Trading Fours, with Douglas Cole, No. 6: “Convergence”

May 28th, 2022

.

.

Trading Fours with Douglas Cole  is an occasional series of the writer’s poetic interpretations of jazz recordings and film

.

.

___

.

.

.

.

“Convergence” rises from listening to the Stan Getz Quartet at Large

.

.

___

.

.

 

Convergence

Inflation, market manipulation, plausible deniability,
currency, recession, depression, concentrated wealth,
gentrification, fraud, artificial intelligence,
crypto mining, speculation, bear market, bull market,
exchange rate, price gouge, monopoly, antitrust,
liquidity, earnings, savings, investments, stock and trade,
Federal Reserve, percentage increase, revenue, interest rate,
high yield, money market, balloon payment, mortgage,
tax, debt, income stream, durable good, insurance,
claim adjustment, temp work, four oh one K, Social Security,
devalue, asset, liability, account, accounting, accountant,
the invisible hand—we all live on bankers’ hours,
futures, pork barrel, earmark, tender,
withholdings, payment, planned obsolescence.

In the sense the guy who dresses up as a ship captain
and holds a sign saying “Rally up,” or
the other bespectacled fan waving his little country’s flag—
they are the most basic form of theater there is:
they have created a character,
they have dressed the character in costume,
and they have put the character on the stage of the world—
any dialogue or plot, they leave up to the moment;
they’re writing in the process of presenting the play.
It’s not prewritten. It’s enacted in creation—
an immediate, improvised form of theater.

We are bound by our condition to see only the present.
The past becomes a shady memory.
Imagine seeing equally the past and the present,
the future for that matter. But in the same way
we cannot see beyond a near horizon,
time is a horizon, leaving much we don’t know,
even as the lens of the present continues
and we get better at documenting and preserving the past,
so much is unperceived—and now the black hole,
the “gentle giant” one astronomer calls it, followed by
and “Einstein was right about gravity…”
The event horizon, that point of no return
and the mystery of that dense inner world.
I see that collapsing inward no-light-can-escape
black hole as an inverse, a reciprocal of stars,
suns exploding outward with all that light and energy
the complete opposite of a black hole,
so much so they must be connected.
I suspect our condition limits our ability to see it,
but the idea is not new: the Zen Buddha’s
talk of the union of opposites,
the master Go player keeps one black stone
in the white pile and one white stone in the black,
yin and yang holding the opposite at its center,
a sun, a black hole sun.

Imagine it as if you’re in a bar,
and the clarity or confusion you may experience
is part of the atmosphere.
Still, it’s intriguing and you want to hear it!
Or, imagine it around a fire in the dark night,
the stories take on a life of their own,
as if you invited a spirit into the room.

The mist over the far hills and the mountains,
the people out there over the calm grey sea,
our loved ones, the ones from before
diving across the sky in the skins of cloud.

Then I catch that scent that sends me
back to Berkeley walking home from school
through a vacant lot, no idea what was ever there,
just a concrete slab now, cracks letting up grass lines,
dry paper, bottles, cigarette butts, scraps,
piece of a shirt blown into the chain link fence.

Another shot cruise through Laurelhurst,
we’d get out to the edge and it just dropped off
into black-green chunks of forest ravines and creeks,
like a million years of time sinking down under
those blue grey skies, you are what you see.

Woman holding a bread bag as if it were a baby.
Imagine having a thought so big, so clear,
you had to say it out loud even here, even though
people look at you as if you’re crazy.

It’s like driving home,
the light just going down,
the long black road through the trees.

.

Listen to the poet read “Convergence”

.

.

Listen to the 1960 recording of “Amour,” from Stan Getz at Large, with Getz (saxophone), Jan Johansson (piano), Dan Jordan (bass), and William Schiopffe (drums) [Universal Music Group]

.

.

.

___

.

.

photo by Jenn Merritt

.

