storyline

The Monster, the Writer and the Lack of Blue Plaques

2011-08-26T06:40:00.001-07:00

Hollywood 1930 and there’s this guy, Boris Karloff,
and he’s playing a monster - Frankenstein’s monster.
Only Boris Karloff isn’t his real name.
His real name is William Pratt and before he was a big star he lived in Enfield.
Well now, Karloff’s paternal grandmother was the sister to Anna Leonowens,
the real-life ‘Anna’ in the story of the King and I,
the most recent of which films starred Jodie Foster,
who also worked with another famous monster,
Hannibal Lecter, played by Anthony Hopkins.
Anthony Hopkins narrated the film How The Grinch Stole Christmas,
which had originally been narrated on TV by our dear friend from Enfield, Boris Karloff.

Now I hope we all remember that Frankenstein was written by Mary Shelley,
while she was holidaying a million miles away from the not-yet-invented Hollywood,
in the Villa Diodata with Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron and John William Polidari,
because this is crucial to Enfield’s pretensions to literary glory.
Much later, of course, Byron would have a daughter called Ada,
who worked with Charles, the “father of the computer” Babbage.
Babbage went to school in Enfield even though, as far as anyone knows,
he never wrote a story about Frankenstein or vampires.
Talking of vampires, someone who did write about them was Byron,
but chances are that he stole the idea from Polidari.

Anyway Byron’s vampire wasn’t the Dracula we came to know and love.
That Dracula was played in the early movies by Bela Lugosi,
who starred with Boris Karloff in The Raven,
an adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe’s story of the same name -
Poe having been educated in.... Stoke Newington (with apologies to Enfield).
The author of Dracula, of course, was Bram Stoker,
and his brother, Sir William Thornley Stoker,
employed a companion for his wife by the name of Florence Dugdale.
Florence having been born and educated in Enfield, which,
by a strange twist of fate, is where Florence married the writer Thomas Hardy,
who wrote a poem called “Shelley’s Skylark”, after Shelley’s poem “Ode to a Skylark”.

Now the publisher of some of Shelley’s oeuvre was Edward Moxon,
who married the poet Charles Lamb’s adopted daughter, Emma Isola.
From time to time Lamb lived variously in Edmonton and Enfield,
his sister Mary having murdered their mother with a kitchen knife in a fit of pique.
Charles Lamb, in turn, was friends with Charles Cowden Clarke,
whose father taught at a school in Enfield
where young Clarke befriended a sickly boy by the name of John Keats.
Keats died too young for his own good, but before he shuffled off his mortal coil,
he famously entered into an epic poetry competition with Shelley,
to whom he’d been introduced by James Henry Leigh Hunt.
Hunt had been born in Southgate... in the Borough of Enfield 
Well, the story goes that whilst Hunt was banged up at His Majesty’s pleasure,
for having dissed the Prince Regent, he had a visit from Byron,
who of course was with Mary Shelley and that entire monster-creating crew
when she wrote a little story called Frankenstein.
Mary Shelley, as far as I know, never stepped foot in Enfield,
but the monster she created lived on in Boris Karloff, who did,
although there are no blue plaques to that effect.

That Old Blue Note or Lady Day wasn't never this way

2009-06-12T14:45:00.000-07:00

Missy Babette likes to sing that old time jazz
she says 'like Billy what's-her-name' with that sultry glance.
But the sound gets strangled back of B's throat
though she thinks she's singing a deep blue note

Now there's George, he croons away to that old time jazz
thinks he's Dean Martin, a real smooth dude.
But G, he's vibrating way down in his throat
and he sure isn't singing a deep blue note

No, that old blue note ain't easily found.
That old blue note's been around and around
Now you me and them, that makes more than three
and we don't stand a chance next those youngsters that jive
with their nu-jazz sound,
tradin' on looks,
cocaine,
walkin' tall,
rappin' small
feelin' down.

Meanwhile Miss Babette and old George they do moan
'bout the way jazz has changed
and it's changed and then some.

