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Have you ever listened to your father,
Jackie Wilson’s rendition of “Tenderly”?
Several times? Well, that’s good.
The last I listened, it came through the dash
of my Wrangler at a busy intersection,
January 12th, 2025
I don’t want to stay woke
Oscar Peterson lulls me back to sleep
Sailing / swinging / meticulous
copacetic groove
January 11th, 2025
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.
...January 10th, 2025
A young trumpet player in Chicago struggles with the challenges of finding his own voice as an artist
...January 7th, 2025
Spanish & flourish
Intricacies of ‘Pablo’ & ‘A Future Retrospective’
Of ziggurat / Giralda …architecture
Polyphony – bebop & free
January 4th, 2025
Jerrice J. Baptiste’s 12-month 2025 calendar of jazz poetry winds through the upcoming year with her poetic grace while inviting us to wander through music by the likes of Hoagy Carmichael, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Sarah Vaughan, Melody Gardot and Charlie Parker.
...December 31st, 2024
2024 produced its share of losses of legendary jazz musicians. Terrance Underwood pays poetic homage to a handful who have touched his life, imagining their admittance to the Final Arms Hotel, a destination he introduces in his prelude.
...December 30th, 2024
. . © Marsha Hammel . . Don’t Worry About the Labels Quintessentially American Scores of differing mood Even named by temperature Hot and cool include Categories unmemorizable Don’t worry about the labels On your listening journey “Giant Steps” “Slow Freight” “Big Train” May take Endless destinations This sprawling Jazz landscape . Listen to … Continue reading “The Sunday Poem: “Don’t Worry About the Labels” by Mike Mignano”
...December 30th, 2024
Listening recently to Chet Baker play and sing
“I’ve Never Been in Love Before”
on the local public radio jazz stream in Sacramento
sends me, thrills me, saddens me, deepens me
I want to jump in
I want to be there
the trumpet solo
the wondrous sound of notes.
December 21st, 2024
A hazy clip from Finnish TV,
the year he died
Shot in a dimly-lit studio
Evans has just finished a concert and the interviewer,
reverently holds an oversized microphone
December 20th, 2024
Looking a little sad and alone in an upper bin of the produce section – a handful of red celery-like stalks of rhubarb. They are still crisp – not yet wilted by the soft terror of avoidance too often rhubarb’s after life.
...December 19th, 2024
Mingus howling, his bass rumbling in their faces,
Shouting yeah! Yeah, oh yeah! The insistent barking growl.
Their chains beat loose by the savage blues that chases.
December 14th, 2024
Four poets react to the results of the 2024 election…
...December 14th, 2024
The evening burns,
riffs clinking glasses
dance to what is
not there.
My finger travels along the old
family photograph, 33 stern faces.
Forest cats in clan den, spotted,
camouflaged. Before I was born.
Who are they? No one knows.
December 12th, 2024
Maybe, whisper of your voice
could bring home
your far away love
before icicles begin to form.
It could be so.
December 11th, 2024
The vast and beautiful quiet of the weekend,
a weak dawn bleeds over the skyline’s edge.
She gropes her pockets to find a single cigarette
as she waits for that moment
December 7th, 2024
The author’s award-winning story is a semi-satirical mood piece about a heartbroken man in Europe listening to Toots Thielemans while under the influence of a mind-altering substance.
...December 5th, 2024
The story – a short-listed entry in our recently concluded 66th Short Fiction Contest – explores the intersection of nourishing oneself with music, and finding a soul mate
...December 2nd, 2024
For speed and power, use the pick.
One side of the mountain,
Then jump to the other side.
Open mike nights I learned in real time,
Rehearsal studios we never wanted to leave, still young.
But time left, and everyone left me.
November 30th, 2024
The writer suggests taking to music during these divisive times – specifically the composer Guillermo Lago’s piece “Sarajevo”
...November 30th, 2024
the sound became a poem
after happening into
Kenny Burrell leading
an arranged Gil Evans
below a full moon
...November 29th, 2024
Tenuous
It’s probably always
been tenuous
The notion
The concept
of democracy and
how it was designed
to protect us
November 27th, 2024
Art Tatum plays fast
fast as Sundays
fast as sunset in November
fast as a hurry up offense
fast as a 20 dollar bill flying down the street
November 26th, 2024
The world-renowned saxophonist Deja Blue grew up a sad, melancholy person who could only express his feelings through his music. When he meets a beautiful woman who sweeps him off his feet, will his reluctance to share his feelings and emotion cost him the love of his life?
...November 25th, 2024
Lauren, my high school sweetheart, and I
drive down Fifth Avenue in NYC, not in my
mother’s blue 1967 Cadilac, but in my polished
silver Caddy. This is after our group, The Kansas
City Soul Association, makes it big and I, their
drummer, can afford such a ride.
November 23rd, 2024
. . photo via pickpik.com . . The Sounds Outside My Window ………(for Jack Kerouac) So the drunk old genius of the road once wrote that the sounds outside his window were worthy of his poetical consideration but right now, out of mine, all I can hear are seagulls squawking and sirens wailing and, in … Continue reading ““The Sounds Outside My Window” – a poem by Bradford Middleton”
...November 21st, 2024
The conductor passed the notes around — birds strung out on wires —
Pieces they all knew well, nothing too inspired.
He checked his troops, baton raised, then marched them down the street.
Was it a groove, or was it a rut, that curbed their marching feet?
November 19th, 2024
In this story – a short listed entry in our recently concluded 66th Short Fiction Contest – a private investigator tries to help a homeless friend after his saxophone is stolen.
...November 18th, 2024
I cranked the Woody Shaw Jr.
“Every Time I See You”
Marveling at the range
Authentic modal with a hint
November 16th, 2024
notice was received at the Final Arms Hotel
stating simply
expect Lou soon
& the buzz began
Good gracious!
Big John and Grant grinned
each to the other
with Hammond & Gibson harmony
November 15th, 2024
Tucker works as a jazz pianist aboard the deep space luxury cruiser, the Royal Nebula. A flirtatious interlude pushes his new emotional software to its limits and beyond, and he learns the hard way what it means to be human.
