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A Case in Jazz
The influential muzak sneaking up on my spine'
It slithers in through the ears and slides past my brain to bite on the nerve and little pulses start searing through in waves with tingles from the innermost to the outer-flesh.
A horn doodling ' little noodles of black spaghetti noise, dancing around a snare and hinted hi-hat jingles all free and hyperactive. Now I know what Jack was talking about and there's no way I'll rewrite this fucking thing.
The way the pen moves is like the horn, it doesn't quit except for a brief pause every now and then to ponder a quick riff - the next order of a new flow, and then its just drums all fast and twisting in little misshapen thumps before the horn starts again ' a saxophone ' it talks and tells funny jokes and routines and waits for your response. Really waits with no filler ' no keyboard, no horn, no drums ' just you and your unworthy ears:
'Go drive around in the city, you piece of shit, and get your pen off this paper! Listen to me on the road like you're supposed to with lights of all neon phosphorescent colors moving in on you and then passing on either side, big yellow and green streaks across the windshield!'
That's what the music says to me.
'Hear me on the road, in the dark, under the twinkling stars of heaven's nightclub glory! Suck down your cigarette and flick the butt out the window, keeping your eye on the rearview mirror to witness the little orange-red explosion on the black road behind you!'
And I close my eyes and see it all with tiny bubbles that play with the melodies. 'Dance with us Johnny-Boy! Show us your feet!' And I would if I was a better dancer but these left feet don't hear as good as my ears and that's why I'm dancing with this pen and later with a typewriter so I can read it to you someday ' or maybe I'll just keep it to myself ' either way I'll be seeing it again.
But back to the fucking music ' Rashied Ali ' poet of freestyle harmony, neon-bop improvisation with a touch of liquor and some gentle grass, calling to my ears: lucid, unflinching hesitation that doesn't know what'll happen but knows that it'll be great. Fucking genius like the fist monumental pluck of some improvised stringed instrument or the first heavy breath into the conch shell or whatever the first horn was.
'Do you hear me? Do you hear me? I said, dammit man, do you hear me?' ' 'Yes, man, I'm writing you all down, now get going. This is what I've waited for! Sing to me!'
And the music seduces my writing hand into little English scratches and follies. We get on the floor and its all play and write, play and write, which is how I got here in the first place. One big mass of man and melody ' ink and chaos and even relaxation' and now there's a piano and I don't know who invited him but I'm glad he's here and I recall 'A Case in Light Sources' and think about the truth in it and want to see a more vivid representation, no joke, to see how it looks on canvas or all digitized and mesmerized like my mind in this epiphanic moment of total thoughtly grandeur where I melt and spill myself onto the paper and all that's left is the tune and my last dying thoughts about what I'll wri--'
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| Word.Thank God for Kerouac. love it.Myk Malice. |
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| i really like the way you select words. 'follies' being my favorite. |
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| I agree with Chazmatthews, there's a vintage Kerouac thing going on here. Nice. I find it interesting that you list it under poetry, when to me it reads more like fiction -- but I guess that's the whole Beat grayness -- the merging of genres. |
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| Hey! I really LOVED this piece. I'm very interested in anything written about music, and this was very well done. I especially liked all of the bits of personification and the wonderful imagery that you used. Congrats on a wonderful piece! |
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Comment by: Juan2 Online- 2007-05-20 22:44
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| What a trip, a lyrical explosion, the words jump right off the page and into the ears, feels like it skips the part where the eyes do any work at all, but of course they're there the whole time, nodding along with the rest of the mind. Pure flow, man. This is great. I love how the voice just commands to be heard, confident without arrogance, just assuredness in its rhythm. Solid write. |
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