"Lady Day wasn't never this way" Babette says
No way, no way, no way, no way
Lady Day wasn't never this way

Melodius Thunk

2009-06-12T14:40:00.000-07:00

Melodius Thunk
Thelonius Monk
Spherical Joke
going for broke.
Contagious atmospherics,
cliff-hanger chords on high.
Pannonica's child
playing so wild.
The loneliest monk
doing a bunk.
T.S. and Boo Boo beaming
dreaming of Rocky Mount

Indigo Walk

2009-06-12T14:30:00.000-07:00

Just an afternoon or two,
of limited beckoning.
He touches her lips.
He has a golden tongue.
He tells he things she only dreams about.
It's a deception.
She is hypnotised by the people on the street below.
That kind of fascination; warm and scary,
heaven drifting past the window
but stopping a while inside this room.
He has purchased an hour;
time for the city to heat his blood and move on.
She lets her fingers work his buttons
and laughs before she straddles him
while he breathes hot in the shimmering light.
Too loud, he murmurs.
but he door is locked and they sigh.
The shade stretches all the way down Indigo Walk
as the blues man carries the beat.

Dicing with Donna (Donna Lee)

2009-01-16T08:32:00.000-08:00

Back home in Indiana
He plays those bebop bass lines
with a rapid tempo hurl
and it’s all Curly’s girl
can do to keep up with the changes.
Pretty Donna Lee
sittin’ in the sidelines
Smilin’ at her Daddy’o,
heating the beat
while Miles swings along
and let’s old Bird take the lead.

Earlier, sooner, later, now
A skitter skatter,
pitter patter
virtuoso harmonies
from the thin men.
And old Fats wasn’t so old.
ice freezing blood red at 26,
Indiana spawning
chromatic melodies
to make your toes curl.

Miles, sweet nineteen,
he’d been kissed,
don’t tell me not,
sliced and diced
that solo sizzle,
gave birth to Bird’s
cool bebop drizzle
like rain drops
fast on a window pane.
No music so fine,
no sound so sublime.
A dime each time it’s played
by fresh young dukes
out to nuke the opposition.

Jaco’s solo speed undone
His fingers hazing, trailing some
The time all tempo-fused and random
The conga questioning rhythm grows
What to do when Donna’s done.
What indeed? The thread’s unspun.

How Duke Jordan Changed the World - performed to Jordu

2009-01-03T13:39:00.000-08:00

When Jordan penned this number it was new
and few had tried to do what he could do.
He'd played with all the best
that was Jordu
You know the rest
Parker's inspiration caught Duke's ear
but he missed the chance to dance in France
Instead, he worked with Getz
and gigged some more
That was Jordu

Bebop plays it hard in all the uptown clubs
The scene in 41 was just fermenting
By 54 the scene had crystallized
The music Duke played, it really jumped
The first to lay it down for all to hear
was Clifford Roach with Brown,
they played it clear,
but as the good in jazz - they all die young.
Brown bought the farm.

I know you want to hear the rest of the story
and I'm going to oblige.
Just you settle now and listen
to the way in which the music goes on and on and...
Inside the rhythm it gives a little bit
and we hear the way in which
the given notes inform the melody,
though improvising was the order of the day.
And I don't have to tell you all
how hard it is to tell the folks
all listening to the beat,
'cos you're listening now,
in tandem with the souls who've gone before.
Best beloved we sit with them now,
and the world can't hear them
though they hold them dear.
Reign in your emotions for a while.
Hear what I say...

(solos)

When Jordan penned this number it was new
and few had tried to do what he could do.
He'd played with all the best
that was Jordu
You know the rest
Parker's inspiration caught Duke's ear
but he missed the chance to dance in France
Instead, he worked with Getz
and gigged some more
That was Jordu

Bebop plays it hard in all the uptown clubs
The scene in 41 was just fermenting
By 54 the scene had crystallized
The music Duke played, it really jumped
The first to lay it down for all to hear
was Clifford Roach with Brown,
they played it clear,
but as the good in jazz - they all die young.
Brown bought the farm.
That was Jordu
That was Jordu

Senor Blues Danced on Mama's Grave - performed to Senor Blues by Horace Silver

2008-12-31T03:53:00.000-08:00

Senor blues danced on Mama's grave
while they kept us busy.
The peppermint girl and the grandfather's
saying 'a thing like that could harm you',
and the others running round and round,
laying her down in that cool dark earth.
Despair has a nasty smell but it's high and fine
after a decent silence.

