New York Tales>Act Five-Late Into The Jazz Night

tomorrow afternoon, april 15th, i leave for new york city, my time in 17 years, my first time for the 21st century, i am thrilled, very very much so to return to the city that never sleeps, i'm sure its occupants do, but anyway. i am going there for good reason this time, that is to perform as part of a celebration release for issue 3 of the journal si senor.

they published one of my personal favorite prose-poems that i had written nearly five years ago entitled, late into the jazz night, whom i wrote it for, my first vocals teacher, jackie allen. i had written it in journalistic/journal-like style or what i call my orson welles period writing, based on an actual performance i took my younger brother benjy to, sunday, july 20, 2001.

as with my writing that i loved at that point, so came the love i had for this teacher. she taught me so much, everything from snapping my fingers to a beat correctly to helping me compose songs, well she did the music composing, i wrote the lyrics. she had a direct influence on how i began to look or approach song-writing, even though she knew darn well i wasn't a jazz singer!
she was more than just a teacher. she became a great friend to me and in times when i had bad days, she had ways of making me feeling better, like say a good word or two of kindness.

she saw something in me, both as a singer & a poet/lyricist, although we both knew my timing was never right, in terms of pitch & things, the other parts just sort of worked themselves out. i had jackie allen for three years & cried when i found out she was leaving, so i wanted to give her something back, which i did. i wrote a set of lyrics for her, called hips to swing, which i ended up doing at the second recital, which was her last.

the first recital was a total kick in the head, as i performed original compositions of mine, one called oh deer! (previously published in another early blog) & good morning my dear friend, which i had written about my friend, lew brickhate, who believes the fbi is after him, for what reasons, i'm still not sure! he also believes that nirvana stole a song from him when he played in a band, but that's another story for another time.

at that first recital, when i sauntered up to the stage & performed, you could hear a pin drop. it was like the audience was mesmerized by my performance, which they were. lots of friends of mine came out for that show, both co-workers & old friends. even my crazy landlady & her-then goofy boyfriend came out too! it was the biggest amount of friends i had sitting in an audience that had come to see me, because in the past i have been so used to performing in front of strangers, with no friends in the audience. but, as i've learned, that's a good way to work an audience, in that i mean, practice & invent new ways to recite & perform.

but enough of that for the moment. here now, for you to enjoy, are hips to swing & also, late into the jazz night. can't wait to write about my new york adventures when i get home!!!

Hips To Swing

When there are no more songs left to sing
Or babes with mothers with hips to swing
That’s when I know it’s time to go and do my own thing

The seeds in the ground grow at a steady pace
All the world loves a smiling face
The birds and the bees know their own place
When it’s time to buzz and sing

The winter melts into the spring
The summer cools down to the fall
The seasons become one as they flow
Like droplets in a waterfall

Boy meets girl and falls in love
They swear true alliance to the stars up above
Romance blossoms like a beautiful flower
A dance and a ring solidifies the power

To one, to one, a new life has begun
Go forth and become all you can be
When you get sad and blue, you can always talk to me

When there are no more songs to sing
Or babes with mothers with hips to swing
That’s when you know it’s time to go out and mingle



Late Into The Jazz Night
(For Jackie Allen)

Late into the jazz night, flitting with high notes and battering the lower keys, the piano man nods to his bass man, who is plucking the strings gingerly and frail.
Opening set flies off without a hitch. Ten minutes, no fifteen into the set, tall thin blonde with hair pulled back, black necklace, pressed aqua velvet chiffon dress, red-lipped smile, pale neck with jet set vocalese, blaring like miles’ trumpet cutting across 1,000 seaweed fields of ocean blue and coral green, where turtles hide in shells and play chess like old hunkered down men in city parks beneath tall shade trees and painted fire hydrants and rollerblading couples and lone bicyclists speeding against the breeze.
She is poised with microphone in right hand, floating rhythms like butterflies floating in spring gardens.
Yes, singer of throwback days of costumed ballrooms, dressy dolls, gallant gentlemen, all dressed up, arm in arm, clinking glasses, rattling silverware on plates, slicing into steaks and chops, smoking cheap smelly cigars, while laughing and talking loudly over the singer.
Some say the coffeehouse music era is back. Female vocal window dressing.
Mad students in background, giggling and glaze-eyed into conversations of high poetic intellectualism.
My, oh my, how those times don’t change, like brand new tires on a spanking blue ’99 Chrysler Neon.
Mad jazz geniuses are coming back in droves, kids mostly, bouncing, wailing and hoofling across the Americas like newly drafted soldiers sent over to Iraq.
It is not always going to be this way; it is a trend the experts decree. It will never happen the way it flew off the conveyor belts 60 years ago. It is all about money. The hip-to-cool Kurt Elling stance, with youngsters smoking jazz cigarettes and knocking down kiddy cocktails and talking about Dizz and Bird and Monk and Satch, the four real faces that were left off of Mt. Rushmore and ages and ages behind, and also the hereafter.
Where do we go from here? There is here and here is everywhere in the jazz juke joints of Fats Waller’s fiery red pits of eternity.
Hell is the only place to be, man. Hell is where it is at. The C moons, the pleasure trips, the cruiser missiles embraced for daily target practice of new and yet, unrecognizable faces, the end of the end as we know it.
The explosive birth of sound and fiery new faces of jazz, queer twists and wild jump movements for the love of man and mankind, mistakes melded into lightening bolts of half notes and quarter notes, slicking and slapping off the pages of staff sheets and into the joyous journey of the patch-cloud, checkered unknown.