...November 15th, 2024
I am the sound,
the spontaneous voice you hear
beyond the melodic trance,
an array of multi-timbred,
fragmented, impetuous harmonies and rhythms
to carry you into an alternate dimension,
November 10th, 2024
Flip day for night then lose the glossy crooner
Let the trumpet solo drain the oil from showbiz lake
Cruise a lowdown hungry blues
Along the Great White Way
To citizens’ arrest on Lower Broadway
November 6th, 2024
The story – finalist in the recently concluded 66th Short Fiction Contest – describes the first lesson at a music conservatory of a freshman piano-performance major who is more accustomed to improvising than reading music. It is an excerpt from a novel-in-progress.
...November 4th, 2024
He jazzed his way into my heart
with pulsing beats that have surpassed
the resounding rhythm of the jungle drums.
November 2nd, 2024
Drizzly droplets
Dripping from balcony rails,
Slipping down window panes
As I listen to Stevie Ray
Play Lenny. Man that
Cat could sweat as he
Plucks magic from
Six thin strings.
October 30th, 2024
I present you with a disgusting floor,
covered with ocher lumps of puke,
piles of paper refuse, cigarette butts,
all swimming in a sea of black water.
October 26th, 2024
Harlan has an addiction. A most illegal addiction. It drives him from morning until night. He dreams of it. How can he escape it before it brings him into the arms of the law? Down a dark alley he will find out just how far he is willing to go.
...October 21st, 2024
A raggedy man lived for music and Nina Simone,
called himself “Mr. Bojangles,”
played jazz on his secondhand sax,
tap-danced for tips and smiles.
October 19th, 2024
“Big egos,” they now say –
Basie, Armstrong, Ellington
Did Louis Armstrong
Possess an outsized ego
October 17th, 2024
The story – a finalist in the recently concluded 66th Short Fiction Contest – focuses on two people whose passion for music infuses their lives… and their chance at love.
...October 15th, 2024
Jazz is a journey. The
listening keeps us
envisioning how creativity
is transformative. Jazz is a
journey, a sound, a tune, a note,
October 12th, 2024
Nostalgia
it’s the feeling that brought us here
a bit of joy / sweet glide to a hallowed space
and Fats Navarro is already here
October 10th, 2024
In this edition, Rife writes about jazz novels and short stories that feature a theme of “mystery.”
...October 10th, 2024
In the story, a short listed entrant in the recently concluded 66th Short Fiction Contest, a 60-year-man has lost his job as a newspaper reporter, and is left with few options.
...October 9th, 2024
Antonio, steal me away from him
with a mango slice
on the tip of your knife
October 6th, 2024
The story – a short-listed entry in the recently concluded 66th Short Fiction Contest – is an exaggerated version of the dynamism of domestic/romantic relationships between spouses and the difficulty to sustain a family.
...October 2nd, 2024
Leaving residence
At the Final Arms Hotel
For a misty boulevard stroll
Could be I see you
(Maybe on your way
To meet up with Wes
To go Bumpin’ On Sunset)
October 2nd, 2024
When he entered a club ‘round midnight,
all 88 keys would break into a grin
and the stool would slide out from under
to invite him to sit down and play.
September 28th, 2024
Sometime before September ends
I will capture your love
among the flaming
fuchsia, paprika, mustard colored
leaves, blowing in wind on a journey
to somewhere close to where you are.
September 27th, 2024
An essay remembering the late jazz musician Michael “Dodo” Marmarosa, awarded Esquire Magazine’s New Star Award in 1947, and who critics predicted would dominate the jazz scene for the next 30 years.
...September 25th, 2024
Prisms resound, glow dissonant—
refracted word-dyes salvaged from malaise.
A bleeding swatch of rainbow,
cordless stains on muslin,
stacks of frightened tightropes,
my slippers thin and worn –
September 21st, 2024
. . Mallory1180, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons . . Donald Byrd’s Late Night Lullaby The Worker Bee finds a home In the honeyed tones of a trumpet As the sun sets earlier, answering Fall’s call, she stands sometimes Sturdy as a birch tree, the trumpet’s Wail suits her majestically. Jazz is The … Continue reading ““Donald Byrd’s Late Night Lullaby” – a poem by Erren Kelly”
...September 19th, 2024
The story – a short-listed entrant in our recently concluded 66th Short Fiction Contest – centers on the effects of COVID on an interracial, interfaith family…
...September 17th, 2024
When that first rumbling bass line
Tells me I’m listening to Gordon Goodwin’s
Big Phat Band playing “Jazz Police,”
I can’t help it, I always see an LAPD squad car
swinging out of the station
flipping on that groovy trumpet siren
as they join a pursuit with the whole horn section.
September 14th, 2024
The deadline for entering stories in the 67th edition of the Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest is September 30.
...September 13th, 2024
This edition of the writer’s poetic interpretations of jazz recordings and film is written in response to Oliver Nelson’s 1961 recording The Blues and the Abstract Truth
...September 11th, 2024
The story – a short-listed entrant in our recently concluded 66th Short Fiction Contest – explores the notion of where dreams end and reality begins through the lives of three people living in New Orleans
...September 9th, 2024
If ever
I am subjected to
Further medical exploration
& something
Identified as Bio
Is discovered
September 7th, 2024
John Coltrane was the absolute
the decorated, the preternatural
and acknowledged master of what fury
can pour out of the body of a saxophone.
September 3rd, 2024
Hurrying to a dental appointment
I didn’t want to go to in the first place
an interminable red light and honking traffic
and the curve where people merge
20 MPH faster than necessary
four lanes into two
not a good day overall
though Sonny Rollins is playing loud;
August 31st, 2024
The first time Benny Goodman heard Bix Beiderbecke play cornet, he recalled, he wondered, “My God, what planet, what galaxy, did this guy come from?” (Skretvedt)
...August 30th, 2024
In this story – a finalist in our recently concluded 66th Short Fiction Contest – a Black magician reveals his life’s complexity to a white therapist who questions his ability to address it.
...August 27th, 2024
Sheets of music laid across a checkered table cloth
spread out like streets across the city.
Like the quarter notes on page one, a crescent moon
is seen rising in the ink dark sky.
