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In this story – a finalist in the recently concluded 71st Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest – a jazz composer hears a lone fiddler play a tune that enters his head and won’t leave it, like a virulent earworm, wrecking his playing, his friendships, and indeed, his life, until he finally finds a way to remove it.
...May 19th, 2026
The muted trumpet sound is cold
And sends shivers down my spine
I have a vision, black like the void
May 16th, 2026
& the birds outside my window
aren’t shy about asking for
what they need
May 14th, 2026
The writer explores how marching band — perhaps because it is exacting and rigorous — brings healing to the wounds a strict, performance-oriented family can inflict on children.
...May 12th, 2026
Thelonious Monk paints a picture of Mama
with his piano, the way Monet or Matisse
would, with paint: loud, bright colorful
notes, that are a Rorschach test, screaming
on the page.
May 10th, 2026
Poets within this community of writers are feeling this moment in time, and writing about it. This collection is another example.
...May 5th, 2026
In the story – a finalist in the recently concluded 71st Short Fiction Contest – a very old dancer visits her young relative with stories to tell about the old days in the clubs.
...May 4th, 2026
Nassau Inn dedicated to providing unmatched hospitality
to all
unless, it’s 1937
and Marian Anderson wants to sleep over
May 2nd, 2026
Window on a night street
window on a wilderness retreat;
the soft luster of falling snow
the traces of tiny bird feet.
May 1st, 2026
Proud sporting beast held in paddock, I come to race ride this Stakes,
you sure wild-eyed now, all around see busy, see fancy, feel trainer
on edge. Louisiana-bred, I know you know the flesh is on the move…
Riders up!
April 30th, 2026
“We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not…”
...April 28th, 2026
I have never held a gun
Nor had one pointed at me,
But when I was 5, I heard
The phone ring, and when
I ran into the room, my mother
Turned to me and said,
April 25th, 2026
This trumpeter began his career in California, where he organized a big band that had a residency in China in 1934, and, during a trip through Kansas City in 1936, was invited to join Count Basie’s orchestra, replacing “Hot Lips” Page (pictured). Who is he?
...April 22nd, 2026
An ongoing series designed to share the quality of jazz poetry continuously submitted to Jerry Jazz Musician.
In this edition…Mix in poems on the blues with some Coltrane, Monk, Bix, Mingus, Miles, Art Farmer, King Oliver, Desmond, and Brubeck, and you have one hell-of-a lively and entertaining collection to take in. Enjoy!
April 20th, 2026
Long after setting off
on his Maiden Voyage,
those splendid dolphins
still dancing in his mind,
Herbie Hancock went down
the river—a warm dusk
drifting over the water—
to play Joni’s songs,
April 18th, 2026
The writer remembers an evening in New York’s Half Note in 1964 when he witnessed a John Coltrane performance that was also attended by the pop singer Johnny Mathis
...April 16th, 2026
Exploring segments of the world of jazz – in three suites of vivid haiku poetry…
...April 15th, 2026
The award-winning story is about a young immigrant growing up in Southern California to the sound of music seeping into his family’s home from an upstairs neighbor’s piano, shaping the boy’s understanding of memory, family, belonging, and the improvisational ethics of music.
...April 13th, 2026
He is Miles, this man
with trumpet in hand,
cheeks fill to land
each note with grace
to raucous this place.
April 11th, 2026
My ears bask in the deep
darkness of her voice.
Smoothness of a river rock.
Nina, goddess of the wind
visits me in daydream.
April 9th, 2026
Of a remaining evening’s brief persistence
Viewed from an upstairs window
Focused like a spotlight bloom
Upper trunk to first fork
April 7th, 2026
10 years ago, Ron Carter earned the World Record as the most recorded jazz bassist in history. By September 15, 2015, Carter had 2,221 individual recording credits. That record continues to grow today in 2025.
...April 6th, 2026
In a world of breaking news
fed by the oligarch’s will—stop!
Breathe—
close your eyes, zone out, and heal.
The collective is texting you—
the world is still worth saving.
April 4th, 2026
“He who asks is a fool for five minutes…”
...April 1st, 2026
Charles Mingus is a big
bass of a man.
Dogwood blossoms vibrate
outside his studio.
March 31st, 2026
“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, 2025 – March, 2026)
...March 30th, 2026
A conversation about women who formed a group that became known as “Heterodoxy,” whose members were fired up by a desire to change their world, and who became public ambassadors of a brand-new philosophy; feminism.
...March 30th, 2026
We hadn’t written in awhile
he liked a memory I shared about his Dad
a fine musician and record collector,
especially guitarists —
March 28th, 2026
With perhaps Lorenz Hart’s most sardonic lyric — which is saying something! — this song remains one of the greats, and has been interpreted in many ways, from the plaintive and melancholy to the upbeat and hard swinging, such as John Coltrane’s version. Check out this bouquet of ten tracks to celebrate this great season!