And back then I was brand new for sure.
Old ladies with alligator purses
dropped coins in my palm with a polite distance.
Their grey eyes followed my every move,
afternoon rainbows everywhere.
I looked away and avoided thinking about the huge coffin.

We walked past the cemetary
while the bass nursed the tune along.
Every vibration coming straight from the universe.
He was shooting the breeze about the blues.
'Sit long enough and the whole world passes you by'.
He said: 'You don't own the music, it comes through you'.
And twenty years later,
there's just the peppermint girl and the grandfathers.

High Beam

2008-06-30T05:08:00.001-07:00

This woman
reached out to me
when I was least expecting it.
She told me she was hanged
by the Klu Klux Klan,
though I don't know how
or why
or where
or when,
and I certainly wasn't expectin'
to tell a story about that kind of thing,
but wanted to tread the path to Storyville,
New Orleans,
where the whores hung out
and the jazz played
loud on honky tonk pianos
that needed tuning.
But there she was
waiting for me on the road.
A woman called Pearl,
and she told me
to tell you
that although white women
shouldn't sing the blues
they often do.

Pearl's tale is one of woe.
Woe is me.
She hangs on the tree
the high beam
Jim Beam
watch what you say
when you're on your way.
The day's
gone astray
as we pass under
the beam
that hangs her high
from the neck
so that her feet
don't touch the ground
around
as the grass stops growing
and the blood starts flowing.

It was so easy to die
On high beam
as the people passed by
and Pearl's teeth
shone white
like a forest of stars
She screamed
"I didn't do nothin' wrong
but hold my head high"
and she sighed
and drew her last breath.

High beam
Jim Beam
Just a bottle or two
as her shoe
fell off her foot.
And I think,
I don't want her to die
with one shoe on
and one shoe off.
Hell, I don't want her to die at all,
but then,
if she hadn't
I wouldn't know to tell this story.

High Beam
Jim Beam
wash her clean
in the cool clear stream
of water that flows
beneath the bridge out there
beyond the field
where the cotton grows high.
Let her fly
back to her place
at God's side.
Where did she come from?
I don't know.
She was a voice
and a picture with her swinging
from the gallows,
tellin' me things
I had no right to know,
and even less to tell,
as a white woman
but that's what happens sometimes
when you let the story come through.

The Day Lee Morgan Died -rewrite

2008-01-31T01:05:00.000-08:00

Following a performance - The Day Lee Morgan Died has been rewritten.

To Sidewinder

Here’s a story ‘bout this tune called Sidewinder
written by a young man name of Lee Morgan
Back in ’64 he had a hit, made it big
With his hard bop sound
Life was pretty damned good
but he had a thing for older women.
Still he was happy with Helen, or so he said.
There he was making money on the grand concourse
but then he goes and falls for this sweet young thing,
and you know what musicians are like
when the cocaine is melting
and you start loosin’ your groovin’
Next thing you know,
he’s on his way to a gig
and he totals the car
but still he walks away from death
though the snow has turned to ice,
or something like that.
Now he gets to the gig,
and she's got the piece,
not the bitch he came with,
but Helen, yeah the long time girlfriend.
‘Fore you know it he hears this adrenalin burst of fireworks
the sound of the gun,
and there’s slugs on third street avenue c
the slow motion world spinning out of control.

Sweet Baby Jesus, he cries
As the blood seeps slowly from wounds in his chest,
His stomach, his legs.
And the pain is hot, as it sears through sinew
Bones grind, muscles twitch
A brief dance of invincibility,
an iron taste in his mouth.
The mellifluous music of death;
A pounding backbeat
and he’s drowning now as the air rasps
Through his blood-filled throat.
And here the ground is warm.
The earth presses soft against his skin;
concrete brushes his cheek
as he wishes it open to receive him.

