Jazz on Canvas ~ Poet’s Beat ~ Notes on the Art of Memory by Diane di Palma accompanied by Monk’s Dream Take 8

Kadinsky and the Spiritual in Art
Kadinsky and the Spiritual in Art

Jazz Mimesis is an imitation of Aristotle’sPoetics” exploring a critical and philosophical premise covering a wide range of meanings as relates to Poet’s Beat category of this blog.   I imagine that when Diane wrote this poem she was grooving to this melody.  Peace Out!  JBC 😎

“The only war that matters is the war against the imagination / All other wars are subsumed in its’ and of whom her contemporary….” Beat poet Michael McClure, commented, “There is no other poet like Diane di Prima.” 

For the past twenty years she has lived and worked in northern California, where she took part in the political activities of the Diggers, lived in a late-sixties’ commune, studied Zen Buddhism, Sanskrit and alchemy, and raised her five children. From 1980 to 1986 she taught hermetic and esoteric traditions in poetry, in a short-lived but significant program at New College of California. Her work has been translated into over twenty languages.

 Notes on the Art of Memory

by Diane di Palma

for Thelonious Monk

The Stars are a memory system

for thru them

                                    we remember our origin

Our home is behind the sun

or a divine wind

                                               that fills us

makes us think so.

 

 

Copyright © 2011-2014 by Jannat Marie/Jazzybeatchick. All rights Reserved.

This material has been copyrighted,  feel free to share it with others; it can be distributed via social media or pingbacks or added to websites; please do not change the original content and, provide appropriate credit by including the author’s name @ http://jazzybeatchick.com and your readers shall not be charged by you under any circumstance.

 

Japanese translation for meaning

Jazz in Your Ear

Listening to the Universe within
Listening to the Universe within

 

 

“Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine.” – Shunryu Suzuki

 

 

 

 

A riff shot of mindfulness improv moment ~  meditations  of words with kool jazz 2 kick ur life into gear!  Peace Out!  JBC 😎

Overflowing Cup of Tea

The Zen Master poured his visitor’s teacup full, and then kept pouring.
The visitor watched until he could no longer restrain himself.
“It is overfull. No more will go in!”
“Like this cup,” the Zen Master said,
“you are full of your own opinions and assumptions.
How can you learn truth until you first empty your cup?”

Japanese translation for meaning

Copyright 2011-2014  by Jannat Marie/Jazzybeatchick. All rights Reserved.

This material has been copyrighted, feel free to share it with others; it can be distributed via social media or pingbacks or added to websites; please do not change the original content and please provide appropriate credit by including the author’s name or visual artist @ http://jazzybeatchick.com your readers shall not be charged by you under any circumstance.

Do You Know the Way to Monterey? Tribute to the 2014 Monterey Jazz Festival

2014 MJF Poster

Gear Up!  Get your bags packed, book your weekend and flight to Monterey for the upcoming 57th Annual Monterey Jazz Festival on Friday September 19th.  Don’t forget your shades, your cool swagger and most of all your insatiable acoustic and visual appetite for Jazz at its finest.  This is especially something that I look forward to every year since 1965 inspiring me to write a book filled with acoustic and visual recreations of the festival that became the template for A Year of Musical Thinking.

The 2015 MJF  is an acoustic and visual meditative journey traversing the extraordinary and intriguing   lives and careers of the  1965 Men from Monterey jazz legends – Gil Fuller, Dizzy Gillespie and James Moody.   It will be a contemporary and archival film, along with commentary from the jazz and pop sounds; visual contemporary  and literary arts worlds, to create and explore through mindfulness improvisation gaining a better understand these enigmatic men and their spiritual expression and pursuit through jazz. Gil Fuller was top arranger and band leader for the 1965 Monterey Jazz Festival Orchestra featuring Dizzy Gillespie and James Moody who were celebrating their twenty year reunion.  Fuller was credited with enhancing the careers of Dizzy Gillespie and James Moody providing the catalyst for their mindfulness improvisational genius that liberated their uniqueness and expression so they could discover themselves.  An interview with Vincent Pelote a renown jazz historian provided a glimpse of Gil Fuller using own Impressive, moving, stirring, and touching words and music rendering a prosaic and poetic thread that becomes a wonderful tapestry of  his life and the gifts he gave to me to through acoustic and visual snapshots of the unique aspects of our life together.  Here is a sample and one that I play in my car with the top down and cruising the Peninsula:  Enjoy!  Peace Out!  JBC 😎