Douglas Cole has published six collections of poetry and The White Field, winner of the American Fiction Award. His work has appeared in several anthologies as well as journals such as The Chicago Quarterly Review, Poetry International, The Galway Review, Bitter Oleander, Chiron, Louisiana Literature, Slipstream, as well Spanish translations of work (translated by Maria Del Castillo Sucerquia) in La Cabra Montes. He is a regular contributor to Mythaixs, an online journal, where in addition to his fiction and essays, his interviews with notable writers, artists and musicians such as Daniel Wallace (Big Fish), Darcy Steinke (Suicide Blond, Flash Count Diary) and Tim Reynolds (T3 and The Dave Matthews Band) have been popular contributions. He has been nominated twice for a Pushcart and Best of the Net and received the Leslie Hunt Memorial Prize in Poetry. He lives and teaches in Seattle, Washington. Click here to visit his website..

.

.

The poet’s collection, The Blue Island

.

.

___

.

.

Click here  to learn how to submit your poetry

Click here  to subscribe to the Jerry Jazz Musician newsletter

.

.

.

Share this:

Comment on this article:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

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.

In Memoriam

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

Podcast

"BG Boogie’s musical tour of indictment season"...The podcaster “BG Boogie” has weaponized the most recent drama facing The Former Guy, creating a 30 minute playlist “with all the latest up-to-date-est musical indictments of political ineptitude.”

Interview

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.

Poetry

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."

Playlist

photo by Bob Hecht
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.

Poetry

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?

Short Fiction

photo via PIXNIO/CC0
“The Sound Barrier” – a short story by Bex Hansen

Poetry

"Horn" by Samuel Dixon
Jazz Haiku – a sampler

Short Fiction

back cover of Diana Krall's album "The Girl in the Other Room" [Verve]
“Improvised: A life in 7ths, 9ths and Suspended 4ths” – a short story by Vikki C.

Interview

photo by William Gottlieb/Library of Congress
Long regarded as jazz music’s most eminent baritone saxophonist, Gerry Mulligan was a central figure in “cool” jazz whose contributions to it also included his important work as a composer and arranger. Noted jazz scholar Alyn Shipton, author of The Gerry Mulligan 1950s Quartets, and Jerry Jazz Musician contributing writer Bob Hecht discuss Mulligan’s unique contributions to modern jazz.

Photography

photo by Giovanni Piesco
Giovanni Piesco’s photographs of Tristan Honsinger

A Letter From the Publisher

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

Poetry

Maurice Mickle considers jazz venues, in two poems

In Memoriam

David Becker, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
“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

Dmitry Rozhkov, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
“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

Book excerpt from Easily Slip Into Another World: A Life in Music, by Henry Threadgill and Brent Hayes Edwards

Short Fiction

photo via Appletreeauction.com
“Streamline Moderne” – a short story by Amadea Tanner

Publisher’s Notes

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

Poetry

photo by William Gottlieb/Library of Congress
A Charlie Parker Poetry Collection...Nine poets, nine poems on the leading figure in the development of bebop…

Contributing Writers

Click the image to view the writers, poets and artists whose work has been published on Jerry Jazz Musician, and find links to their work

Interview

Photo of Stanley Crouch by Michael Jackson
Interview with Glenn Mott, editor of Victory is Assured: The Uncollected Writings of Stanley Crouch (photo of Stanley Crouch by Michael Jackson)

Interview

photo of Sonny Rollins by Brian McMillen
Interview with Aidan Levy, author of Saxophone Colossus: The Life and Music of Sonny Rollins...The author discusses his book about the iconic tenor saxophonist who is one of the greatest jazz improvisers of all time – a lasting link to the golden age of jazz

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

Pressed for All Time

“Pressed For All Time,” Vol. 17 — producer Joel Dorn on Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s 1967 album, The Inflated Tear

Photography

© Veryl Oakland
John McLaughlin and Carlos Santana are featured in this edition of photographs and stories from Veryl Oakland’s book, Jazz in Available Light

Coming Soon

An interview with Judith Tick, author of Becoming Ella Fitzgerald: The Jazz Singer Who Transformed American Song; A new collection of jazz poetry; a new Jazz History Quiz; short fiction; poetry; photography; interviews; playlists; and lots more in the works...

Interview Archive

Eubie Blake
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.

Site Archive