The flowers his mother will bring to the grave,
and the tears she will cry for her man-child.
Sweet Lord save me now,
he asks of a God half-remembered,
but not with his voice, nor his trumpet,
but with his mind, vaguely aware of the bright bird song,
the plane over head, the heat of the day,
the crowd gathering round as his life ebbs away.

Yeah, dying from loss of blood
Don’t you mess with me the woman had said.
Lesson learnt. One bullet. You’re dead.
Don’t never mess with an older woman.

And talkin' to the man - it's Helen's ritual
the way it was the day Lee Morgan died.

They said, she said who knows what anyone said.
He said, she said – don’t matter much when you’re dead
Had a hit with this tune,
but it didn’t do him no good
The snake bit off more than he could chew
Oh ain’t that right,
glory days ain’t comin’ round again
Not with the sidewinder sneaking up on you
from who knows where
The day Lee Morgan died.

We all goin’ to die, maybe not the way Lee Morgan died, but we all goin’ die just the same. You, me, everyone here. It ain’t such a bad thing, oh no. It’s kinda cool or so they say. What do they know? What does anyone know? Lee Morgan didn’t know and he wasn’t no age, no sir, but that snake it slithered up and ‘fore he knew what hit him… pow… he ain’t never goin’ to mess with that again. My God, the man was only 33.
The day Lee Morgan died.

Death Jazz rant

2007-12-22T02:41:00.000-08:00

Someone on the telly said something about "Death Jazz" and into my head popped this rant. Doesn't mean anything but I imagined this angry hoard of pensioners devoutly clinging onto their jazz for dear life whilst the young upstarts trashed all that was traditional (and even bebop!)...

The upstart Jazzheads cult have claimed another victory over the massed hoards of enraged pensioners flocking to the now smokeless mill hill jazz club deep in zimmer country. “We’ve waited far too long for this” said one octogenarian high on the fumes of a charred Acoustic Ladyland CD. Not that this is even at the sharp end of the latest jazz fad. Acoustic Ladyland are tame by comparison to some. Meanwhile, the millhillians opponents, jazz’s youngest aficionados, parade their death jazz feast of dissonance and claim that jazz is dead, long live jazz! “The elderly have held jazz for way too long in a vice-like grip of rigor mortis proportions. Now is the time to rise up and purge jazz of its colostomy bag and triple heart bypass. Most of the good die young. Parker was cool in his day but so many as poorly improvised versions of the original exist that he’s become a pastiche of all that was avant garde.” So said one jazzhead member whose grasp of a good tune, so the pensioners’ claim, died before he’d left the womb. From beyond the grave one man’s voice rings out - Jazz isn’t dead it just smells funny – Frank Zappa.

New myspace music and jazz poetry update

2007-12-22T02:35:00.000-08:00

Having wrestled with myspace in the first place even to get a site up and running (it must be one of the most unwieldy formats ever) I have discovered that I can't add sound to the site without having a 'music' myspace site. Doh. So, very shortly I will be opening my 'music' myspace and asking friends to join me there instead of, well, there, if you see what I mean. Thankfully (sad person that I must be), I don't have many friends. (You may shed a tear on my behalf.)

The idea behind this is so that I can upload some of my jazz poems which will shortly be recorded with the band.... and so, to the gig. Sometime in the new year writer Jack Stanley and I will be doing a gig to combine our jazz poetry with some fabulous jazz played by a great little band called Special Edition. The members of this band have been around for years in one guise or another and further information on them will become available when I've got the other myspace site up and running properly.

Jack Stanley, my literary collaborator, is an American who has seen a thing or two in his time, has a passion for jazz, and writes a mean tale, and together we will be crafting a show that will enlighten, amuse and entertain. In the the first instance we hope that the gig will take place at the Hornsey Library, a long time venue for the prestigious writing group Word for Word (whose accolades have come from the likes of Fay Weldon and Romesh Gunesekera), as a Word for Word special, but plans are afoot to take it to other venues such as the Poetry Cafe in Covent Garden and (hopefully) The Vortex. Of course if anyone knows any other venues where it might appropriately air, please let us know, bearing in mind that Jack is getting on in years and neither of us can travel to Outer Mongolia!