August 24th, 2024
cohen says there are major falls
and minor lifts that come before
the fourths and fifths and i suppose
he’s probably right, most likely right
but this is not about some hallelujah
August 17th, 2024
Scattered discordant
Symbols woven into lines
Across blank white pages
August 16th, 2024
Woke up this morning to the Bugle Call Rag,
Straight no chasers made my head real bad.
Nothing left for breakfast … goodbye pork pie hat,
Dressed with chilies (ah um) – never hotter than that!
August 10th, 2024
A story about a Jewish kid coming of age in Alabama and discovering his identity through music, in particular the interstellar sound of Sun Ra.
...August 9th, 2024
The flute floats a legato stream of notes,
blood from the heart pouring in a lucent stream,
brilliant as a harvest moon filling the sky
with radiance such as the flutist releases
into the concert hall, notes carried on breath
August 7th, 2024
During a brief respite from the hard rain,
I heard a music born of spring and sunsets
coming from spinning black platters.
Their weighty cadence, their spry
crackling fireworks
August 3rd, 2024
In postcards to his sister Paula
He described what it felt like
To feel free
In America, he was
A disrupter of the peace
In a thickly-padded FBI dossier
August 2nd, 2024
The story – a finalist in the recently concluded 65th Short Fiction Contest – concerns a father’s determined commitment to demonstrate his values to his family through a spontaneous personal action
...August 1st, 2024
On the Cape in P-town
August ‘55
Billie, Eartha, Ella vocals
Filled shoreline evening skies
Entrancing soaring seagulls
With jazzy siren song
July 27th, 2024
Remembering the genius of the multi-instrumentalist who played with the likes of Bix Beiderbecke, Benny Goodman, Red Nichols, Miff Mole, and Joe Venuti
...July 25th, 2024
In this story – a finalist in the recently concluded 65th Short Fiction Contest – a missing guitar leads to the dissolution of a chart-topping band. Years later their subsequent reconciliation reverberates across generations.
...July 22nd, 2024
because Jupiter is 1300 times the volume of the Earth
because milkweeds in the yard are as beautiful as
“Hushabye”
because on clear nights the moon pours in my window
like a spotlight and makes me think
.Paul Simon’s in the room
July 20th, 2024
The story – a finalist in the recently concluded 65th Short Fiction Contest – concerns a heart-broken man trying to deal with his sadness via journaling and jazz.
...July 17th, 2024
In which poets connect the swing of the bat with that of the bandstand…
...July 16th, 2024
When he plays he wears invisible glasses
picks his keys with patience and purpose
a tornado with time on his hands
while in walks light
July 13th, 2024
The author’s story – a finalist in the recently concluded 65th Short Fiction Contest – describes the unlikely and circuitous route by which, against all odds, he became a jazz musician.
...July 11th, 2024
…From “Fatha” Hines to Brad Mehldau, poets open themselves up to their experiences with and reverence for great jazz pianists…
...July 11th, 2024
Surely Sonny still gets blue at times
I mean he’s a human being after all
isn’t he although sometimes he
seems more superhuman celestial
take now for instance as he bends
nearly all the way to the stage in
his 80s and plays and plays
and plays and plays and plays
July 6th, 2024
The story – a finalist in the 65th Short Fiction Contest – is about a young man who cares for his grandmother after she is discovered wandering in her neighborhood, which gives him a chance to be away from his mother and her new and intolerant partner.
...July 5th, 2024
Audible pain
Introspective
Like the composition he wrote called
Alabama about the 4 little girls from
Birmingham:
July 2nd, 2024
Stripped down standards
ache the air. Keith Jarrett
with chronic fatigue
recorded “I Got It Bad
(And That Ain’t Good)”
in sessions so short
he sometimes ended
before the song.
June 29th, 2024
While consuming Mary K O’Melveny’s remarkable work in this digital album of poetry, readings and music, readers will discover that she is moved by the mastery of legendary musicians, the wings of a monarch butterfly, the climate and political crisis, the mysteries of space exploration, and by the freedom of jazz music that can lead to what she calls “the magic of the unknown.”
...June 25th, 2024
Mingus flipped the kitchen switch,
flooding the room with light,
just as, seeking purchase in the slippery sink,
I tumbled through the unlocked window.
June 22nd, 2024
In this, the 17th major collection of jazz poetry published on Jerry Jazz Musician, 50 poets from all over the world again demonstrate the ongoing influence the music and its associated culture has on their creative lives.
...June 21st, 2024
The story – a finalist in the 65th Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest – describes a practice routine of a young conservatory student eager to sate his feeling of destiny.
...June 20th, 2024
Nested into each other,
We listened to Dolphy play “Truth”
as softly as the bedding that held us.
June 19th, 2024
. . This space on Sunday is generally reserved for a single poet to read one of their works, but this week’s issue -Father’s Day – features 23 poets who weigh in on the complexity of their relationship with their father, revealing love, warmth, regret, sorrow – and in many cases a strong connection … Continue reading “The Sunday Poem(s): 23 Poets remember their father…”
...June 15th, 2024
A short-listed entrant in the 65th Short Fiction Contest is a story about an accidental audition…
...June 11th, 2024
He often remembered
how it used to be with her,
his former lover,
who would sing him a song
every night before bed
then teach him each line
June 8th, 2024
The hardest skill to learn
is to listen.
Always one wants to interrupt,
to explain, to contradict, to deny.
June 8th, 2024
A short-listed entrant in the 65th Short Fiction Contest is about a lonely writer in New York City who descends into madness upon realizing she is the only person who can hear the jazz music playing under her apartment.
...June 6th, 2024
Think of a river
Turned into
A Diamond,
June 5th, 2024
Entertain us, entertain us all
Give, give, give with your sassy voice, your young body
Despite the migraines…
At 11, on a North Philly street, gang raped
By three creeps
It starts there, the cracks
The headache
June 1st, 2024
My high school girlfriend’s older brother
lived in a garret in the Village, like something
out of La Boheme, and she said maybe if we
went there, he’d leave us alone and we could
…well, you know
May 25th, 2024
A short-listed entry in the recently concluded 65th Short Fiction Contest concerns a child’s courage in the face of abuse, displayed in her solemn ritual of burying her stuffed toys.
