Jack Kerouac Vesuvio’s bar San Francisco
This blog is about Jazz but it is also about musicians, poets and the arts that embrace Jazz. I intend to add more posts about Jazz-poetry, Jazz literature, Jazz Photography and film .
Jazz and poetry have been overtly interlinked since ‘On The Road’ by Jack Kerouac. Kerouac was so taken with the rhythms of Bebop that he adjusted many of his writings and poems to the frenetic and accented beats of Jazz (which he saw as the raw beat of the streets). You can hear this best when Jack recites his own prose.
Another Beat Poet Alan Ginsburg wrote this in his ‘Footnote to Howl’;
“Holy the groaning saxophone! Holy the bop apocalypse! Holy the jazzbands marijuana hipsters peace…..”
A favourite poet of mine is Bob Kaufman (another San Franciscan):
“Sweet beats of jazz impaled on slivers of wind/ Kansas Black Morning/ First Horn Eyes/ Historical sound pictures on New Bird wings/ People shouts/ boy alto dreams/ Tomorrows gold bellied pipe of stops and future Blues Times/ Lurking Hawkins/ shadows of Lester/…...”
A poem that uses Jazz as a theme can be about a tune or perhaps give the merest hint of a tune (or a musicians life). It can be blunt or as funny as hell. Modern American Poet, Laureate Billy Collins wrote ‘ I chop some parsley while listening to Art Blakey’s version of Three Blind Mice’ - From ‘Taking Off Emily Dickens Clothes’. My good friend Iain Sharp wrote a terrific poem called ‘Chet Bakers teeth’ - published in a collection titled – ‘The Singing Harp’. Both highly recommended for their humour and the profoundly sly insights which lurk beneath the words.
Frank O’Hara was the most New York specific of mid twentieth century poets who along with his friend (painter) Jackson Pollack, conjured up a raw vision of New York . The last lines of his Poem dedicated to Billie Holiday, titled “The Day Lady Died’ are as follows;
“Leaning on the john door in the FIVE SPOT
While she whispered a song along the keyboard
to Mal Waldren
and everyone and I stopped breathing”
This is what jazz is; a deeper edgier meaning lurking behind a pretty tune or rif. Humour, quick-fire quotes and slippery notes that fall off the edge of reason, only to land on their feet again.
John Fenton (jonjaz) – March 2011 (updated March 2013)
#You may quote freely from this blog, but please acknowledge the source and respect my intellectual property
Member of JJA (Jazz Journalists Association)
Could I have a link to your blog site Roger?
Here’s my blog link, John:
http://ausjazz.net/
Good to discover this blog, John. I’ll add it to my blogroll and make sure I drop in to catch your posts. Regards, Roger Mitchell
Hi John
I don’t have your email but want to invite you to the following
Rog
MICHEL BENEBIG WORKSHOP and house concert
MICHEL AND HIS New Caledonian organ TRIO WILL BE GIVING A FREE WORKSHOP AT
AUCKLAND UNIVERSITY
KENNITH MEYERS CENTRE
74 Shortland St, Auckland CBD
Thursday 17th Nov at 12-2 PM in Room 306 (the drum room)
Also
He will be giving an informal house concert/ BBQ at Roger and Caros place This Friday 18th (sadly though, Caro will be overseas)
20 Leonard road Mt wellington Auckland
3-6ish pm
This is open to cjc members and jazz students too ( and dedicated listeners)
Come along – bring your own food (BBQ will be running) and drink and a $5 or $10 donation for the band
Thanks
Roger
–
Roger Manins
Auckland
New Zealand
fentonline.com
Hi ! Get in contact. Stay tuned. Check out the site. John Fenton
NIce material here!
Now you’ve done it. You put me in mind to go dig up my overlong poetic experiment “Blues for Bird”, probably almost ten years old, and drag it over to my blog. I’m also working on a novel about a jazz trumpter in the late 50s who has a romance with one of the few female Beat Generation poets. Might want to trade more ideas & stories with you sometime, but for now, here’s a little blog entry on the novel project.
http://markingtime4now.wordpress.com/2011/10/12/chet-baker-diane-diprima-getting-lost-in-the-late-fifties/
Use the search function for other jazz-related posts, or poetry… a handful of which owe a debt to the odd rhythms & themes of classic jazz.
This isn’t about you at all! ;-) – should be more ‘About You’?
Jazz and poetry have been used together extensively. In the 50′s San Francisco based pianists like Andre Previn (yes that one – Mia Farrow etc) worked with poets often. In Word Jazz both can improvise or not. Hear Mike Nock tracks with Jazz + Poetry (and Meehan).