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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.
A recording of Douglas reading his work (accompanied by the pianist Noel Haye) is found at the beginning of the poem.
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photo by Laura Stanley via Pexels.com.
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Listen to Douglas Cole read “Little Samba”
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Little Samba
Maybe you’re going out for nothing
but a sandwich, on a wrong street,
wrong day, and there you go—
disappeared, flying through the night.
What do we do? What do we say?
Watching it on film, taking it all in,
caught in the dust cloud, too?
Hiders peak through torn curtains,
sad faces behind broken windows,
packs roaming the smoking streets,
a door barely hanging by a hinge,
two homes left standing wide-eyed
in seamless gray from ground to sky.
You just want to go for a sandwich,
in that unfamiliar part of town,
with no idea what’s happening
when that vague dread snaps on,
because that gray van is following,
and now I can’t remember the last
time I heard someone laughing
without getting a bone deep chill.
You’re driving the long road night
with an iffy transmission and a wobbly
saint on the dash, and you see a green
glow in a field and someone running
out of the trees fast, conspiracy talk
and true confessions on sundown radio,
agents hiding in plain sight, bells ringing
and bonfires burning in the town square.
Zocalo cobblestones in moonlight,
a Jeep-riding American bandido
side-swipes the shuttered food stands.
He’s crossed a few lines in his mind.
He’s friends with the general, he says,
the local fiefdom, rain and thunder,
a horse tied up outside the cantina,
and upstream the old huts remain
from the Cabeza de Vaca movie set.
No escape: everywhere you go
you’re shoeless, named and tagged.
I just want to make music, you say.
I’m just music. Guards don’t answer.
It’s seamless grey from ground to sky,
one free house in the middle of nowhere.
Where to go that’s not infected?
It’s been a long slow incubation.
Is that music in a bombed-out basement?
Rain not blood flowing down the street,
piano and saxophone asking questions,
trombone hinting what happens next?
It’s a line of circular logic re-remembered,
re-interpreted in this joy-injected prayer,
a composition that makes pebbles dance
around the unexploded ordinance.
Could be drone on drone going by,
or just a passing flock of geese,
could be nothing but clear black sky
in the middle of a folkloric night
with candlelight and the steady drum,
and there’s really no reason for it.
Reason went long ago, now you’ve got
to go further back than that to catch
a sign of the incoming shadows,
those caravans on the road to Brazil.
The music stays in the pocket,
grooves of certain combinations,
certain ways notes dance on a page,
the kind of thing that takes you
out of this world, like that’s pure,
or at least it’s nice to think so, still
feeling that glow back at the hotel
but unable to sleep. And it seems like
a quiet night, a quiet neighborhood,
you think, maybe, I’ll get a bite to eat.
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Despite recording only one album as a solo artist, Tenório’, Jr. was considered one of the best pianists of his generation, and his fame as a virtuoso musician has grown over the years.
Click here to view his Wikipedia page
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In 1976, after a show in Buenos Aires, Tenório’ and fellow musician Vinicius de Moraes disappeared without a trace. Soon after, the Brazilian filmmaker Rogerio Lima produced the 16 mm short film Balada para Tenório (A ballad for Tenório), which chronicled the disappearance of Tenório Júnior and interviews his family and friends. There is scant information about this film. Click here for its IMDB page.
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A 2023 animated docudrama film directed by Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal – They Shot the Piano Player – is centered around Tenório’s disappearance and murder. The film stars Jeff Goldblum as Jeff Harris, an American music journalist investigating Tenório’s case. Click here to view the Wikipedia page for the film. Click here to rent or buy the film.
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“Fim De Semana Em Eldorado” is a song from the 1964 album Embalo, the only session Tenório’ led.
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photo by Jenn Merritt
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Douglas Cole has published two novels and eight poetry collections, including The Cabin at the End of the World, winner of the Best Book Award in Urban Poetry and the International Impact Book Award. The White Field won the 2021 American Fiction Award, and his screenplay of The White Field won Best Unproduced Screenplay award in the Elegant Film Festival. He has been nominated Eight times for a Pushcart and Nine times for Best of the Net. Click here to visit his website.
Douglas’ poem, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Kind of Blue,” published as part of his “Trading Fours” series, was nominated for the XLVIII Pushcart Prize
Click here to visit his website.
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Douglas Cole’s new novel, The Invisible Hand
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Noel Haye was born and raised in the legendary Brooklyn, NY. According to the doctors at Brooklyn Hospital, he was born with little to no air in his lungs, but God had a lot in store for him. Noel comes from a family of musicians, so it was inevitable that he would become one as well. Noel was introduced to music in the fourth grade when he had his first piano lesson. He developed a unique love for the saxophone when he heard Kenny G for the first time at the age of twelve. The sound of the saxophone resonated ever since.
Noel had a desire to join his school’s jazz band, but the saxophone sections were full in both junior high school and high school. Eventually, he settled with playing in the drumline of his high school marching band. Noel’s serious desire for music grew in his senior year of high school and by God’s grace, one spot opened up in the jazz band saxophone section. He took the opportunity without hesitation. Since then, Noel has been on his own musical journey playing for various events, churches, couples, weddings, and more. His playing is influenced by the genres of Jazz, Funk, Hip Hop R&B, and Gospel. Some of his influences include Kirk Whalum, Gerald Albright, Kenny Garrett, and Maceo Parker. Noel continues to work in his God-given purpose each day and wants to continue blessing the lives of others through his musical talents.
Click here for his website
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Click here to read previous editions of Trading Fours with Douglas Cole
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Click here to read The Sunday Poem
Click here to learn how to submit your poetry or short fiction
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