Here is a special treat check out this trailer… Directed by Jeffrey Morse andDorothy Darr, the latter who is Charles Lloyd‘s painter/filmmaker wife, the documentary Charles Lloyd: Arrows Into Infinity chronicles the influential saxophonist and composer’s life and career range.

Charles Lloyd was one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 1960s. His music crossed traditional boundaries and explored new territories. Born in Memphis, he grew up steeped in the blues but with an ear for modernity. At the age of 26, he was a bandleader with two successful records on Columbia Records, including Forest Flower, recorded live at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1966. His group, the Charles Lloyd Quartet, consisted of an undiscovered Keith Jarrett, Jack DeJohnette and Cecil McBee.

Copyright 2011-2014  by Jannat Marie/Jazzybeatchick. All rights Reserved.

This material has been copyrighted, feel free to share it with others; it can be distributed via social media or pingbacks or added to websites; please do not change the original content and please provide appropriate credit by including the author’s name or visual artisthttp://jazzybeatchick.com your readers shall not be charged by you under any circumstance.

 

Jazz on Canvas ~ In Camera: Human v. Technology Are We Loosing Creativity, Our Sense of Purpose, God Given Gifts of Love, Compassion to Risk It All and Relinquishing it to A New Aesthetic?

B/W broken-people-depressed-Favim.com-578906 (1)
B/W broken-people-depressed-Favim.com-578906 (1)

 

“In a sense, technology is already a fundamental part of our humanity and because of it we are transitioning from a verbal culture into a one where spoken language is essentially dead. Sharing our thoughts through pictures, like buttons, and online profiles have become our primary form of communication alongside artistic expression. When the two are combined, we are left with a bizarre yet relatable aesthetic. Social networking websites function as an ideal medium for the infectious phenomena of digitized art.”  ~ Elizabeth Heitner’s blog.

You see I have a serious concern and strongly disagree with this.  It is not progress it is de-humanizing us causing us to be automatons.  Albeit it is great to have a computer over a typewriter because it is a tool and not a replacement.  I don’t know about you, but, the new toll free information number is absolutely maddening.  You call and ask an electronic voice for the name of a business or person and the computer spits back something totally ridiculous and you going around and round till you don’t get the listing and the call is terminated.  In the late fifties and early sixties I learned the power of reading and words from my mother and the power of sound and music from my father.  Together it was a nurturing environment that was both physiological and neurological in terms of discovering the five senses of touch, taste, hearing, seeing and most of all feeling.  I can simply close my eyes and recreate and transform an experience into a fully engaged in the moment experience.  Mindfulness improvisation is dependent upon that.  Moreover, it is not predicated or reliant upon power, WiFi signals or technology.

American culture can sometimes be fickle especially when it comes to trends and the hottest new technological advances with smart phones and home alarm systems that can be remotely activated.  The New Aesthetic is allegedly considered an artistic movement. It must be described as physical versus virtual, or humans versus machines.  Technology can only exist when created by humans.  With that comes the inherent disability limited to the individual’s capability who designs it. Its major visual emblems include “pixilated images”, “Photoshop glitches” and animated GIFs.   Where would all of this be if the illustrators and artist genus of Walt Disney.  Data visualization,  i.e., Venn diagram are considered a part of the New Aesthetic in addition to Google Maps and “screen grabs”.  Another popular trend is the Selfie where photos of people taking photos in awkward moments.  Hands down, I prefer photographs by photographers who have a passion to snap pix of nature, oceans, people and life.  It is through their lens that we develop pictures to make us laugh or cry or conjure up memories of times gone by.