...March 27th, 2026
Little is known of the lives of many of the young Black women who – in the Girl Groups of the ‘60’s – sang, wrote, created, and popularized their generation-defining music, and even less about the challenges they faced while performing during such a complex era, one rife with racism, sexism, and music industry corruption. In this February, 2024 Jerry Jazz Musician interview, Laura Flam and Emily Sieu Liebowitz discuss their book’s endeavor at giving them an opportunity to voice their meaningful experiences.
...March 26th, 2026
If you’ve ever had the blues, listen to the ladies
who can teach you what you need to know.
So many questions! How much time have you got?
March 25th, 2026
The story – a finalist in the recently concluded 70th Short Fiction Contest – uncovers a man’s long hidden past, and a town’s effort to keep its involvement in it buried.
...March 24th, 2026
The second edition of Kinds of Cool, an Interactive Collection of Jazz Poetry has just been published, and is now available for sale on Amazon.com. This edition is dedicated to publishing women poets from all over the world who share their personal passion for and relationship with jazz music, and the culture it interacts with. With a foreword by Allison Miller, one of the world’s most eminent jazz drummers.
...March 23rd, 2026
strange fruit
appears again from southern
trees, and bombs go off in
iran, and the crowd cheers
and a.i. girlfriends are
a better catch then real ones
March 23rd, 2026
When we are wounded & suffering
Feeling everything we shouldn’t be feeling:
Lost, spoken for, mistakenly mislead to believe
That we were the light
Leading you to a satisfied life- Yet
The only life-light you had left
Was yourself wrapped in neon
March 21st, 2026
An ongoing series designed to share the quality of jazz poetry continuously submitted to Jerry Jazz Musician. This edition features poets – several new to readers of this website – writing about their appreciation for the music, and the diversity and aesthetics of its sound. Along the way, readers will encounter poems that include the great musicians Horace Parlan, Shelly Manne, Keith Jarrett, Zoot Sims, Sun Ra, and Garland Wilson.
...March 20th, 2026
. . photo via Pexels.com . Bottom Line Blues (the Remix…) what’s going on in this land gone wrong? it’s the Epstein files / war & tariffs / gas prices / ICE agents civil rights -abusing sheriffs strained international relations! DEI hire fixations / every day I dread the news on CNN music is … Continue reading ““Bottom Line Blues” – a poem (written in the midst of our times) by Connie Johnson”
...March 18th, 2026
The story – a finalist in the recently concluded 70th Short Fiction Contest, – is about an octogenarian couple who accept a part-time caretaker position at Crazy Goose Burlesque when the theater is temporarily shuttered due to archaic public indecency laws.
...March 17th, 2026
Listening? Stow
away…
*
Rag against the
machine? This vital
group remember-
ing, it’s never
provided we
care
March 14th, 2026
Trading Fours with Douglas Cole is an occasional series of the writer’s poetic interpretations of jazz recordings and film. This edition is based largely on a documentary – They Shot the Piano Player – about Tenório Junior, a Latin jazz musician who only produced one album (1964) before he “disappeared” in 1976.
...March 12th, 2026
The story – a finalist in the recently concluded 70th Short Fiction Contest – examines the impact of genetic illness on a family of musicians and artists.
...March 11th, 2026
Middle East a hotbed
Thousands of years spread
Stones, swords, spears
Bombs, missiles, drones
March 10th, 2026
Two men on a street corner,
playing nothing but jazz.
The stores close, the lights blue,
but they sit and strum
as their hat fills with frost
and the long day yawns.
March 7th, 2026
Expressing the joy and sorrow of life at age 71 with grace, wisdom, and appreciation.
...March 5th, 2026
The writer recalls 1970’s Venice Beach, where creatives chased a kind of freedom that didn’t fit inside four walls…
...March 4th, 2026
The poet pays homage to three giants of mid-century post-bop jazz – Booker Ervin, Lou Donaldson, and Little Jimmy Scott
...March 3rd, 2026
So you can play
So What, kid
Or so they say
Guess what, kid
So what, kid
Are you hip
Are you cool
Are you nobody’s fool
February 28th, 2026
The Worker Bee is the
Candleflame, taking shape
In a jazz of night, my oasis
In this wasteland of ” Greatness”
My whole note in a melody
Of dreams
February 28th, 2026
The author’s free-verse poem is written as an informal letter to tourists from a native New Yorker, (and sparing no bitter opinion).
...February 26th, 2026
On the essence of Albert Ayler’s now classic 1964 album…
...February 25th, 2026
A short-listed entry in the recently concluded 70th Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest, “Going” tells of a traumatic flight experience that breaks a woman out of her self-imposed confines and into an acceptance that she has no control of her destiny.
...February 24th, 2026
When Ella sang under the stars,
her voice filled the atmosphere
as she transposed Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
Her range— incredible.