...May 22nd, 2024
my claim to jazz fame:
I have had fun telling people …
I got to know david sanborn
in high school band.
May 20th, 2024
She was four, just waking to the world.
Aware of rain and blue air, of singsong words,
of a low trill as she drifted into night. Abruptly
she was lifted
into unfamiliar voices
May 19th, 2024
A myriad of styles and experiences displayed in eight thoughtful and provocative poems about jazz music…
...May 16th, 2024
The story – a finalist in the recently concluded 65th Short Fiction Contest – is about a woman who finds a rare saxophone in a New York City cab, and refuses to hand it over
...May 15th, 2024
We’ll have a little brunch for you —
pecan-crusted French toast,
oysters, smoked salmon,
a charcuterie board.
May 11th, 2024
That Black Olive near the back providing shade
a steady venue for beak & feather songsters
roaming around the leaves
as if they were tables at the Club Aviary
May 8th, 2024
Glenn Gould’s famous recording impacts a young couple’s enthusiasm for a dorm room make-out session…
...May 7th, 2024
I was preparing to make my exit from Heaven back to Earth,
And it was late March, so the lounge had transitioned
To their hot jazz band after playing the cool for months.
May 4th, 2024
. . The cover of the 1987 Mosaic Records collection of The Complete Blue Note Recordings of Herbie Nichols . . Thinking of Herbie I was thinking about jazz masters who died too young– private accolades for America’s unknown legion, perished by addiction, illness or accident— Herbie Nichols I didn’t forget you. Dead of … Continue reading ““Thinking of Herbie” – a poem by Daniel W. Brown”
...May 1st, 2024
A woman sits in a window frame
of old carved birds, listening to her
grandson in his jeans playing fig leaf music
in her home in Koshidekha,
a village in Nepal.
April 27th, 2024
The author’s award-winning story is about the power of connections – between father and child, music and art, and the past, present and future
...April 24th, 2024
I saw some crows in low and noisy flight.
I watched them until they were out of sight.
And I have heard, at times, the calling geese,
above and unseen in the autumn night,
April 24th, 2024
You punched him in his chin
Jimmy not her kin
can’t let a bully
do her in.
April 21st, 2024
Trading Fours with Douglas Cole is an occasional series of the writer’s poetic interpretations of jazz recordings and film. This edition is written in response to the music of Wayne Shorter.
...April 18th, 2024
At the bar of the
Towne Tavern, once
Toronto’s finest jazz club,
stage facing me,
sipping my one beer,
knowing even then
in my twenty-third year
I was witness to
a never forgotten gig.
April 13th, 2024
Cacophonous —
The honk, the blare of the tenor sax
And the scream! The guttural cry
Who are you, man…who are
You? “I’m nobody,” is my
Only reply
April 10th, 2024
The pollen is flying like mad –
frantic, crazy, amorphously Daliesque –
sort of like our trio the other day,
rollicking and lollygagging through Monk’s
Brilliant Corners, losing it so completely
that when Marty flung a stick at my head
April 6th, 2024
Dexter Gordon blew blue
blue notes for hours in his visit
to my CD player,
accompanied by wicked syncopations
rapped on window and roof
by bursts of rain as it came and went
April 3rd, 2024
.He answered my personal ad: “Classy rebel wishes to meet man of principle.” In the 80’s, it wasn’t normal to find love through advertisements, so I kept my effort a secret. At our first encounter in an Indian restaurant, he said. “I’m not sure if my principles are the right ones. You’re likely to find me at socialist meetings in church basements.” Though I was just a run of the mill, east coast liberal, I was over forty, so I decided to give him a chance. In fact, his commitment to left wing causes intrigued me; I wanted to hear more.
...April 2nd, 2024
washes up
on the keyboard.
Bill Evans’ glasses too.
I put Monk’s hat on
and suddenly feel
like the captain of a ship.
March 30th, 2024
Even if you never drank black coffee, that won’t stop you from drinking in the feelings that filter across a room whenever Sarah Vaughan sings Black Coffee. One could drown in that bottomless, inky liquid, that heartache-laden brew,
...March 27th, 2024
Soultrane came out when Ike governed.
1958. Before our nation
Would build up its war machine to invade
Viet Nam, training its Green Berets
March 23rd, 2024
Floyd grabbed his cane and stepped out of his air-conditioned car into the late August heat. The afternoon sun warmed his stiff joints. It felt good. From the Honda’s back seat he pulled a battered guitar case, locked the car and shambled down Monterey Street to Premier Music Store. Its front door stood closed against blasts of hot Santa Ana winds.
...March 22nd, 2024
She plays slow, haunting
notes that linger and flow
around her voice, unearths
the story that lies between
the words of each song –
March 20th, 2024
My friend is a Blues singer,
I am a Jazz drinker,
boozing shots after shots,
I never get drunk with Jazz.
March 16th, 2024
I was streaming The Fabulous Baker Boys
the other night and thought
it reminded me of the times I drank to
Mose Allison — in Boston, in DC —
and how righteous he was singing
Everybody Cries Mercy
March 14th, 2024
It was the first Friday in months that we didn’t both have our own gigs lined up, so my friend Paul invited me out to one of his favorite haunts on 8th Avenue. He promised me the food was good, but told me that the real draw was the live music. Honestly, I tried not to roll my eyes when he dropped that detail on me in the cab. I mean, I love music and all–I’d have to if I was going to work this hard at it–but I kind of was looking forward to giving my ears the night off.
...March 12th, 2024
I admit I’d never heard of “Watermelon Man” before Harry Reid came to my kids’ elementary school to put together a concert band. He wasn’t a salaried teacher, but a part-time outsider brought in by the PTA.
...March 10th, 2024
I’ve never seen much of Spain.
A business trip to Barcelona.
A commuter ride to Girona. Salvador
Dali’s museum. A stop in Sitges
where ivory beach sand abets
a shimmered turquoise sea.
March 8th, 2024
The Portland, Oregon poet Emmet Wheatfall – whose jazz poetry has been published on Jerry Jazz Musician – talks about the connection between poetry and the environment, and the impact of climate change on poets and other artists, and the rest of humanity.