Stepping_stones
Stepping_stones

The New Aesthetic is superficial and shallow but most of all is limited to the creators abilities to use and master the technology. When video games came out like Dungeons and Dragons it hit the youth market and became an all encompassing phenomenon that led to a disconnect to human existence.  The virtual world become a reality and that reality was marred by violence and an inability to communicate.  It was so much fun going to the movies or seeing a play on Broadway or going to an outdoor festival and concert.  It draws like minded people together.  Improvisation will no longer exist.  Imagination will no longer exist.  Mindfulness will become vacuous and is the very threat to our culture and life on earth.

The New Aesthetic is robbing and replacing our reason and purpose to honor our differences and to communicate feelings and ideas through language, contemporary visual arts and music.  What happens to the artists writers, musicians when it comes to the very thing that makes us love, care, share, hope and imagine an inner glimpse of our souls.  It is not limited by anything and somehow you cannot replace experience ~ good or bad, personal growth and transformation and finding our way in this big vast universe because God created us to be the way we are and unraveling the mysteries of life whether there is power or not.  I’ll take books, plays, concerts and life in its purest and simplest form not relying on anything else but each other.  Peace Out!   JBC 😎

Japanese translation for meaning

 

Copyright 2011-2014  by Jannat Marie/Jazzybeatchick. All rights Reserved.

This material has been copyrighted, feel free to share it with others; it can be distributed via social media or pingbacks or added to websites; please do not change the original content and please provide appropriate credit by including the author’s name or visual artisthttp://jazzybeatchick.com your readers shall not be charged by you under any circumstance.

 

Conversations on a Jazz Canvas ~ The Best Laid Plans …Are “No” Plans featuring Sun Ra’s – Exactly Like You

Concept Photo of Piping and Instrument Diagram, Human Eye, World
Concept Photo of Piping and Instrument Diagram, Human Eye, World

We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”  Joseph Campbell

 

I woke up this morning to gray skies with the air punctuated with a gentle rain. Fall seems to be just around the corner. Resistance has brought me to realize that sometimes I can be my own worst enemy which spirals into full blown sleep walking.  I am disconnected from the present.  Fear that my secret will come to light.  I cannot  identify the exact moment that my life fell apart. Holidays sometimes brings on these feelings of resistance – pain, being abandoned, feelings of not measuring up.  Old tapes begin to play tricks with my mind I hear “You can’t write,  you will never finish your plans to write a memoir, blah blah blah.”  I just wanted the pain of the “brokenness” to stop. I knew I could make a better choice, but it was the last thing I thought I could do. The other choice was to give myself permission to feel the pain, fear, and devastation of my world.  So I stop, focus on my breath and reconnect with my heart and soul.  Everything that happens externally is a reflection of what goes on internally. Mindfulness improv gives us the power to change our perspective.  If you  start by focusing on one belief it will transform it and the healing will be reflected outwardly. It’s this realization that prompted me to start mindfulness improvisation with jazz as the template, the catalyst of the mindfulness and sound creates the space where we can all learn to heal, and not just exist or We all have the amazing potential to create purpose, passion, and joy in life, but first we need to believe and graciously accept the fact that we truly deserve it.

I feel so alive and energized. But I kept hearing my dad’s voice about my change in attitude. So I stopped and allowed the fear to run its course, you’re not good enough, you’ll never get it, it said. Change is life’s mainstay. Perfection, fear and change cannot take center stage at the same time. So, this past week I opted for change. Life has become way more fun, open and I accept the imperfections because they are part of the process. The discomfort that creeps into the space of doubt about sailing into uncharted waters, serves as a gentle reminder and allows me to be more creative.

