Poems by R.J. Keeler and Diane Elayne Dees

May 12th, 2019

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 The Empty Quarter
………………………………..Rub’ al Khali

This empty quarter inside him,
inside his still-beating heart,
was full of song and fun.
There was loud pizzicato music
and air and spirits flying about
all bright things in sight.

Maybe there shouldn’t have been:
dry sands looked fine all alone,
the souls of earth flying in and out
of hands of prose and feelings.
His sun had long since emptied out,
been filled with silica, with myrrh.

Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s sax song
drives up into dry, sad earth, makes
it fertile for play, for after life—
for vivezza and vibrancy, much
openness and joyfulness, as if
his skies arced fully up to apogee.

Tear the dunes away, back into
empty centers of language of air;
Rahsaan’s music hits its up-marks,
weaves just above hot quartz. Lost
here and there, and all around, are
doors, but each one leads back into

what was first only circle; cut time
is not now so becomes disjointed.
Let those preachers of wood fill air
with backwash or backlash…with loss,
with loss—are there not incoming
distractions, any Nebenstimme?

Constantinople, it seems, was packed
up yesterday then mailed out afar.
Little pictures of a city were beat
into one larger one. His desert of jazz
was killingly hot, distance rising out
of horizonless dunes. What became

of that early tribe of musicians in
exit into so-called empty quarters?
Mirages shimmered at his feet; air
just seemed to waver but actually
did waver. There was no life there
unless deep under molten sand.

One going down far beneath may
even find traces of moisture, but
the clavicle of sands will not bend
longer without snapping. Wolves
crest the broad horizon; his sax
will soon dominate the clave.

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by R.J. Keeler

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Live Music

The jazz band plays “Bye Bye Blues”
to end the final set of the evening,
and I am transported to a time, decades ago,
when flood waters poured through
New Orleans, shutting down businesses,
destroying rugs, raising an ancient fear
among residents. The next morning,
three of us walked through an abandoned
French Quarter, where rain-blessed
banana leaves glowed like bright green
fan blades. With no cars, no tourists, no music,
no horse hooves, all we could hear
was the sloshing of our shoes—until we heard
the plaintive strains of “Bye Bye Blues”—
a woman’s voice carried through
the mineral-charged, still air at the edge
of Jackson Square. She wore a long skirt
and sang through a megaphone
to an audience of three. The clarity
of her voice shook my body; the sevenths
shot up my spine. Now, sitting in a folding chair
outside a rustic old jazz hall, I am overcome
by the ozone perfume of my youth, and I sigh
deeply. In my mind’s ear, eternal notes pushed
through a megaphone still radiate, and—
in spite of myself—I do not cry.

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by Diane Elayne Dees

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R. J. Keeler is a poet now living in Vashon, Washington. His collection “Detonation” will be published later in 2019.  His artistic statement: “Does not subscribe to the cattle-prod paradigm of poetry. May tend to melancholy. Humor trumps everything.”

 

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Diane Elayne Dees’s poetry has been published in many journals and anthologies. Diane, who lives in Covington, Louisiana, also publishes Women Who Serve, a blog that delivers news and commentary on women’s professional tennis throughout the world. Diane’s chapbook, I Can’t Recall Exactly When I Died, is forthcoming from Clare Songbirds Publishing House.

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A Letter From the Publisher

An appeal for contributions to support the ongoing publishing efforts of Jerry Jazz Musician

In This Issue

The Modern Jazz Quintet by Everett Spruill
A Collection of Jazz Poetry — Summer, 2023 Edition

A wide range of topics are found in this collection. Tributes are paid to Tony Bennett and Ahmad Jamal and to the abstract worlds of musicians like Ornette Coleman and Pharoah Sanders; the complex lives of Chet Baker and Nina Simone are considered; devotions to Ellington and Basie are revealed; and personal solace is found in the music of Tommy Flanagan and Quartet West. These are poems of peace, reflection, time, venue and humor – all with jazz at their core. (Featuring the art of Everett Spruill)

The Sunday Poem

photo via Wallpaper Flare
“Dink’s Blues and drum fills,” by Joel Glickman

Interview

photo courtesy of Henry Threadgill
Interview with Brent Hayes Edwards, co-author (with Henry Threadgill) of Easily Slip Into Another World: A Life in Music...The author discusses his work co-written with Threadgill, the composer and multi-instrumentalist widely recognized as one of the most original and innovative voices in contemporary music, and the winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Music.