February 21st, 2026
An ongoing series designed to share the quality of jazz poetry continuously submitted to Jerry Jazz Musician. This edition features poets – several new to readers of this website – writing about their appreciation for the music, how it shows up in their daily lives, and displaying their reverence for the likes of Billy Strayhorn, Joe Henderson, Ernestine Anderson, Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong and Red Garland.
...February 20th, 2026
“If ever a time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government…”
...February 19th, 2026
Upon returning from the horrors of World War II to post-war New Orleans, a trumpeter learns of a dark secret that reveals how his family fought their own evil, and uses jazz to bury the ghosts of war and reclaim the light through music.
...February 17th, 2026
A contributing writer shares his thoughts about the devastating loss of his loving partner.
...February 16th, 2026
Perhaps it was the way
their bodies wanted to touch
the way their hands glided
from shoulder to wrist
the tilt of his fedora
the way her leg caught the sea air
February 14th, 2026
While he had a long career in jazz, including stints with, among others, Coleman Hawkins, Roy Eldridge, Sonny Stitt and Stan Getz, he will always be remembered primarily as the pianist in Charlie Parker’s classic 1947 quintet. Who is he?
...February 13th, 2026
. . Poets within this community of writers are feeling this moment in time, and writing about it. Here is another example. If you have something you want to say about what is happening in the world and how it may be affecting you in the way of a poem, and would like to have … Continue reading ““Poetry written in the midst of our time” – Vol. 3″
...February 12th, 2026
The story – a finalist in the recently concluded 70th Short Fiction Contest – is an imagining of a day in the life of the author’s grandfather’s friendship with the legendary Fats Domino.
...February 10th, 2026
. . . . Dear Readers: I have been very busy of late planning for tonight’s production of “The Weary Blues: Celebrating Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance,” a show featuring the local (Portland) poet Emmett Wheatfall and a great local jazz band who will perform poetry from Hughes’ first collection. I am proud … Continue reading “A brief update about “The Weary Blues””
...February 7th, 2026
we need you to sing Respect for us right now
not tomorrow, not 24 hours before the earth explodes
not 24 hours before the sun dies
not 24 hours before the moon erases itself
from the black skin of the sky
and the darkness of night leads us over a cliff
we need you to sing it right now
February 7th, 2026
what else can we do
we’re poets for god-sake
did you all
expect something different
did you all
expect a blind eye
did you all
expect a turning away
February 3rd, 2026
Too much butter.
Not enough salt.
Discontinued hot sauce.
Was it heavy cream?
Milk?
January 31st, 2026
population a mere thousands
is the conscience of capillaries
as a village we are
a pulsing dissent
through the body politic
January 28th, 2026
In this edition, the jazz aficionado Bob Hecht’s 13-song playlist centers on one tune, the great Jimmy Van Heusen/Eddie DeLange standard, “Darn That Dream,” with the first song being a solo musician recording and each successive version adding an instrument.
...January 27th, 2026
The author discusses how in the 1950s the Berkshires – historic home to the likes of Hawthorne, Melville, Wharton, Rockwell, and Tanglewood – became a crucial space for the performance, study, and mainstreaming of jazz, and eventually an epicenter of the genre’s avant-garde.
...January 27th, 2026
Poets within this community of writers are feeling this moment in time, and writing about it. Here are three examples.
...January 26th, 2026
This narrative, free verse poem – a finalist in the recently concluded 70th Short Fiction Contest – is centered on the sense of isolation a daughter feels as she enters an unorthodox adolescence.
...January 26th, 2026
Unseasonably warm,
unable to sleep,
I slip out onto the terrace
overlooking a lush meadow
January 24th, 2026
A piece of narrative non-fiction that captures a pivotal moment in the summer of 1972, where music, youth, and a touch of psychedelia collided to forever alter the lives of two friends. It is a personal account of seeing David Bowie at the Croydon Greyhound at the dawn of the Ziggy Stardust era, exploring the potent idea that art can fundamentally reshape identity.
...January 22nd, 2026
An ongoing series designed to share the quality of jazz poetry continuously submitted to Jerry Jazz Musician. This edition features poets – several new to readers of this website – writing about their relationship with the music and its historic figures, including Chuck Mangione, John Coltrane, Barney Kessel, Count Basie, Bill Evans, Hubert Laws, and Steve Lacy.
...January 21st, 2026
“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in…”
...January 19th, 2026
O
no
I’ve
heard things
louder than Pharaoh’s
horn just can’t remember
when softer a second then
booming again hard not to pay
attention what hard bop hard to say
January 17th, 2026
The story – a short-listed entry in the recently concluded 70th Short Fiction Contest – is a combination of two true linked stories, both of which involved the same person. In one, he’s a witness to history. In the second, he’s an active participant in history, even becoming a hero. But one can’t understand the second until they know the first.
...January 14th, 2026
“Pity the nation whose leaders are…”
...January 13th, 2026
What is the depth of time?
