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The Sunday Poem is published weekly, and strives to include the poet reading their work.
Mr. Menaghan reads his poem at its conclusion.
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The 1982 Timeless All Stars album It’s Timeless [Baystate]
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The Music of Surprise
for The Timeless All Stars
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Cedar and Buster and Billy emerge
from the wings exuding élan
and inexpressible cool
as they take their
places behind
piano, bass
and drums.
The trio maneuvers thru a series
of tunes as if their fingers, feet,
whole bodies carried within
all that remarkable music,
sounds they just tote
around as they move
through the world,
let out to play
from day
to day.
Then Harold conveys his sax to center stage,
threads notes through the tapestry,
gives the tunes extra texture as
they curl out over the crowd
like a breeze you can’t
see or touch, warm
and cool at the
same time.
A few songs further on Curtis sidles
up to Harold, lifts his trombone.
And as the trio begins a new
song Harold & Curtis
blast off for
the moon.
By the time Bobby grabs his mallets, makes
it a sextet, something better than sex
has started to happen onstage
and the six men look at
each other in wonder,
smiling at finding
this astonishing
little groove.
As the music starts to sound not
just celestial but out of this
or any world the only
thing the audience
can do is hold its
breath, embrace
this feeling for
as long as
it lasts.
Another gig, another show, another city
for the band, until it proved more
than anyone had any right
to expect or think they
deserved on what had
seemed just another
night in another
spot nothing
special
at all.
What is jazz? This. The music of
surprise, a chance to invite
the incredible just by
listening, letting go,
letting a force you
cannot even hope
to comprehend
take charge
one more
time.
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Listen to John Menaghan read his poem
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Winner of an Academy of American Poets Prize and other awards, John Menaghan has published four books with Salmon Poetry — All the Money in the World (1999), She Alone (2006), What Vanishes (2009), and Here and Gone (2014) —as well as poems and articles in Irish, British, American, and Canadian journals, and given poetry readings in Ireland, England, Scotland, France, Hungary, Canada, and across the U.S. from New York to Honolulu. A fifth volume, composed entirely of his jazz-related poems, is forthcoming from Salmon in 2024.
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Listen to the 1982 performance of the Timeless All Stars playing “Stella by Starlight,” with Harold Land (tenor saxophone); Curtis Fuller (trombone); Cedar Walton (piano); Bobby Hutcherson (vibes); Buster Williams (bass) and Billy Higgins (drums). [The Orchard]
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Click here to read previous editions of The Sunday Poem
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Jerry Jazz Musician…human produced (and AI-free) since 1999
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