fat Girl
……………(For Fats Navarro)
What was overcome is small now
childhood teasing into adulthood
misshapen when nude
in the dressing room
a high voice
the “Fat Girl” epithet
what was not overcome
the racking cough
weight loss a suit of skin
no longer fat girl or boy
the above all or else fix
gone at 26
what is remembered
is the lions roar
trumpet out of the gate
smooth transitions of the middle eight
wild and yet hand rubbed and burnished
a hand off to Clifford Brown and the rest.
Oh, Fats
you blew …. soft fire… so brief
alas! heroin and TB
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by Daniel Warren Brown
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April in Paris
Is it April, or is it Paris
that tinges sheer happiness
with the hem of blue lace?
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by Miho Kinnas & E. Ethelbert Miller
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Snow in the French Quarter
Flowers in a corner of Bourbon street
still linger with a sad refrain. it is
too cold for the women to expose themselves
though tourists pose next to carriages,
and the sounds of jazz still fill the
air. no one is on the balconies, this city is
no stranger to catastrophe. a painting
in a brothel tells the tale of a creole
lady, whose smile lit up a room
with pleasure, now the room is
is filled with a sad refrain, but as
they say, “this too will pass.” through
famine, and war and hurricane, they
survived,. “cry now and laugh later,”
that’s what this town does best. this
city, shaped like a bowl, gave birth to
gumbo, blues, and soul, rises again
to dance a second line into dawn,
and people raise a glass, and sing
a happy refrain…
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by Erren Kelly
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New Orleans, August’s End, 2005
…………….That lazy ol’ sun
……………………Has nothin’ to do
…………………………But roll around heaven all day*
Satchmo knows.
He hears the leers.
He throbs to the pulse the river pounds.
He mocks, he dares
with bared pink gums and ivory eyes
the scowls of snakes, the leers
of alligators, the lours
of the voodoo ladies, the glower
of the river.
He blows bayou in riffs,
river in hymns,
and all the malices of heaven
in blues.
Warm winds whorl,
arise from the Gulf.
The waters of the Gulf, and the river
and Lake Pontchartrain also rise,
pound their ululating, weeping walls,
the battlements of the city’s north side.
Levees craze, crack, breach,
and waters rush
reclaiming their ancestral swamplands
from Rampart to City Park,
St. Charles to Carrollton,
east to The Esplanade and out
St. Bernard Parish.
The streets of New Orleans—
Poydras, Claiborne, Magazine, and Canal—
lie littered in the cicada hiss,
littered in a din of dead.
In the City of the Dead,
St. Louis Cemetery Number One,
marble tombs and crypts lie burst,
agape and strewn in the late gold cast
of this late summer’s day, a gaze
still and cold as the eye.
Were he still here, Satch would blow, would sing,
would wail like Gabriel.
A storm, a hurricane called Katrina
has ravished his Evangeline.
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by John Briscoe
*lyric by Haven Gillespie
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Storyville
It’s gone now,
crumbled to dust,
where once stride players
hurried punters on
in red lit rooms
down dim alleys.
Sex and jazz
washed down
with bootlegged bourbon.
Noisy neighbours
jostling, hassling
along Basin Street
with the blues
drifting on scented
night air.
A Saint Louis woman,
with diamond rings
on every finger,
once swayed along
to Jelly Roll’s beat
along streets now
sanctified.
It’s all gone now,
passed into history,
only the music survives
mellow and smooth
but with the hit
of smoky rye whisky.
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by Mike Everley
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Maple Leaf Treats
we wait in line on Oak Street
to hear Terence Blanchard
trumpeting his talent
end up by the stage
sitting at a small round table
where we can glimpse greatness
up close exchange a glance
watch him smile wipe his brow
soulful sounds sweep the room
slither slide swish spin
how can so much sweetness
fill this space like spun sugar
like cotton candy pecan pralines
we are full satisfied gratified
we are beside ourselves
we can taste our good luck
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by Mary K O’Melveny
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Trumpet Shine
He stood high in the third row
amid the shimmer of brass,
glowing like the tail of a meteor’s descent,
bell pointed skyward,
acoustical tile reverberated his shine,
the melodic incantation enhanced
into a clarion call from above.
His eyes were closed,
deeply meditative,
enraptured with his own musical message,
engaged intensely
upon captivating the audience
with the rhythmic pulse of this charmed,
rhapsodic invocation,
sentimental jazz licks in modal timbres,
the audience, pensive, attentive,
collectively holding its breath.
Never did they raise their heads
as his message continued,
a mystical timbre,
dripping audibly upon the listeners,
it continued to entrance.