Rockets ricochet at height
Only to re-emphasise a void
They search confounded and revised
Yet there is such room (not large)
Within our own dimension for dimensions
January 10th, 2026
Words can pierce like bullets
but they can’t stop bullets
but i still value poets more than
guns, they carry more weight than
darkness
January 8th, 2026
Brushed cymbal slide solo opens.
Nuanced walking bass lines follow.
As a deft piano right hand
Complements a chorded left
To raise a tempo garnish
For a swing invitation.
January 8th, 2026
In the 22nd century, a medical professional takes a bunch of kids to meet one of the last musicians left in England, and has an epiphany when he hears live music for the first time …
...January 6th, 2026
They were the best of times.
They were the worst of times.
Or so it is said.
January 4th, 2026
I thought I heard chimes
in the wind calling my name
I swear they claimed I had little time
to open my eyes to the universe
...December 28th, 2025
It happens like
clockwork with
the advent of increase
daylight expands
darkness cautiously
diminishes
December 24th, 2025
charlie brown tree foreshadows
my life, i leave the holiday to kids
but a jazz album plays on youtube
and i imagine dancing with someone
December 20th, 2025
. . The album cover of 2022 collection of Christmas recordings by Louis Armstrong [Verve/UMG] . . Now Is The Time Of our year so dangerous and extreme that I’m refreshed by a mixed recording (formerly a cassette transferred to CD). Greensleeves by both Desmond and Coltrane, Roland Kirk’s We Free Kings along with … Continue reading ““Now Is The Time” – a poem by Daniel Warren Brown”
...December 19th, 2025
Bob adds another instrument to his progressive playlist feature, and shares what a variety of arrangers have been able to accomplish writing for a tentet.
...December 18th, 2025
The poet and Frankfurt, Germany resident Francis Fernandes reports that the jazz scene in the country is a lively one at the moment, which is opening up his ears to some very interesting music.
...December 17th, 2025
Sitting inches from your piano
I was struck
by how you ceded
the spotlight to the four winds,
let them explore their cardinal
directions, while you, self-effacingly,
December 13th, 2025
I recently wrote about a new endeavor of mine – producing a show in Portland celebrating the poetry of Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance. What follows is the complete press release for the February 7 performance at the Alberta Abbey in Portland, Oregon.
...December 12th, 2025
The story explores the inner life of a young Southeast Asian man as he navigates the tension between Eastern tradition and Western modernity.
...December 12th, 2025
Sharing a bit of what I’ve been up to of late, and make you aware of a new endeavor of mine…
...December 10th, 2025
She enters the room like a rimshot,
sharp enough to wake the drunks
dozing at the back table.
A quicksilver crack across the silence.
December 9th, 2025
In the photograph, I’m leaning against a lamppost.
The Bourbon Street sign above me. A young cliché,
sunburnt, smiling at my boyfriend behind the camera
until the jazz lulled us like tendrils of heat into smokey
bars where horns dipped and flared like my hips, his
December 6th, 2025
“Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, and riches take…”
...December 5th, 2025
This posthumously-awarded Grammy winning musician/composer was the pianist and arranger for the vocal group The Hi-Lo’s in the late 1950’s, and after working with Donald Byrd and Dizzy Gillespie became known for his Latin and bossa nova recordings in the 1960’s. He was also frequently cited by Herbie Hancock as a “major influence.” Who is he?
...December 4th, 2025
Trading Fours with Douglas Cole is an occasional series of the writer’s poetic interpretations of jazz recordings and film. This edition is dedicated to saxophone players and the mood scenes that instrument creates.
...December 2nd, 2025
Announcing the six writers nominated for the Pushcart Prize v. L (50), whose work appeared on the web pages of Jerry Jazz Musician or within print anthologies I edited during 2025.
...December 1st, 2025
Sound and colors, a phenomenal marriage.
Flows smoothly, amuses nature enthusiasts.
It tells of all the beauty and love.
Roses – red in the garden bed,
November 28th, 2025
Connecting an old photograph owned since the 1970’s to gratitude for friends, family, artists, creators, website readers and contributors – (a redux)
...November 26th, 2025
Watching Sarah Vaughan perform “Misty”
live in Sweden in ’64 must have
made some folks wonder about the failed cooling system onstage
that made her perspire so—
November 22nd, 2025
A playlist of 14 songs by the likes of Samara Joy, Brad Mehldau, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Branford Marsalis, the Yellowjackets and other Grammy Award nominees, assembled by Martin Mueller, the former Dean of the New School of Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York.
...November 21st, 2025
The writer recalls a special experience with the great pianist Barry Harris.
...November 19th, 2025
“The Weeping Tree” arises from the poet listening to (and watching) Sinne Eeg & Thomas Fonnesbæk perform “Willow Weep For Me”
...December 13th, 2022
A conversation about women who formed a group that became known as “Heterodoxy,” whose members were fired up by a desire to change their world, and who became public ambassadors of a brand-new philosophy; feminism.