Letting go of how things were, no matter how fractured things may seem, is not an easy task. It takes a ginormous amount of energy and courage to let go because it is an inside job. It instills grace. Grace to forgive myself and others, to let go of ideas of who I think I am or should be and how I think things and others should be. This allows me to surrender, replacing my old negative thoughts with hope. Change happens whether I choose to be a part or not. Fear is human. Most of us feel at one point or another something that makes us afraid. When I change my thoughts from Why is this happening to me to I have dealt with circumstances like this before and reflect and remember them, the fear stops dead in its tracks.  Developing the courage to walk along side your fears and transforming the steps (words) in a direction of what you want, the possibly be fearful and being positive cannot exist at the same time.  You cannot be afraid and have faith that things will get better.  You begin to walk your positive self talk and there is a shift in not only your mood but a shift in your perspective.  Change any overly independent thoughts such as “I’ll handle this alone” to “I have many sources of help, if I simply ask.” Shift any terrorizing thoughts such as “This is THE worst thing that could happen to me” to “I’ve handled other challenges in my life, and I’m sure I’ll survive this one.”  My new mantra has become, “Let go and Let God!” Peace out!  JBC 😎

Japanese translation for meaning

Copyright © 2011 – 2014 by Jazzybeatchick/Jannat Marie. All rights reserved.

This material is has been copyrighted,  feel free to share it with others; it can be distributed via social media or pingbacks and added to websites; please do not change the content, provide credit by including the author’s name @ http://jazzybeatchick.com and your readers shall not be charged by you under any circumstance.

 

 

Poet’s Beat to Jazz Bytes ~ “A Something in a Summer’s Day” by Emily Dickinson ~Julia Child’s Tian de Courgettes au Riz Courtesy of Genius Recipes • August 14, 2012 • featuring Kyle Eastwood – “Summer Gone”

For the moment, the jazz is playing; there is no melody, just notes, a myriad of tiny tremors. The notes know no rest, an inflexible order gives birth to them then destroys them, without ever leaving them the chance to recuperate and exist for themselves. . . I would like to hold them back, but I know that, if I succeeded in stopping one, there would only remain in my hand a corrupt and languishing sound. I must accept their death; I must even want that death: I know of few more bitter or intense impressions. ~ Jean-Paul Sartre

 

 Hope you all are kickin’ the Labor Day weekend off in true style and sophistication. I am paying a tribute to all that are celebrating their labors of love.  I thought I would start of with a lovely poem by Emily to the sultry sounds of Kyle’s Summer Gone and finishing up with Julia’s Zucchini Tian.  Best Wishes…Peace Out!  JBC 😎

A Something in a Summer’s Day

by Emily Dickinson

A something in a summer’s Day
As slow her flambeaux burn away
Which solemnizes me.
A something in a summer’s noon—
A depth—an Azure—a perfume—
Transcending ecstasy.

And still within a summer’s night
A something so transporting bright
I clap my hands to see—

Then veil my too inspecting face
Lets such a subtle—shimmering grace
Flutter too far for me—

The wizard fingers never rest—
The purple brook within the breast
Still chafes it narrow bed—

Still rears the East her amber Flag—
Guides still the sun along the Crag
His Caravan of Red—

So looking on—the night—the morn
Conclude the wonder gay—
And I meet, coming thro’ the dews
Another summer’s Day!

Julia Child‘s Tian de Courgettes au Riz

Courtesy of Genius Recipes • August 14, 2012

 

Julia Child's Tian de Courgettes au Riz  Courtesy of Genius Recipes • August 14, 2012
Julia Child’s Tian de Courgettes au Riz Courtesy of Genius Recipes • August 14, 2012

Author Notes: Two-plus pounds of zucchini doesn’t look so demanding once you shred, salt, and squeeze it dry. It sheds its water weight, leaving a tamed pile and a lot of green, lightly salted liquid. You could simply warm the shreds through with onions and garlic or simmer in cream — or cook it into this smart zucchini and rice tian. From Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume Two (Alfred A. Knopf, 1970) (less) – Genius Recipes

Serves 6

 

Courgettes Rapées (Grated and Salted Zucchini)