...March 7th, 2024
The trumpet melody glided on a cloud of clarinet and trombone notes. All three instruments dipped and soared over a rhythmical sea of piano, bass, and drums.
...March 3rd, 2024
gentle the footprints go
up through the wilderness
to the heart-shaped night
short of breath, shorter, inches away on my speakers
miles inside
a sphere of glad- sad melancholy, dark tree twilights
March 2nd, 2024
These poems are new submissions by five poets relatively new to Jerry Jazz Musician, and are an example of the writing I have the privilege of encountering on a regular basis.
...February 28th, 2024
This story, a finalist in the recently concluded 64th Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest, tells the tell of Uncle Cheapskate and Aunt Whiner, those pesky relatives you love to hate and hate to love.
...February 26th, 2024
Evergreens and pink lawn
chairs sang through my windowpane
until silenced by grime
and retinal leakage.
I pass my good eye
back and forth;
February 24th, 2024
Marginalized, itinerant
Brilliance barely compensated
You want to save them all; you
Particularly want to save him
February 22nd, 2024
The 19 poets included in this collection effectively share their reverence for jazz music and its culture with passion and brevity.
...February 20th, 2024
“Afloat” – a finalist in the 64th Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest – is about a troubled man in his 40s who lessens his worries by envisioning himself and loved ones on a boat that provides safety and ease for all of them.
...February 19th, 2024
Your father and I admonished you
for walking ahead on the craggy mountain ridge.
You defended your eager steps,
saying you were musing
on the musical styles
of Mingus, Parker, and Shorter,
February 17th, 2024
A relaxed, familiar comfort emerges from the poet Terrance Underwood’s language of intellectual acuity, wit, and space – a feeling similar to one gets while listening to Monk, or Jamal, or Miles. I have long wanted to share his gifts as a poet on an expanded platform, and this 33-poem collection – woven among his audio readings, music he considers significant to his story, and brief personal comments – fulfills my desire to do so.
...February 14th, 2024
Following a failed relationship, a Barstow man is left in the desolate town with only his guitar and the familiar music of Mozart to help him cope with it all…
...February 12th, 2024
Morning is dream time—
inns, strip clubs, and shops
are all eye-closed,
a hobo huddles
under a gray blanket
at a storefront,
neon signs illuminating
the strip all night long
February 10th, 2024
it seems like thousands
of nights hunkered
over dark beer and jazz
with my Guru
the janitor who taught
jazz to the novice
February 9th, 2024
when first he was asked
spring buds had yet to fully open
now rising out of autumn heath
that tenor sax strides deep
February 7th, 2024
Tad Richards is a prolific visual artist, poet, novelist, and nonfiction writer who has been active for over four decades. ..He frequently writes about poetry, and the following piece about the history of the connection of jazz and American poetry first appeared in the Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Poetry (2005). It is published with the permission of the author.
...February 6th, 2024
Both of them put up with fools
until they didn’t
and the sea that men parted
collapsed under their stares.
February 3rd, 2024
The story, a finalist in the recently concluded 64th Short Fiction Contest, is inspired by the classic Bob Dylan song “Tangled Up in Blue” which speculates about what might have been the back story to the song.
...January 30th, 2024
shouts and dances in church
and thumbs its nose at shame
covers its body in brand names
and doesn’t worry about the future
holds hands and kiss shameslessly
in public; they call it p.d.a
January 28th, 2024
Trading Fours with Douglas Cole is an occasional series of the writer’s poetic interpretations of jazz recordings and film. This edition is influenced by Stillpoint, the 2021 album by Zen practitioner Barrett Martin
...January 24th, 2024
Take tonight, for instance.
I can’t ask you for the moon
the way Sinatra commands it
with his first-class confidence.
Let alone Jupiter or Mars.
January 21st, 2024
One-third of the Winter, 2024 collection of jazz poetry is made up of poets who have only come to my attention since the publication of the Summer, 2023 collection. What this says about jazz music and jazz poetry – and this community – is that the connection between the two art forms is inspirational and enduring, and that poets are finding a place for their voice within these virtual pages.
...January 18th, 2024
A short-listed entry in the recently concluded 64th Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest, the story is a heartfelt, grateful monologue to one Italian composer, dead and immortal of course, whose oeuvre means so much to so many of us.
...January 16th, 2024
Sensational
Largely unsung
Dorothy Donegan
Known by jazz insiders as
The female Art Tatum
His protégé
The one who made him say:
“She is the only woman who can
Make me practice.”
January 14th, 2024
Takes on love and loss, and memories of Lady Day, Prez, Monk, Dolphy and others…
...January 10th, 2024
I jammed
with the Afro-American Jazz Band
in the old Off Plaza on McAllister,
and with the blind Black pianist whose name I can’t remember
in the club we knew as The Question Mark
whose sign on Haight Street was just a neon ?,
when the club was straight and featured jazz
January 7th, 2024
It’s Les McCann & Eddie Harris
heard it back in ’69, heard it now
not once but twice, so nice, but
sadness got me tonight, hit me hard,
January 4th, 2024
We begin to study Uncle George
in a cavern of disintegration.
A hospital bed wrenched through
a narrow doorway. Shag carpeting
cauterized and peeled from the concrete floor.
A hoyer lift wheeled in. A pully installed
so George can shift from horizontal to vertical.
January 3rd, 2024
This story — a finalist in the recently concluded 64th Short Fiction Contest — harkens back to Richard Brautigan’s fiction of the ’70s, and explores modern day co-worker relationships/friendship and the politics of for profit “Universities”
...January 2nd, 2024
Your chair is a kitten chasing a bird.
Hans Brinker skates across
your living room.
December 31st, 2023
Each year offered
a little blue box.
Trinket from a window.
December 24th, 2023
Dusk’s deep waters envelop me
with the quiet embrace of a Bill
Evans solo, the piano so low,
yet so all encompassing (drowning
me in beauty, beauty, beauty —
December 21st, 2023
A story that takes place over the course of a young man’s life, looking specifically at all the women he’s loved and how the presence of a derelict building informs those relationships.
...December 18th, 2023
I take my daughter to the ballet studio
at a former convent in Marin.