...November 19th, 2022
Besides being one of the first to be influenced by Charlie Christian, in 1944 this electric guitarist employed Charlie Parker on his first recording date and eventually led an R&B-oriented group “The Rockin’ Highlanders” that featured the saxophonist Red Prysock (pictured). Who is he?
...November 10th, 2022
They are gathering now
all along the shoreline.
Their bones sing October!
Their wings cry out Go south!
I walk with my banjo
down to the water’s edge.
What can I play for geese
who carry their own tunes
November 4th, 2022
News concerning a new collection of jazz poetry by Michael L. Newell
...November 3rd, 2022
Light sculptures made up of a variety of found objects, including musical instruments, are the focus of Sanford Kogan’s work
...November 2nd, 2022
Joe Maita, publisher of the website Jerry Jazz Musician, is interviewed on “The Buzz,” the podcast of the Jazz Journalists Association
...November 1st, 2022
Musicians
make conversation
around the notes
warm up before leaving terra firma,
say goodbye to familiar places.
Soar.
October 28th, 2022
That inner sense of freedom,
a natural balance
with an impulse
to preserve the day,
as the equinox
tilts from a window
with a view of leaves on fire.
October 18th, 2022
You listen to Karrin Allyson sing “Blame It on My Youth,” you picture her in the throes of its May-December scenario. You picture her on a college campus. Columbia University, the steps in front of Low, a pleated skirt, a short bob, the full flush of love on her cheeks.
...September 7th, 2022
My country, right or wrong
I call it home, the land my forefathers
Help built, but got little credit
July 23rd, 2022
This pianist – known for his tasteful swinging and bop-based style – was Ella Fitzgerald’s regular accompanist from 1963 – 1965, and again from 1968 – 1978. Who was he?
...July 22nd, 2022
A neo-noir story of a young singer snuffed out by the music business early in her career, either by chance or malice…
...July 15th, 2022
. . Distributed by Joe Glaser’s Associated Booking Corporation. Photographer uncredited and unknown., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Chet Baker, 1955 . . Always Cool Alison weaves on her loom in the living room. Fifth floor walk up. Manhattan. Chet plays on the stereo; a trumpet divinely graced, caressed like a stunning woman’s body, soft … Continue reading ““Always Cool” — a poem by Judith Vaughn”
...June 29th, 2022
A selection of poems from Michael L. Newell’s new collection of poetry, Still the World Beckons: New and Selected Poems (cyberwit.net)
...May 25th, 2022
Two poets reflect on the May 14, 2022 mass shooting in Buffalo, New York
...May 16th, 2022
first light skims on green wing
like sprouts strobing for ray
climbs from soils of night,
through damask-leafed curtain
a gateless gate, come home
from crescendo of star-gazing
to dew of earth shiver
May 5th, 2022
Tall girl walks around
With a violin worn
Across her back
Her red hair carries
The fire of spring
April 30th, 2022
In this edition, producer Tommy LiPuma talks with Jarrett about working with guitarist George Benson on his 1976 Warner Brothers recording Breezin’
...April 26th, 2022
While we were waiting in the wings____
tuning our instruments,
From clefs to choruses, ominous portents
reared their ugly heads.
We didn’t see them, though.
We were cowering in dark corners,
hiding from the apparition
screaming through the night.
April 23rd, 2022
Bob Hecht recalls his experience of first hearing “Kind of Blue,” the 1959 jazz album by trumpeter Miles Davis
...April 21st, 2022
The voice comes down from the bedroom, winding down the stairs, crankily.
It does not at once compel in the manner of one of my “favorite singers” on the radio. I am a person, to use the word loosely, who does not own record albums, or a record player. What I hear from upstairs at her house, wailing down from the steps in that unassimilable voice, is the whine of the prairie. A rusty gate. A barroom complaint…
April 18th, 2022
This Texas tenor player – whose style straddled the boundaries between swing and R&B – succeeded Illinois Jacquet in Lionel Hampton’s orchestra in 1942. Who is he?
...April 15th, 2022
Mr. Cole’s suite consists of eight poems, all interpretations from songs on pianist Tommy Flanagan’s album Sunset and the Mockingbird Suite
...April 14th, 2022
. . Richard Brent Turner is Professor in the Department of Religious Studies and the African American Studies Program at the University of Iowa, and the author of Soundtrack to a Movement: African American Islam, Jazz, and Black Internationalism [New York University Press] . . ___ . . …..In Richard Brent Turner’s … Continue reading “Interview with Richard Brent Turner, author of Soundtrack to a Movement: African American Islam, Jazz, and Black Internationalism“
...April 1st, 2022
Carla Kaplan, editor of Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters, talks about the novelist, anthropologist, playwright, folklorist, essayist and poet
...March 28th, 2022
It’s the darkness, man, the
Darkness
that laughs with the evil of the vamp.