Poetry

painting by Henry Denander
A collection of jazz haiku...This collection, featuring 22 poets, is an example of how much love, humor, sentimentality, reverence, joy and sorrow poets can fit into their haiku devoted to jazz.

In Memoriam

Fotograaf Onbekend / Anefo, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
A thought or two about Tony Bennett

Podcast

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Chick Webb/photographer unknown
Interview with Stephanie Stein Crease, author of Rhythm Man: Chick Webb and the Beat That Changed America...The author talks about her book and Chick Webb, once at the center of America’s popular music, and among the most influential musicians in jazz history.

Community

FOTO:FORTEPAN / Kölcsey Ferenc Dunakeszi Városi Könyvtár / Petanovics fényképek, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
.“Community Bookshelf, #1"...a twice-yearly space where writers who have been published on Jerry Jazz Musician can share news about their recently authored books. This edition includes information about books published within the last six months or so…

Short Fiction

photo vi Wallpaper Flare
Short Fiction Contest-winning story #63 — “Company” by Anastasia Jill...Twenty-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.

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Trading Fours, with Douglas Cole, No. 16: “Little Waltz” and “Summertime”...Trading Fours with Douglas Cole is an occasional series of the writer’s poetic interpretations of jazz recordings and film. In this edition, he connects the recordings of Jessica Williams' "Little Waltz" and Gene Harris' "Summertime."

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This 28-song Spotify playlist, curated by Jerry Jazz Musician contributing writer Bob Hecht, features great tunes performed by the likes of Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Sarah Vaughan, Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, Bill Evans, Lester Young, Stan Getz, and…well, you get the idea.

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photo of Wolfman Jack via Wikimedia Commons
“Wolfman and The Righteous Brothers” – a poem by John Briscoe

Jazz History Quiz #167

GuardianH, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Before becoming one of television’s biggest stars, he was a competent ragtime and jazz piano player greatly influenced by Scott Joplin (pictured), and employed a band of New Orleans musicians similar to the Original Dixieland Jazz Band to play during his vaudeville revue. Who was he?

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“The Sound Barrier” – a short story by Bex Hansen

Short Fiction

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Interview

photo by William Gottlieb/Library of Congress
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Giovanni Piesco’s photographs of Tristan Honsinger

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In Memoriam

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“Tony Bennett, In Memoriam” – a poem by Erren Kelly

Poetry

IISG, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Ella Fitzgerald, in poems by Claire Andreani and Michael L. Newell

Book Excerpt

“Chick” Webb was one of the first virtuoso drummers in jazz and an innovative bandleader dubbed the “Savoy King,” who reigned at Harlem’s world-famous Savoy Ballroom. Stephanie Stein Crease is the first to fully tell Webb’s story in her biography, Rhythm Man: Chick Webb and the Beat that Changed America…The book’s entire introduction is excerpted here.

Feature

Hans Christian Hagedorn, professor for German and Comparative Literature at the University of Castilla-La Mancha in Ciudad Real (Spain) reveals the remarkable presence of Miguel de Cervantes’ classic Don Quixote in the history of jazz.

Short Fiction

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“A Skull on the Moscow Leningrad Sleeper” – a short story by Robert Kibble...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

Book Excerpt

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Short Fiction

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Publisher’s Notes

“C’est Si Bon” – at trip's end, a D-Day experience, and an abundance of gratitude

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A Charlie Parker Poetry Collection...Nine poets, nine poems on the leading figure in the development of bebop…

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Art

Designed for Dancing: How Midcentury Records Taught America to Dance: “Outtakes” — Vol. 2...In this edition, the authors Janet Borgerson and Jonathan Schroeder share examples of Cha Cha Cha record album covers that didn't make the final cut in their book

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Interview Archive

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Click to view the complete 22 year archive of Jerry Jazz Musician interviews, including those recently published with Richard Carlin and Ken Bloom on Eubie Blake (pictured); Richard Brent Turner on jazz and Islam; Alyn Shipton on the art of jazz; Shawn Levy on the original queens of standup comedy; Travis Atria on the expatriate trumpeter Arthur Briggs; Kitt Shapiro on her life with her mother, Eartha Kitt; Will Friedwald on Nat King Cole; Wayne Enstice on the drummer Dottie Dodgion; the drummer Joe La Barbera on Bill Evans; Philip Clark on Dave Brubeck; Nicholas Buccola on James Baldwin and William F. Buckley; Ricky Riccardi on Louis Armstrong; Dan Morgenstern and Christian Sands on Erroll Garner; Maria Golia on Ornette Coleman.

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