Tonight - Word for Word's Festive Performance Evening

2007-12-12T01:40:00.000-08:00

Yes, tonight is the writing group Word for Word's festive performance evening at the Crouch End library. 7.30 pm start until around 9.30. Entrance is free. Drinks, nibbles, poetry, prose, a tune or two and lots of conviviality. I will be 'doing' my poem/song Summer Heat, which is posted on the blog a bit lower down somewhere.

Songlines

2007-11-06T08:38:00.000-08:00

Well now.... went to see Frank Holder at the Singers' Club on Sunday. I think he's 82 now, but back in the day he was with Johnnie Dankworth's band where he sang and played the bongos. Franks's still got a great voice and we learned a few things about improv from him followed by each one of us singing a song and receiving feedback from him. Bit scary!

I've written a few new songs, and even had someone say they'd like to sing one of them! Any clues about getting songs published?

Tunes for words

2007-10-07T02:47:00.000-07:00

I've tried, and failed, to find out what the copyright situation is vis a vis recording words (as poetry) over material written by others but played by my own band. As no one has been able to come up with the answers (and I guess that means that to find out I'd have to pay a lawyer a lot of money) I've started writing my own tunes. This is hard as I really am not a musician and right now can't persuade my own musicians to play my tunes. (They only want to play music by 'real' musicians.) Still, I have been fortunate enough to have one of my melodies played, and improvised on by the Bob Stuckey trio at the Vortex open mic session. Great to hear it played properly (instead of just by band in the box!) Many thanks to Bob Stuckey, Jerome Davies and Cheryl Allyne. (I think I got that right.)

Angela

Caught in the Vortex

2007-10-02T02:39:00.000-07:00

Went along to the Vortex Open Mic night on Sunday 30th September. Hosted by Romy Summers and featuring the Bob Stuckey Trio, it's a really great night, friendly atmosphere, and not at all daunting. I've been to a few of these, but not for some time now, so this was the first in a while. What did I do? Well not a standard that's for sure. I wrote a very simple 8 bar blues, called Summer Heat, and a poem to go with it, which I ended up singing, because when you gotta sing, you gotta sing. Then, at the end of the evening Bob and the band agreed to play an instrumental piece I'd written called Luz do Sol. No words for that one yet, but it was great to hear it played.

Posting the words for Summer Heat....

Summer Heat

The summer heat rises from the tarmac,
warm air quivers 'lucinogenic shapes
The cars pass by, the heat is almost too much to bear
a boulevard by any other name.

Even in the traffic there is peace here
Sun rises high, leaves rustle in the breeze,
But in this room he sits with gun upon his lap
The woman a burden, that’s her shame

She spilled the coffee, See the stain is drying
But you know he has had some time to think
He’s drawing on the cigarette right to the end.
She’s spilled that coffee just the same.

He lifts the gun, the trigger’s pulled
The room grows small
Light stripes the walls in vermilion trails
Outside a rustle of summer leaves in the faint breeze
That taught her not to play that game.

There’s Papillion lavender all in the window box
She planted it before the summer’d come
Her blood it dries just like the coffee before it
The bullet a pill to ease the pain.

©2007 Angela J Elliott

Went well

2007-09-28T04:12:00.000-07:00

Well the performance evening went very well. I did two jazz words numbers - Dolphin Dance and Take Five. Take Five of course has words written for it by Dave and Iola Brubeck and has been sung most notably by Al Jarreau.

Vortex open mic night is 30th September.