She will be dancing for hours.
At the edge of the church’s property
is an old gymnasium.
December 17th, 2023
Her first note wails amber
smoke near overhead pipes above
the guitars. It wavers
and rolls r’s better than spring.
December 10th, 2023
How can somebody so blue, Grant, be named
Green? How can the ocean current
and its waves? Simple. Immediate. Each note comes
from you slow as underwater speech. Say
a fish tank and pufferfish hugging the glass. Imagine
being trapped. Gravel pumped through the gills
December 8th, 2023
Yours is the sound of smoke
I love to inhale
the sound of a humid
summer night
its cool breeze
December 3rd, 2023
Hammers in a construction site
sound like a band warming up,
weird solos by a bunch of drummers.
Jimmy Smith comes down draped in groove,
sermonizing your stride,
clouds chest-out like they know something.
A man standing in front of a house,
shouting, I got nothing from you!
November 29th, 2023
Mamacita
with round brown
hips
roll and sway
sway and roll
slow that stroll
she sings
to ease
her sticky soul
November 26th, 2023
Four elderly women gather in a church for poetry readings, but they haven’t found a good rhythm yet. Finally, the woman who runs the poetry circle decides to personalize the experience.
...November 20th, 2023
. . The Sunday Poem is published weekly, and strives to include the poet reading their work. Bryan Franco reads his poem at its conclusion. . . ___ . . . . How I Achieved Levitation They all lived in the Walnut Building. Satchmo blew the roof off the house. Fats Waller tickled ivories. … Continue reading “The Sunday Poem: “How I Achieved Levitation” by Bryan Franco”
...November 19th, 2023
It tickles my fancy the way
francophone announcers
ornately say the names
of jazzmen in those live recordings
put to reel in Montreux.
Jack DeJohnette in particular
tickles me, perhaps because
it is a french-like sort of name.
November 16th, 2023
Hearing Rahsaan Roland Kirk recordings
you could likely miss
the pleasure of that reedman’s kisser,
import of his so unique technique.
November 12th, 2023
Seven poets combine and art of jazz with an act of love…
...November 7th, 2023
This story, a finalist in the 63rd Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest, looks at the hopes one man has that a woman he meets the night before he leaves for Camp Devens will keep him alive during World War I so he can return and take her out for dinner.
...November 7th, 2023
The Young Turk disregarded the old trumpeter
labeled him a vaudevillian minstrel
because he shucked and grinned,
having no privy to old man’s roiling anger within
fueled by slights and shames endured for years
despite his lauded, storied career.
November 5th, 2023
Jazz divinity
The Divine One on hot, fevered wings
That fly east of the sun and west of
The moon
November 3rd, 2023
She is mesmerizing
flying in the air with the music,
ignoring gravity.
What is she thinking?
October 31st, 2023
La La Love,
even when the cold raindrops
pounded against the window,
we snuggled close like fuzzy cats,
purring with Thelonious Monk
as we drank our Guinness.
October 29th, 2023
Ms. Tanner’s story, a finalist in the recently concluded 63rd Short Fiction Contest, is about a war correspondent’s haunting revelations after she comes across musicians in a refugee camp.
...October 26th, 2023
I don’t know where it starts, he said, but can you imagine
watching They Cloned Tyrone and the music playing,
almost the whole dance club version of Love Hangover,
I can’t even watch anything, my mind looks through the settings,
the dialogue is like a crowd talking in a club and I want to listen in,
go into that Diana Ross whisper singing love voice
October 24th, 2023
My eyes were faster dreaming
a drum kit in bed with me
Rapid Eye Movement Disorder
disturbing my sleep and my wife
moving away with her cellphone
camera watch my arms begin to move
October 22nd, 2023
A poetic appreciation for the work of the legendary pianist
...October 21st, 2023
You ever heard of a Zoot Suit?
Do you own a Zoot Suit ?
What about the Zoot Suit Riots
you ever heard of them?
October 18th, 2023
I blame Chet Baker
For opening a window into my past
Sensing that phantom trumpet in my capable hands
The smooth curves of the hard brass, the cold
Mouthpiece against my buzzing lips
Bright melodies blaring
From carefree days of my youth
October 15th, 2023
A collection of Connie Johnson’s poetry is woven among her audio readings, a personal narrative of her journey and music she considers significant to it, providing readers the chance to experience the full value of her gifts.
...October 11th, 2023
Because of his childhood experiences, the story’s narrator loses his singing voice and as an adult neither sings nor dances. But when his marriage falls apart he meets a ‘song and dance man’ who turns out to be Iris, a woman with multiple sclerosis. With her help, he comes to grip with his inhibitions.
...October 10th, 2023
Ce soir l’anniversaire
we defeat the oppressor
with our horns, our magic
here to bury us or set us free
October 8th, 2023
. . “Tree”(1924) photo by Alfred Stieglitz/via Raw Pixel/CC0 1.0 Deed . . Song of the Poplar Tree The song playing always catches me off guard. My trembling fingers quicken to remove the old vinyl record. I must stop her voice from singing. Even the wispy quality carries the heavy weight. I weep. Not … Continue reading ““Song of the Poplar Tree” – a poem by Jerrice Baptiste”
...October 5th, 2023
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.
October 1st, 2023
. . photo by Bernard Gotfryd/Library of Congress/PDM 1.0 Thelonious Monk, 1968 . ___ . Thelonious Monk and Mama 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. Perhaps, Mama would’ve modeled … Continue reading ““Thelonious Monk and Mama” – a poem by Erren Kelly”
...September 30th, 2023
Earlier this year I invited poets to submit jazz-themed poetry that didn’t need to strictly follow the 5-7-5 syllabic structure of formal haiku, but had to at least be faithful to the spirit of it (i.e. no more than three lines, brief, expressive, emotionally insightful).
This collection, featuring 22 poets, is a good example of how much love, humor, sentimentality, reverence, joy and sorrow poets can fit into their haiku devoted to jazz.