Nothing, except for this languorous solo
prevailed, the crowd enraptured.
Then the solo ceased,
the audience entirely introspective.
For interminable moments,
no one spoke, no one clapped
until a drizzle of applause emanated
in the rear of the hall
followed by a raucous monsoon of appreciation.
The golden glow, brilliant.
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by Michael Keshigian
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Miles Smiles
……………(From ‘Depositions Before Surgery (the Allodynia Variations / Improvisations)’)
I knew that
Researched it
To prove (& did it?)
A psychoanalyst right
Or wrong
Or something
Because I wanted to
Not ’because it is taboo’
I do that in my work
I do that every night
Miles Smiles.
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by Stephen C. Middleton
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Ellington
Composer, conductor, pianist
Arranging half a century
Talent, style, genius melding
Jazz global emissary
Concerts, film, radio
Theatre, ballet
Vast recording *g*a*l*a*x*y*
Orchestrally array
Awards, citations, Grammys
Colleges degrees behest
Prizes, medals, decorations
Grander than a general’s chest
Impacting Ameria’s songbook
Spectrum comet bursting seams
Brillant scores — life expressions
Shared enchanted dreams
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by Mike Mignano
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A Garland of Adjectives, Tinted
……………..(For Red Garland)
His Jazz is a cheerful conversation,
precise and suitable,
completely apropos.
He’s an old friend of the Blues,
but in his hands,
it somehow sparkles,
like drifting dust,
floating in the sun.
He offers us a quiet Sunday morning,
with nothing to do,
and all day to do it,
He persuades us to relax,
and let the day become what it will.
and with it, the peace of mind
to enjoy the artistry,
and watch the Sunday go where it’s going to.
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by Freddington
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Still Leaping By Me
After an Oscar
Ivory nod
Lester lifts
A ‘54 breathe
Combines
With a reed
Down formed when
Valved through brass
“There Will never
Be Another You”
Resistance fades
Physics subdued
Wind billows
Joints angle flex
& that beautiful
Swing gravitational
Force commences
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by Terrance Underwood
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A Mojave Desert Ghazel
In a chill-stricken December, I’m shivering in this desert.
So determined! I map my way to Vegas through this desert.
It’s time for a little Count Basie on the road music.
As I There Will Never Be Another You this desert.
Pressing my foot to the accelerator, I bear down. I fly!
I sing! I talk to myself as I Subaru this desert.
Far off in the distance are the diamond lights of the Strip.
Caged up no longer, I vow to Maya Angelou this desert.
Wait! Did I check my air pressure and fluids? Forget all dusty
thoughts of redemption, I’ve already come to rue this desert.
The ghost riding shotgun in my passenger seat is watching
old films on his iPad. He wants to Cat Ballou this desert.
I’ve got a penny slot of wisdom that will take me
places. Hang on, honey, as we rearview this desert!
Oh the syllable counts of a ghazel have me flustered…
Face it, Connie, you may just have to haiku this desert.
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……………previously published by Four Feathers Press/December 2024
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by Connie Johnson
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Daniel Warren Brown has loved jazz (and music in general) ever since he delved into his parents’ 78 collection as a child. He is a retired special education teacher who began writing as a senior. He always appreciates being published in journals and anthologies. At age 72 he published his first collection Family Portraits in Verse and Other Illustrated Poems through Epigraph Books, Rhinebeck, NY. Daniel writes daily about music, art and whatever else catches his imagination.
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Patricia Carragon is author of Angel Fire (Alien Buddha Press), Meowku (Poets Wear Prada), The Cupcake Chronicles (Poets Wear Prada), and Innocence (Finishing Line Press). All are available on Amazon.com. She is curator/editor-in-chief of Brownstone Poets, Brooklyn, NY
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Samuel Dixon is an award-winning abstract impressionist painter based in Maryland. Click here to view his work.
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Mike Everley has been writing poetry for many years. He has been published in many print journals and on online poetry websites.
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Freddington works as a shipper/receiver in Toronto, Canada, and has been a lifelong jazz fan ever since he was “corrupted” as a teenager by Charles Mingus’ “Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting.”
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Connie Johnson is based in Los Angeles, CA and is a four-time Pushcart Prize-nominated poet. Everything is Distant Now (Blue Horse Press), is her debut poetry collection; In a Place of Dreams, her digital album/chapbook (containing audio readings and personal narrative), was published by Jerry Jazz Musician. Click here to view it.