It’s the wildness, man, the
Wildness
that greets the gray of dawn.
March 15th, 2022
The poet Erren Kelly honors the voting and women’s rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer
...March 4th, 2022
The author’s experience with racism, ignorance, poverty, and jazz in the American South of the 1960s.
...March 2nd, 2022
Set forth beautiful one
open sea and open sky
as far as your eye can see
full wind filling the sails
pushing those hesitant steps
three at a time before
the cymbal crash of wave
February 25th, 2022
In The Fire is Upon Us: James Baldwin, William F. Buckley Jr., and the Debate over Race in America, author Nicholas Buccola tells the story of the historic 1965 Cambridge Union debate between Baldwin, the leading literary voice of the civil rights movement, and Buckley, a staunch opponent of the movement and founder in 1955 of National Review, the leading conservative publication. The evening’s debate topic? “The American dream is at the expense of the American Negro.”
Buccola discusses his book in a July 23, 2020 interview with Jerry Jazz Musician editor/publisher Joe Maita
...February 15th, 2022
hands do talk
to me they do
& after shaking his
some years back
clasping those long digits
expecting ivory key smoothness
I was stopped short by
their cement block
& long handle roughness
February 12th, 2022
It was a summer of jazz leaking out through shuttered windows; of breaking glass and rage from the anonymous facades of brick apartments; of winged girls trying to fly from atop the Cathedral of St. Louis; of women trying to take back the night from jugglers and mimes and the men who lurked and looked too long. And through all of this, we walked hand in hand, visitors from a planet where soybean fields bookmarked the horizon and the sweet smell of corn danced across the dusk.
...January 31st, 2022
A concert for lovers
Romantic space
For an eternal memory.
Well-dressed musicians
Well decorated scene.
.
Each note inspires exact words
To win Ghislaine’s heart,
The beauty of my youth.
January 29th, 2022
Horace Silver’s got a grove. Just listen to that left hand,
like a heart skipping a beat or jumping up to a double-beat,
like beholding something so beautiful you can hardly believe it.
January 19th, 2022
Contributing writer Bob Hecht discusses Bill Evans’ enduring compositional genius, and has assembled an extensive Spotify playlist that includes many of his tunes.
...January 13th, 2022
wind whispers song of grief
its version of
Ben Webster’s sorrowful solos
January 12th, 2022
Three in the morning in the Hollywood Hills feels like five in the morning anywhere else. The coyotes and owls cross the northern boundaries and stray down under the big HOLLYWOOD sign that glistens in the moonlight at the top of Beachwood Canyon. Field mice, possum, snakes, and house cats become fair game for the wild intruders that prowl the narrow streets and canyons for a quick kill and a quiet meal with the family.
...January 11th, 2022
So long ago, before Ornette Coleman,
Coleman Hawkins, John Coltrane—
all those free spirits running up and down
the alphabet of jazz, there was old
J.S. Bach, running through the changes.
I always picture him, and hear him,
at the pipe organ in Tomas Kirsche
all by himself,
January 7th, 2022
December has once again produced a large number of year-end “Best Of” lists, and the goal of this post is to present those albums oft mentioned by the critics. While these 21 albums hardly constitute a comprehensive assessment of the “Best Of the ‘Best Of’” lists, it does provide some guidance about 2021 recordings critics seemed to agree about, and suggest we check out more thoroughly.
...January 5th, 2022
“Mrs. Swing”’s most famous recording was written by Hoagy Carmichael, and was recorded with a small group of musicians from Paul Whiteman’s orchestra. Who was “Mrs. Swing”?
...January 4th, 2022
A 34-year old childless bachelor reluctantly agrees to babysit the nine-year old daughter of a friend of his on a Saturday night in September. The experience leads to a life-changing revelation.
...January 3rd, 2022
Between the notes
lies the silenced passion and pain
of a people
too enormous for lyric expression
though the black dots on the page
attempt to decode the encrypted message.
January 1st, 2022
Some thoughts about the challenges of 2021, and hopes for 2022…
...December 29th, 2021
In the cold vastness of space without end,
we swirl through time, around the sun,
alone, unknown, unknowable, lonely
collections of stardust, certain we matter,
but vague as to why and how, unable
to prove our value, yet convinced we must
December 23rd, 2021
The woodshed was the hunting ground for wings of notes.
Black suits and ties, hipster hats and smoke rings of notes.
Was Robert Johnson alone, hellhound on his trail?
Was a deal made? Was Bird Satan’s plaything of notes?
December 21st, 2021
In a modern literary retelling of The Little Mermaid, Pearl, a talented singer, leaves her tiny seaside town to enter the music business. She must let go of everything she thought she wanted to discover her true worth.
...December 20th, 2021
Trading Fours with Douglas Cole is an occasional series of the writer’s poetic interpretations of jazz recordings and film. This poem is written to the 1957 Coleman Hawkins recording of “Juicy Fruit.”
