New York Tales>Act Three-It's The Music, Man!

those were his words to me exactly, as new yorker ornette coleman, post-bop generation saxman, told me me a few years ago when i met him after a performance , at symphony center in chicago backstage. i can't for the life of me, remember what i asked him, but that's exactly what he said, "it's the music, man!" and with that, i begin, act three.

when i first arrived in new york during that second week of october, 1983, i was mesmerized by all the music around me, not just the record shops blaring their wares throughout the aisles, but was located in the sub-terrearan below, the very burroughs or subways, as they are commonly called. here in chicago, we call it the el, but from what i have seen elsewhere, they call it the subway.

as i remember waiting for a train to take me around the city, i saw all of these street musicians, subway rather, playing out their hearts & souls to the people passing them by or like me waiting. but i took interest in them, just watching & listening to them, as i could have listened to them all day, an all-day ear sucker, if you know what i mean.

but it wasn't any old musician that caught my ear, rather it was a man calling himself sailorman jack dressed up in a sailor suit, singing sea shanties. that caught my attention. i stood there on the platform, frozen in my spot in a trance, my ears at full attention, eyes aglow, listening to this man.

it was my first formal introduction to folk music, i mean, back then, all i ever listened to the was the beatles, which isn't so bad, but i digress. it would one year later (1984), when i attended western illinois university in macomb, illinois, that i would discover woody guthrie & bob dylan soon after. yes i admit it, i was a late bloomer & i am proud of that fact. anyway, i must have stood there on the platform for what seemed like hours & eventually bought one of his cassettes, which to this day, i still have, everloving his stories that he told on tape.

i often wondered about sailorman jack over the years, having only experienced him once & when the second time i was in new york city for a few hours, that was in the late summer, 1989. i wondered if he was still around cranking his music out or worse still, dead.

the kind of things one remembers on first impressions, which for me was a damn good & long & lingering memory. i still sing his songs, still remember his playing & what he did for me back then, as a young aspiring poet & *musician (*that was still off in the distance by a few years), i won't forget. it's a sweet, sweet memory.

most recently, while preparing for this trip, i did some internet research to see if i could find him and...lo & behold! he is still around, making music, 21 years after i first saw him in october of 1983. that makes me happy. very happy indeed.

thank you so much, sailorman jack, for making my ears a better instrument to listen with. god bless you!