WordPlay Wednesday~ The Object of a Jazz Mind on Improv by Jannat Marie (a.k.a. JazZenista) feat. M. Dizzy Gillespie – “A Night in Tunisia”

“Jazz Improvisation means that practice is not as straightforward as it would be when you simply have a score to play.” ~ Ahmad Jamal

Jazz Trumpet ~Mixed Media collage by Mirel E. Ologeanu

It’s over the hump day and it is time to play. I believe that Jazz and poetry have the same sort of magic when it comes to reaching our emotions. I wrote this pastiche of Jack Kerouac’s poem How to Meditate. It struck me differently when I first read it, I would definitely consider it as a Call to my soul and my Response is a Mindfulness Improvisation. I feel as though this is a way to face our truths without shutting down. Showing us how leaning into our experience, no matter what the consequence. Not knowing where it will take us or even through it is a matter of time as well as timelessness. Turning away only buries the experience allowing our willingness to become vulnerable and frozen. It is enabling us to experience both mystery and grace in the same moment!. When my skin begins to tingle, it is a must take that risk unabashedly — just to do it. When my gut twists and churns it means – pause and marinate in the strife. Improvisation like life is a moment to moment give it all you got, say it write it play it, live it like this is your only chance to freeze time into a memory. So as we sit quietly reading the words open yourself to the life coming straight at you. Try to focus on ~Inhaling slowly and steadily counting and inviting the lessons of awakening,,, being changed, and landing into your heart. ~Exhaling slowly, and counting and releasing negative thoughts, emotions and feel yourself revealing the mystery now. ~ Relaxing allowing and freeing your heart to be in Your side of the moment.

The Object of a Jazz Mind on Improv

Jannat Marie (a.k.a. JazZenista)

Your skin glows like passion fruit blossoms

unhearalded as the freesia in

the purest hope of spring.
My yearning heart rises to your jazz

voice and leaps like a lion at the whisper of your hallowed name.
The evening ascends in on a great dove’s salacious wing.
I am soothed by your shawl that I carry

into the twilight of lifebeams and hold next to my heart.
I am filled with hope that I may dry your tears of adversity.
As my brain falls from my beret,

it reminds me of your gift of improvisation.
In the hushed, I listen for the last soul of the spring.
I wait in the crystal moonlight for your secret improvisation

so that we may imagine as one, body to soul, in search of the glorious sepia and spiritual mystery

of our side of the moment in love.

II.

Sunset ~

fly into the moment

nirvana blankets the pain that resides in the soul of the chorus.

Nerve inside my refrain releasing

the elixir of joy.

Stumbling into the space between the notes

upward progressions to a heavenly phrase.

Capturing serenity and timbre’s

cadence of restlessness dissolving every measure

of sorrowful and tragic riffs.

Gone except the memory of a beloved chorus

a hint of a quarter beat

a dream dances to wingless notes un-sounding

acoustically muted by the maestro upward swing

on down beat imitating a whole life note

cast into the shadows of time

the melody makes a last refrain…

Aha! Striking the chord of disharmony

strangled by another discordant tone ~it remains

released into my solo expressing,

filling a space I will

never hear our moment together ever

~again…

As a treat let’s have a look at Jazz Life to see inside an improv moment…Peace & Love Out! JBC 😎 & ❤

Uploaded on Dec 18, 2011

A musical tribute to jazz — its vibrancy, hybridity, open aesthetic, political progressiveness, and communal spirit. With photos and footage of some of the greats, spanning a century.

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