...December 17th, 2021
Virtually all recordings of this influential trumpet player are available, but the only known film footage of him is in a 1955 appearance on the Soupy Sales variety show, which was one year before his death. Who is he?
...December 16th, 2021
I live inside Erik Satie’s piano
with my dog.
Every day is early morning autumn here
The leaves never fall
inside Erik Satie’s piano – they dance
December 14th, 2021
Molly Larson Cook’s abstract-expressionist paintings accompany the 50 poets contributing to this collection. Her art has much in common with the poetry and music found within it; all three art forms can be described as “landscapes of the imagination,” created by artists from all over the world who are inspired in a meaningful way by jazz music, and whose work can be uniquely interpreted and appreciated (or not!) by those who consume it.
...December 10th, 2021
It was probably Dean who was responsible for him being where he was right now, he thought as he sat across the table from his fiancée listening to her talk about the wedding and the gifts they were registered for and the reception. He had discovered an album he didn’t approve of – Barbra Streisand – among Dean’s records when he went to stay with him shortly after he got married to a woman from Cleveland.
...December 9th, 2021
One of my greatest joys for decades
was exploring unknown record shops.
I once walked into a newly opened used
shop around the corner from my university
and discovered a used album, apparently
the improvisatory result of a session
set up by Norman Granz that included
December 8th, 2021
Being the daughter of an international celebrity is sure to have its rewards and challenges, particularly when the mother – in this case Eartha Kitt – grew up motherless and in extreme poverty in the South, and who as an adult, broke hardened and racist societal barriers with her intense inner drive, determination, and strength of character. In a November, 2021 Jerry Jazz Musician interview, Ms. Kitt’s daughter Kitt Shapiro, author of Eartha & Kitt: A Daughter’s Love Story in Black & White, talks about Eartha’s legacy as a mother, the life and career challenges they both faced, and her book—a moving account of a heartfelt mother/daughter relationship.
...December 4th, 2021
I never did read the news, though I don’t suppose
it made a splash in the Post or Herald Tribune–
with maybe just a line or two
among the baseball stats, divorces,
and the marches picking up
deep down in the Cotton States.
December 3rd, 2021
Announcing the six writers nominated for the 2022 Pushcart Prize…
...December 1st, 2021
In a dream,
I walked by
what once were
rows of brownstones,
along 52nd Street;
past the ghosts
of Jimmy Ryan’s,
Spotlite, The Onyx
and 3 Deuces.
November 30th, 2021
In this edition, Veryl Oakland’s photographs and stories feature the singers Sarah Vaughan and Betty Carter
...November 29th, 2021
I sit on a balcony,
a cup of coffee held for warmth
on a chill spring morning,
as waxwings and vireos flit and flash,
percolating with song.
November 26th, 2021
Bob Hecht has created an extensive Spotify playlist he calls “Jazz Tributes” that also serves as a kind of “Thanksgiving” greeting – compositions and performances by jazz musicians, for jazz musicians.
...November 25th, 2021
Friends remember Al Summ, whose love and appreciation of jazz showed up in a variety of ways. His artwork was found (and rescued) by his friends Dan Brown, Dave Watson, Bob Crimi and “Andy” – a.k.a. “The Gang of Four”.
This remembrance is a reminder of how jazz and its culture can touch the soul of an enthusiast, and a demonstration of a longtime, devoted friendship. I am proud to assist the “Gang” in sharing their heartfelt connection to their departed friend.
...November 24th, 2021
a thin man
speaking the talk
with low eyes
snake hands
soft pale skin
empty pockets
at a table
in the back
November 21st, 2021
In this edition, producer Jean-Phillippe Allard talks with Michael Jarrett, author of Pressed For All Time: Producing the Great Jazz Albums from Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday to Miles Davis and Diana Krall about working with the singer Abbey Lincoln on her 1990 Verve album The World is Falling Down
...November 19th, 2021
In this fifth collection of poetry reflecting these times, 33 poets offer their perspectives…
...January 20th, 2021
Kevin Whitehead, the longtime jazz critic for NPR’s Fresh Air, discusses jazz music and the movies – the “natural allies” that both grew out of existing creative traditions, and, since the mid-1920’s have told stories about “child prodigies, naturals who pick up the music the first time they hear it, hard workers with a painstaking practice regimen, talented players diverted into soul-killing commercial work, and even non-improvisers taught to fake it.”
...January 15th, 2021
You just never know what you’ll run into in the midst of a crazed world – sometimes even a calm beauty has a way of unexpectedly showing up, and when it does, you want to share it.
...January 13th, 2021
He told us we were required to freeze everything in our lives and find the nearest house or store or restaurant or motor lodge. Don’t knock. Go in. Get comfortable. Wait for further instructions.
...January 11th, 2021
Way back in the ‘40s,
she had a cat
black as night
and named it . . .
Well, you know.