Word for Word Performance Evening

2007-09-07T00:45:00.000-07:00

The quarterly Word for Word performance evening happens on Wednesday 19th September at the Crouch End Library. Jazz from the boys in the band, poetry and prose readings, open mic, nibbles and booze and all for free!

come on down

Happy Ange

2007-08-30T01:08:00.000-07:00

saxophone

2007-08-24T01:52:00.000-07:00

Does the Saxophone player know
how it is to meander along
and around a lazy tune?
Or is it that they blow
a cacophony of notes
that tumble angrily,
sometimes in competition
with the solidity of bass,
the essence of rhythm,
the steady chords?
What of the twisted melody
these solo players torture
from instruments
born of fire and spit?

©2007 Angela J Elliott

Driftin’ Along

2007-06-30T01:08:00.000-07:00

to Herbie Hancock’s Driftin’ – written key

Melancholy
Miscellany
Meaningful
Simplicity
Blue vignette
Driftin’ along

Sun shimmering
Rays cascade
Waves collide
As the surf pounds hard
The shoreline’s reach
Dread wreathes the sand
Gold beach
Storm rising
Fills the sky with thunder
Black threads raining down

The clouds ballooning
Threat close and dark
What the sun chooses
Take the night with you
Driftin’ along

Rain, the rain
Pounds the foreshore
Lightning blinds us now
And the sun
The warming sun
Will soon be with us gold.

©2007 Angela J. Elliott

Questions

2007-06-30T01:05:00.000-07:00

Questions for the jazzman in the corner
Blowing his saxophone
Catching the world in the backbeat
Lounge lizard suit on
Glory days are come again
Crusader for happiness
No politics or hatred
Tired feet, no angry music
Cat in the fridge
No hostility in this
Blowing through the map
Exotica of notes
Funk through the night
Mist in the morning
Draggin’ himself home
Restless feet, he ain’t alone
Sundown and the bar beckons
Smoke wreathes the floor
Virtual escapade
Blue saloon and the meter’s running
Can’t get no trade
Running ragged blow below

©2007 Angela J. Elliott

dance to dance

2007-06-02T01:13:00.000-07:00

To Recado Bossa Nova preferably in Bb (Gm)

She’s found her home from home
Samba sun and tango moon
Mamba days and bossa nights
Limbs a flail, wild with delight
Flamenco moves that castanet
Wandering groove
When the light is low
The dance is slow

She’s found her home from home
The dance is all about the flow
Hair spun gold in tumbling time
That tempo’s thread
As the drinker’s down their last
The nighthawk barman eyes the clock
But you know that she is living dance to dance

As the crowd unravels soft in the early morning light
The jazz band fades the music, slows the beat
Ends the delight

With bleeding feet she dances on
The lingering waiter watching from the door
The truth is that she doesn’t know the dance is done
The gift is that she is living dance to dance.

©2007 Angela J Elliott

so what if miles davis never wrote lyrics?

2007-05-28T12:36:00.000-07:00

(bass intro, then bass plays melody line, with words over, with all instruments playing the ‘so what’ instead of the words)

Come and listen to the show, so what
Come and listen to the show now, so what
We’ve got everybody here, so what
All life represented, so what
There’s the great, the good, the bad, so what
No one missing here you know that, so what
And we’ll play those tunes for you, so what
The ones you have remembered, so what
We’ll do it so you might love jazz, so what
We’ll do it just to entertain you, so what
And though you might decide to laugh, so what
What the hell if you do now, so what
So it’s coming to the time, so what
When we offer up our spirit, so what
To the night, the deep dark night, so what
Here we go then, let’s play it

(walking bass, with other instruments comping,
words follow the Miles Davis trumpet solo)

Well my friends, Davis wrote this tune now
Though you may not get the meaning
I’ll fill you in so that you can say that,
you have learned something ‘bout so what as a tune now
When Davis wrote the melody he was the greatest
Playing it pure, breathin’ the rhythm,
drinkin’ it, feelin’ it down deep now,
and we all sat and listened to the sound he produced
cos he really swung now
He really swung yeah
Bebop was a force to reckon with
Bebop was on the lips of everyone - Bebop
He knew the time had come
to create something invincible
Something really way out
And he took it, blended it and bent it
so it changed the way we…
thought about the way that we played our jazz now
Just giving it new strength, new meaning
And some said so what,
So what if Miles plays like a god
So what
But still we loved it
when he sang through the notes he played for us.