...September 27th, 2023
When a marketing writer gets a new neighbor, she finds herself dreading the 2:00 practice sessions of The Musician. In Rear Window fashion, The Writer is kept apprised of The Musician’s life happenings through a combination of watching out the window and listening to the story told through her music. When a crisis entangles the two women, they form a bond that penetrates the wall that stands between them – despite never having met.
...September 26th, 2023
I’m whistling a tune about
a woman’s broken heart,
down a long and empty
hallway, just to hear it
move itself along,
September 24th, 2023
Barstow to Boron, bound for Bakersfield
we fly across the Mojave Desert, will wind
through and over the Tehachapis
only to come to rest in another desert
on the rim of the sink of California.
September 22nd, 2023
Trading Fours with Douglas Cole is an occasional series of the writer’s poetic interpretations of jazz recordings and film. In this edition, the poet connects the recordings of Jessica Williams’ “Little Waltz” and Gene Harris’ “Summertime.”
...September 20th, 2023
From a third floor window I imagine
I can almost see the cracked black
& white tile welcoming Penn Avenue
to the long-closed Kappel’s Jewelers.
September 17th, 2023
Ella Fitzgerald is whispering
to me: “sit here and enjoy your dinner with my
sweet honey voice,” eternal bloom of time,
filling the corner of the street where I eat
with a Golden Age long gone but that remains
like an idea, lingering, like the steam of a
hot bath leaving
traces of fingers on the mirror
September 13th, 2023
A story revolving around a jazz record which means so much to a couple that they risk being discovered while attempting to escape the Soviet Union.
...September 12th, 2023
Strains of Charlie Parker’s alto sax fill
the empty apartment song-after-song –
“Dancing in the Dark,” “Loverman,”
“Embraceable You.”
Between every note I wish.
September 10th, 2023
Coltrane said a prayer to his musical God
Straight through the horn of his saxophone.
Not a metaphor; he spoke the words
Through the reed and the music into the air.
September 3rd, 2023
There are two types of clubs
Highfalutin hoity-toity stuck up clubs
And gritty grimy dingy dank dungeons
I prefer the latter, for obvious reasons
Clubs must be weathered
Crackled paint & nicotine stained
August 31st, 2023
Neil Young stumbled off the stage more exhausted than usual. It had been a trying gig, watching Danny Whitten teeter from chord to chord on a heroin-fueled high-wire act that just seemed to get more perilous as the night wore on. It was fine that Danny blew some chords—everyone blew chords in this band. That was what made Crazy Horse special in the first place. If Neil wanted every note pure and perfect, he could have stuck with Crosby, Stills, and Nash. But what would have been the point of that? It was like playing a benediction for your own immaculate coffin.
...August 30th, 2023
The shadow from the brick facade
of Central High School did not seem
to spread much shade on the streets
of our Little Rock neighborhood.
August 27th, 2023
This edition features poetry chosen from hundreds of recent submissions, and from a wide range of voices known – and unknown – to readers of these collections. The work is unified by the poets’ ability to capture the abundance of jazz music, and their experience with consuming it.
...August 22nd, 2023
once said I’d marry a man
Who could hum the first four bars
Of Cal Tjader’s “Doxy.”
We say these foolish things
When we’re young and
Still learning the ways of the world.
August 20th, 2023
n On the Road, Jack & Neal raced Rocky Mount to Ozone Park,
speeding dark quiet American roads
Today, 2023. I drive the new superhighways, continuous sterile green
at median & shoulders,
August 18th, 2023
A man once asked me about ambition, not in a typical sense of family and lifetime accomplishments, more of a rhetorical artistic conversation. To me, it wasn’t a topic which warranted a structured answer let alone a real plan, God forbid life would be linear and predictable. Now, over two decades later, I am found in Notting Hill’s Rooftop Cafe, writing a story which could possibly address the subject unintentionally.
...August 17th, 2023
Shrouded in smoke and cigarette spheres
Jazzy speakeasy on a summer slog of a night
Where hips ramble in tandem,
Slide and slip in an out of rhythm
Juke Joint shifting with an uneven floor
Naked feet shuffling and colliding
August 13th, 2023
Vivaldi, especially “The Four Seasons,”
keeps showing up in forms of jazz:
a hint, a structure—but try unraveling
any musical DNA you go straight back
to singing and to drum, voice and poetry—
August 10th, 2023
free
what
bars?
intra-
views,
posit-
ions
o-
pen.
August 6th, 2023
20-year-old Priscilla Habel lives with her wannabe flapper mother who remains stuck in the jazz age 40 years later. Life is monotonous and sad until Cil meets Willie Flasterstain, a beatnik lesbian who offers an escape from her mother’s ever-imposing shadow.
...August 4th, 2023
Smooth. Jazz. Chill.
Write. Think. Build.
Listen. Vibe. Poetically
design.
Spend time with jazzy
sounds elevating the
mind. Jazz is smooth.
Jazz is chill.
July 30th, 2023
Did you dream up the orange golden sun of Aruanda?
Seashells far from your mother, you would no longer need
to whisper, “Take Me to Aruanda.”
...July 27th, 2023
The poet covers the spirit of the music, and the likes of Coltrane, Handy, and Ella…
...July 24th, 2023
The light aspires to be equatorial
but each eroded moment quiets otherwise.
The twilight Superior shore fills
with pine smoke from fire pits
just as Coltrane played in the
smoldering light at the Village Vanguard.
July 23rd, 2023
. . Lester Young, 1946 . . Solace I relish the cultivation of my Lester afternoons an endeavor still absorbing at my age captive in that garden of ambient sound …………………that Young tenor breath ………………………….a zephyr expulsion stirring atmosphere rare these days for this climate caressing time & movement with a tone to stream still … Continue reading ““Solace” – a poem by Terrance Underwood”
...July 18th, 2023
During that electric dawn
when I first heard
a bracelet of notes
which traced a subtle rhythm
within an hourglass of music
and sharpened the silence with sound,
July 16th, 2023
It’s 1958
and the epitome of 50s style
Anita O’Day steps onto
the stage, white gloves
to her elbows, black hat
crowned with white feathers,
slim black dress and finger clicks
the band into sound and dynamic
jazz minors and majors.