This was the ‘40s
January 9th, 2021
a quid pro quo threw knives
into the government’s heart
a coup to reinstate an orange plague
almost happened
combustion
fueled by messianic idiocy
used privilege to smash windows
& attempt abduction of evidence for a nation’s choice
January 8th, 2021
December has brought the tradition of year-end “Best Of” lists, and the consensus among critics is that – as difficult as it may be to understand given the challenging circumstances – 2020 was a banner year for new jazz recordings.
...January 2nd, 2021
Thank you dogs that started barking
who made me turn the jazz up on New Year’s Eve
loud
loud
loud
so mutilated America would hear what horns are supposed to sound like
December 30th, 2020
Never up first, he was always
downstairs first, his four little boys
aligned like ascending angels
up the polished staircase, already
dressed, eager to see the tree,
December 23rd, 2020
In a November 16, 2020 interview with Jerry Jazz Musician, Riccardi discusses his vital book and Armstrong’s enormous and underappreciated achievements during the era he led his big band.
...December 20th, 2020
Bethlehem lies far away from here
and home is a speck in the eyes of dreamers
we had to getaway to get our
peace on earth
December 18th, 2020
Halyards play jazz
snapping rhythm
against sailboat masts.
Floating docks moan.
The sloop rocks.
December 16th, 2020
Frank’s day begins as so many have in the last decade, a decade lost to a job, a way of life, as his phone wakes him with the bourbon-drenched tones of Tom Waits announcing he ‘can’t wait to get off work.’ Frank knows he will have that sentiment lingering in his mind until he returns home later, much later in fact, after another shift at the tavern of ill-repute. Beginning his day as he has almost every other he moves to his chair with a piping hot mug of tea and proceeds to construct and then smoke a big fat joint.
...December 15th, 2020
The author weaves the classic song “White Christmas” into a story about remembering and longing for better days
...December 11th, 2020
Imagine the ocean
and holding it
Back
with only two hands,
and one outsized mind.
Only God,
or the moon,
can move the tides.
December 9th, 2020
Gift offer on Veryl Oakland’s book Jazz in Available Light, one of the most impressive jazz photography books to be published in a long time.
...December 8th, 2020
I belong to a jazz listening group and this month’s topic has been the music of Gerry Mulligan and other baritone saxophone players. A rich, engrossing experience that has offered me the chance to wade deep into Mulligan’s career, and to rediscover great baritone players like Leo Parker, Pepper Adams, Hamiet Bluiett, Nick Brignola, Serge Chaloff, Ronnie Cuber and Scott Robinson.
Along the way I found a terrific 90 minute documentary of Mulligan’s life that I recommend as an antidote to cabin fever and as a temporary diversion from the many contemporary films/series found on Netflix, Hulu, et al.
...December 7th, 2020
With the aid of good fortune and health, life has a way of going on, even when external forces distract and alarm. Amid yet another flurry of extreme presidential chaos and the unending nightmare of COVID, I recently closed down the office space I have worked out of since 2000.
...December 2nd, 2020
. . “Sphinx,” a story by Brian Greene, was a short-listed entry in our recently concluded 55th Short Fiction Contest. It is published with the permission of the author . . . “Lucy XV,” by Vakseen . Sphinx by Brian Greene . 1. …..I met Leonor when I was 23 and she was 51. … Continue reading ““Sphinx” — a short story by Brian Greene”
...December 1st, 2020
We tripped through the parking lot and fell into the Woods—
Brown Amphitheater, then rested a bit as musicians tuned up.
When John McLaughlin’s first eerie notes of “Birds of Fire”
came through, we were taken by surprise. I’d thought
we were going to India, instead it was a caravanserai
to hear the scream of the butterfly.
November 20th, 2020
The evidence against Monk was overwhelming. As he spun in circles, his beard greeted all the be-boos and scat tops with a whiff of singular restraint, knowing the blue minor chord could only hold so much dissonance before the black harmonies started some fragile shite.
...November 19th, 2020
In the book’s prologue, “Bigger Than Jazz”– a portion of which is published here with the consent of the publisher, Oxford University Press – Riccardi writes about Armstrong’s Apollo Theater performances of 1935 (marking his comeback from an 18 month stay in Europe), his final big band performance of 1947, and subsequent appearances there with his integrated small group, the All Stars.
...November 18th, 2020
Beautiful skin,
infinite shades & tones
deep black to crescent white,
golden yellow to indigenous red.
November 17th, 2020
Too many miles, far away from
home, my girl’s photo in my pocket
mine in her gold locket, above
my bunk, Lena smiling down on
me, my girl, she don’t mind
she knows I love her, she knows
she too is fine
November 11th, 2020
Click here to read about plans for the future of Jerry Jazz Musician.
The Sunday Poem: “Shivers” by Howard Osborne
The Sunday Poem is published weekly, and strives to include the poet reading their work...
Howard Osborne reads his poem at its conclusion.
Click here to read previous editions of The Sunday Poem
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