(instrumental solos – then back to head)

There we’ve come to the end, so what
The end you know of the beginning, so what
We’ve got everybody here, so what
All life represented, so what
There’s the great, the good, the bad, so what
No one missing here you know that, so what
And we’ll play those tunes for you, so what
The ones you have remembered, so what
We’ll do it so you might love jazz, so what
We’ll do it just to entertain you, so what
And though you might decide to laugh, so what
What the hell if you do now, so what
So it’s coming to the time, so what
When we offer up our spirit, so what
To the night, the deep dark night, so what
Here we go then, let’s play it

©2007 Angela J Elliott

the day lee morgan died - to sidewinder

2007-05-18T00:30:00.000-07:00

Happy with Helen
making money on the grand concourse
falling for the sweet young thing
and the cocaine is melting
loosin' his groovin'
so he totals the car
walking away from death
though the snow has turned to ice
or something like that
and she's got the gun
not the bitch, but Helen
slugs on third street avenue c
dying from loss of blood
and he says
get away from me you dirty bitch
talkin' to the man
it's Helen's ritual
the way it was
the day Lee Morgan died

©2007 Angela J Elliott

get this - impressions

2007-05-14T12:59:00.000-07:00

Get this, they say
Poetry and jazz gain new dimensions in association.
The troubadours
Telling their tales
Of courtly love,
The language of persuasion.
Jivy music and the great wise poet
Content to applaud those ancient expressions
Mankind’s need to tell stories
Pouring new life into the swing
That melodic, harmonic, rhythmical thing.

No scat attack but a bass duet
Music woven, phrased
And ear-to-mind connection
Each note improvisation

Shining solo warriors
Messengers in blue
No money for medicine
And the dangerous jazzman
Junky, funky, punky and cute
Versatile and quick
Fingers like knives
Stabbing the jive
In the silence between notes
Hero worshipping
Coltrane at his best
And the music flows.
No musical dogfight,
Immortalised
We are going to be richer.
This is as it should be
Nothing outrageous
But the talking blues.
A relationship
In freedom
Flesh and blood connection
More than song
More than the groove
Deeper than that
I see
In the dim light of a cold water walk up
Jazz and poetry are meant to be

remember me to the weary blues

2007-05-14T08:57:00.000-07:00

Remember me to the weary blues
The breathing room and the wooden radio
Remember me to the weary blues
The straightness of the road
and the pink of the sky
Where the fading sun falls to the sea

The trees are bare and the car lurches on
A pale moon, we’re drivin’ and talkin’
The trees are bare and the car lurches on
Spring’s first flush along the verge
Arriving in darkness,
electric blue dinner,
a fragile neon

Inside jazz band tunes jagged,
the smell of coffee
Warm soap and cigarettes.
Jazz band tunes play on,
a sticky floor and the tiredness of travel lingers,
come evenin’ we’re driftin’,
I’m floatin’, it’s seemin’

Every time I close my eyes
that New York minute flies just flies
And in the space for silence the car is warm;
Leather seats like God’s cupped hands
The smell petrol and dust,
and we can drive all night

The pulse beat of the people
keeps right on going
The pulse bet of the people
keeps right on going
All this love in my soul,
a life painting pictures in blue

Remember me to the weary blues
The breathing room and the wooden radio
Night growing cold, moon waning thin
And I’ve got nothing to do but sleep
Remember me to the weary blues
The weary blues and Langston Hughes

©2007 Angela J Elliott

first day on the blog

2007-05-14T08:52:00.000-07:00

I've blogged before. Usually what happens is that I start to blog, get some way into the process and decide the whole thing is an awesome waste of time. Then I delete the whole kit and caboodle and live a blogless life once more - until the next time.

Blogs in the past have included a search for skippy peanut butter and something about living in a lighthouse. Nothing useful.

This blog is going to be more... how shall I say? More about what I write and why. Oh, and how... maybe.

Here goes...