SATIN SATURDAY NIGHT
Thankfully, there’s a day
in each week
to fold away the toil,
set the table
with champagne and friends
at the jazz pub
below the street,
and let the smooth satin sound
of a saxophone melody
transform tired blood
into a sparkling flow
of toe-tapping, hip-swaying
funky, mellow music
as the bubbly tickles your nose,
and you move,
cheek to cheek,
one man, one woman,
no space between,
no tension,
just a stroke of magic
in the measures of a tune
to dance away the week.
CLARINET LESSON
This morning
I found the clarinet in a deep sleep
on the far end of the couch,
so I borrowed his black outerwear
designed with silver buttons
and placed it over my shoulders
to protect me from the cold
as I jogged into town
for my daily routine.
I figured he wouldn’t mind,
especially after we spent
so many hours the night before
in a jazz duet.
It was unexpected then,
upon my return
all covered in snow
with sweat frozen to my brow,
to find him angered,
his metal skeleton inflamed.
He seized his coat,
rummaged through the pockets,
and checked each little hole
to make sure no notes
from Eddie Daniels’ Blackwood
or Benny Goodman’s vivacious version
of Sing Sing Sing
had fallen into the deep snow,
lost forever,
especially those hidden
in the extreme upper range
which have a propensity to fall off
in the flailing wind.
MUSIC APPRECIATION
He asked them
to take the music outside,
listen as they held it toward the sky,
let the wind rattle its stems,
or place the sheet against an ear
to hear a tune
through the hollow of its shell.
He told them to jog
the parameters of the staves,
walk the winding road of its clef
and imagine living there.
Perhaps they could drop a feather
upon the music’s resonance,
follow its float among the timbres,
or ski the slopes of musical peaks,
gliding unencumbered into its valleys,
then thank the composer
for varying the landscape
when they left the lodge.
But the class was determined
to stalk each phrase,
analyze chords for manipulation, cunning
and seek the hidden form.
They handcuffed the notes
to the music stand,
even flogged the melody
with a drum mallet,
until it whistled a meaning never intended.
LANGUAGE REQUIREMENT
In college, he elected jazz
as a language,
dropped French so he could learn
that chops meant
playing the sax like Paul Desmond,
creating a sound,
resembling a golden hue
that only the angels
might duplicate,
carried so high
it might be heaven,
though he could sense
Desmond’s fingers
moving with elegance,
ballroom dancing on the keys.
He later learned
that Desmond played
in various modes.
They were not clubs
or bars he could frequent,
though the modes
were most often located in bars.
He found out
that Mel Torme had pipes,
beyond a collection of meerschaum,
an ability to sing songs
and scat like no one heard before
without ever leaving the stage.
Could say he also had chops,
but with singers it was different
because with one set of pipes
he created a timbre all by himself,
a degree of contrast as varied
as timber in the forest.