July 14th, 2023
A fantasy involving a spider and Miles Davis’ recording of “All Blues”
...July 12th, 2023
in jazz composition
everybody knows where the one is
even when nobody chooses to play it
if the space is quiet enough
you can hear blood racing
July 11th, 2023
The story – a finalist in the F. Scott Fitzgerald 2022 Short Story Contest – follows a laid-off silent-era screenwriter’s career shift after she’s forced to pawn her typewriter.
...July 10th, 2023
It’s one of those moments.
She only has ears for Miles Davis.
Reflecting on things that never came to be—
July 9th, 2023
A violin player and enthusiast makes a crucial decision regarding where his violin will go next.
...July 6th, 2023
In anticipation of a collection of jazz haiku — to be published sometime in August, 2023 — a small sampling of the jazz haiku received so far is published here.
...July 5th, 2023
he was/
a flightless bird/
bright as sky/
full of natural lies/
and sweet conflict/
when speaking the/
jazz
July 2nd, 2023
The poet describes his joyful experience of listening to “Mumbles,” a 1964 recording by Oscar Peterson with Clark Terry
...June 28th, 2023
Naturally, his lyrics are cued a cappella./“I’m home” slips from his lips,/sizzles like the taste of what I’m baking in the oven,/as he unwinds his day.
...June 25th, 2023
Two poems devoted to Steely Dan’s 1977 recording of “Aja”
...June 22nd, 2023
Bennie and his mother live alone together, and know each other through simple but profound rituals they have created…
...June 20th, 2023
The poet Alan Yount and son Arlan write about a live 1964 performance by Duke Ellington and His Orchestra
...June 18th, 2023
The poet recalls an evening when he serendipitously encountered jazz in “The Point” neighborhood of Boston
...June 15th, 2023
All damn day/
talk — talk — talk/
I told him, son/
why not fit those fingers/
down that damn gullet/
and make it a proper/
squawk squawk squawk —/
June 11th, 2023
What if you love music…but you can no longer hear? Ms. Flock’s story contemplates the paralleled loss of the protagonist’s hearing and her husband, where music fits into her life now, and attempts to forge a new relationship being deaf.
...June 8th, 2023
Poets honor jazz as an international music in five atmospheric poems
...June 7th, 2023
The poet recalls a live performance he witnessed by the Timeless All Stars
...June 4th, 2023
This busy bee, at the end of a life like clockwork,
a symphony of service to everything but herself—
wings snatched in a world blinded by the way it is—
slowly expiring in the sweet nectar of stillness,
May 31st, 2023
When the water and sand dance, whence (whence?)/their music? What is that music? What /jazz, what syncopation surfs itself in?
...May 28th, 2023
. . “Guy Ryan,” a short story by Alice Sherman Simpson, was a short-listed entry in our recently concluded 62nd Short Fiction Contest, and is published with the consent of the author. . This story is a chapter from author’s book-in-progress, One For Sorrow. . . ___ . . photo by Lalesh Aldarwish/via Pexels … Continue reading ““Guy Ryan” – a short story by Alice Sherman Simpson”
...May 22nd, 2023
That feeling when everything makes you sad/Nothing you can think of would make you glad/No matter how hard you try to remove yourself/From this blue funk
...May 21st, 2023
A call-out for submissions for upcoming poetry collections to be published on Jerry Jazz Musician
...May 19th, 2023
The poet writes a profile of the jazz drummer Elvin Jones, inspired by a photograph by Lee Tanner
...May 18th, 2023
The poets Richard Radcliffe and Svi A. Sesling share their experience of listening to and interacting with to the music of John Coltrane
...May 18th, 2023
Nine poets, nine poems on the leading figure in the development of bebop…
...May 17th, 2023
The poet writes a fantasy about Parker’s time in the California asylum Camarillo…a 15 song playlist accompanies the poem
...May 16th, 2023
. . The Sunday Poem is published weekly, and strives to include the poet reading their work. Ms. Baptiste reads her poem at its conclusion. . . ___ . . David Dellepiane, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons . . Jazz Within Me I like Jazz playing within me. ……………….Record that never skips. Since age sixteen, … Continue reading “The Sunday Poem: “Jazz Within Me” by Jerrice Baptiste”
...May 13th, 2023
A short story based on a recollection of the author’s mother from a night many years ago, when Gene Krupa’s sticks gave everything back its beat.
...May 13th, 2023
A woman’s fingers explored/piano keys, as though bairns/plowing through snow drifts/in search of hidden life;
...May 11th, 2023
An abstract poetic view of an abstract jazz recording…
...May 10th, 2023
A remembrance of incidents in the Bronx, Harlem and at Bop City…
...May 9th, 2023
The poet describes the clear, crisp sound of listening to jazz music on vinyl
...May 7th, 2023
Poet musings on Ellington — and big band music, by the poets Claire Andreani, Russell duPont, Laurinda Lind and Terrance Underwood
...May 4th, 2023
The poet remember jazz pianist Horace Tapscott
...May 2nd, 2023
A “jazz detective” uncovers a murder via a riddle involving a photo of Dizzy Gillespie
...May 1st, 2023
The poet recalls an encounter with Carmen McRae at a Hollywood shoe store
...April 30th, 2023
The poets share their love of jazz through personal narratives, and memories of live performances
...April 28th, 2023
A poem and an essay devoted to the legendary jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery
...April 27th, 2023
. . “The Occasional Girl,” a short story by Mark Bruce, was a short-listed entry in our recently concluded 62nd Short Fiction Contest, and is published with the consent of the author. . . ___ . . Photo: Kubat Sydykov / World Bank/CC By-NC-ND-2.0 . The Occasional Girl by Mark Bruce . … Continue reading ““The Occasional Girl” – a short story by Mark Bruce”
...April 24th, 2023
The poet writes about the depth of the trumpeter’s playing, and the connections to many of the great trumpeters before him
...April 23rd, 2023
Several poems devoted to the pianist Ahmad Jamal, who died on April 16, 2023 at the age of 92.
...April 21st, 2023
In five poems, the poet writes of the music and complexity of trumpeter Chet Baker
...April 20th, 2023
The poet writes about the significance of Miles Davis’s “Kind of Blue”, and why it is the “it” jazz recording…
...April 18th, 2023