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Erren Kelly is a three-time Pushcart nominated poet from Boston whose work has appeared in 300 publications (print and online), including Hiram Poetry Review, Mudfish, Poetry Magazine, Ceremony, Cacti Fur, Bitterzoet, Cactus Heart, Similar Peaks, Gloom Cupboard, and Poetry Salzburg.
Click here to read “Under Quarantine” — COVID-era poetry of Erren Kelly, published by Jerry Jazz Musician
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Michael Keshigian is the author of 14 poetry collections, his most recent, What to Do With Intangibles, from Cyberwit.net. His work has appeared in numerous national and international journals as well as many online publications, including California Quarterly, Chiron Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, San Pedro River Review, Oak Bend Review, and Sierra Nevada Review. He is a 7-time Pushcart Prize and 3-time Best Of The Net nominee.
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Miho Kinnas is a poet and translator living in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. Her latest book is Waiting for Sunset to Bury Red Camellias (Free Verse Press, 2023). She has published a book of poems in collaboration with E. Ethelbert Miller, We Eclipse into the Other Side (Pinyon Publishing).
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Malcolm McCollum taught English literature and composition, humanities and music history for 35 years at Colorado colleges and universities. He has published Dmitri’s Agenda, The Guards, Translations from the Human (with Zigmund Steiner) (poetry), My Checkered Career and The Aim Was Song (memoirs), Can You Hear Me Now? and A Loose Canon (essays on media and literacy and favorite writers)
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Stephen C. Middleton is a writer working in London, England. He has had five books published, and been in several anthologies. He was editor of Ostinato, a magazine of jazz and jazz related poetry. He has been published in magazines worldwide, including in the US, Australia, Canada, the UK, & mainland Europe.
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Mike Mignano, retired Ocala, FL.
Hometown Ithaca, NY. Grad Univ.
of Miami and Cumberland
School of Law. Interests include:
travel; guitar; choral singing; hymn
lyric/poetry writing; viewing
sports; and attending theatre.
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E. Ethelbert Miller is a poet and literary activist living in Washington D. C. His latest book is How I Found Love Behind the Catcher’s Mask: Poems (City Point Press, 2022) and he was a nominee for a Grammy in the 2023 Spoken Word Album category with his Black Men Are Precious album.
He has published a book of poems in collaboration with Miho Kinnas, We Eclipse into the Other Side (Pinyon Publishing).
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Michael L. Newell lives on the Atlantic Coast of Florida. His most recent book of poems is Passage of a Heart.
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Mary K O’Melveny, retired labor rights lawyer, lives with her wife near Woodstock, NY. Mary became a fan of Jazz as a very young girl listening to Louis Armstrong and Lester Young on her grandparents’ Victrola record player. Mary’s award-nominated poetry appears in many print and on-line literary journals, anthologies and national blog sites. Mary has authored three poetry collections. Her just-released fourth book, Flight Patterns, is available by clicking here
Click here to visit her web site
.Her online poetry collection, If You Want to Go to Heaven, Follow A Songbird was published by Jerry Jazz Musician, and can be viewed by clicking here
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Dr. Roger Singer was in private chiropractic practice for 38 years in upstate New York, and served as a medical technician during the Vietnam era. Dr. Singer is the Poet Laureate of Old Lyme, Connecticut, and has had over 1,070 poems published on the Internet, magazines and in books, and is a 2017 Pushcart Prize Award Nominee. He is also the President of the Shoreline Chapter of the Connecticut Poetry Society.
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Bernard Saint is a U.K. poet who has published in U.K. and United States literary magazines since the 1960’s. He is a regular contributor to International Times. His most recent book is ROMA, published by Smokestack Books. He worked as a therapist and supervisor in the U.K. National Health Service in psychiatry and in addiction recovery.
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Terrance Underwood is a retired Gas Turbine Package Engineer whose career offered opportunities to work all over the world. A devoted jazz enthusiast, his first memory operating a mechanical devise was a 4-speed spindle drop record changer for his father’s collection of 78s.
Click here to read Proceeding From Behind: A collection of poems grounded in the rhythmic, relating to the remarkable, by Terrance Underwood
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Click here for all editions of “21 jazz poems…”
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Click for:
Information about Kinds of Cool: An Interactive Collection of Jazz Poetry
More poetry on Jerry Jazz Musician
“Bluesette,” Salvatore Difalco’s winning story in the 67th Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest
More short fiction on Jerry Jazz Musician
Information about how to submit your poetry or short fiction
Subscribe to the (free) Jerry Jazz Musician quarterly newsletter
Helping to support the ongoing publication of Jerry Jazz Musician, and to keep it commercial-free (thank you!)
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