  • 2 to 2 1/2pounds zucchini
  • 1/2cup plain, raw, untreated white rice
  • 1cup minced onions
  • 3 to 4tablespoons olive oil
  • 2large cloves garlic, mashed or finely minced
  • 2tablespoons flour
  • About 2 1/2cups warm liquid: zucchini juices plus milk, heated in a pan (watch this closely so that it doesn’t curdle)
  • About 2/3cups grated Parmesan cheese (save 2 tablespoons for later)
  • Salt and pepper
  • A heavily buttered 6- to 8-cup, flameproof baking and serving dish about 1 1/2 inches deep
  • 2tablespoons olive oil
  1. Shave the stem and the tip off each zucchini (or other summer squash), scrub the vegetable thoroughly but not harshly with a brush under cold running water to remove any clinging sand or dirt.
  2. If vegetables are large, halve or quarter them. If seeds are large and at all tough, and surrounding flesh is coarse rather than moist and crisp, which is more often the case with yellow squashes and striped green cocozelles than with zucchini, cut out and discard the cores.
  3. Rub the squash against the coarse side of a grater, and place grated flesh in a colander set over a bowl.
  4. For each 1 pound (2 cups) of grated squash, toss with 1 teaspoon of salt, mixing thoroughly. Let the squash drain 3 or 4 minutes, or until you are ready to proceed.
  5. Just before cooking, squeeze a handful dry and taste. If by any chance the squash is too salty, rinse in a large bowl of cold water, taste again; rinse and drain again if necessary. Then squeeze gently by handfuls, letting juices run back into bowl. Dry on paper towels. Zucchini will not be fluffy; it is still dampish, but the excess liquid is out. The pale-green, slightly saline juice drained and squeezed out of the zucchini has a certain faint flavor that can find its uses in vegetable soups, canned soups, or vegetable sauces.

Tian de Courgettes au Riz [Gratin of Zucchini, Rice, and Onions with Cheese]

  1. While the shredded zucchini is draining (reserve the juices,) drop the rice into boiling salted water, bring rapidly back to the boil, and boil exactly 5 minutes; drain and set aside.
  2. In a large (11-inch) frying pan, cook the onions slowly in the oil for 8 to 10 minutes until tender and translucent. Raise heat slightly and stir several minutes until very lightly browned.
  3. Stir in the grated and dried zucchini and garlic. Toss and turn for 5 to 6 minutes until the zucchini is almost tender.
  4. Sprinkle in the flour, stir over moderate heat for 2 minutes, and remove from heat.
  5. Gradually stir in the 2 1/2 cups warm liquid (zucchini juices plus milk, heated gently in a pan — don’t let it get so hot that the milk curdles!). Make sure the flour is well blended and smooth.
  6. Return over moderately high heat and bring to the simmer, stirring. Remove from the heat again, stir in the blanched rice and all but 2 tablespoons of the cheese. Taste very carefully for seasoning. Turn into buttered baking dish, strew remaining cheese on top, and dribble the olive oil over the cheese.
  7. About half an hour before serving, bring to simmer on top of stove (you can skip this step if your baking dish isn’t flameproof), then set in upper third of a preheated 425-degree F oven until tian is bubbling and top has browned nicely. The rice should absorb all the liquid.

 

Copyright 2011-2014  by Jannat Marie/Jazzybeatchick. All rights Reserved.

This material has been copyrighted, feel free to share it with others; it can be distributed via social media or pingbacks or added to websites; please do not change the original content and please provide appropriate credit by including the author’s name or visual artist @ http://jazzybeatchick.com your readers shall not be charged by you under any circumstance.

 

Jazz on Canvas ~ In Camera: Jazz and the New Aesthetic ~ Sounds by Rens Newland – “About aesthetics” ~ and Dizzy Gillespie’s “Things are Here”~ Photography by Roy Decarava ~ Prelude

In Memory and Rezpect ~ Roy DeCarava Flickr Sharing
In Memory and Rezpect ~ Roy DeCarava Flickr Sharing

“It starts before you snap the shutter… It starts with your sense of what’s important.” These are the words of Roy DeCarava, one of the foremost photographic artists of the twentieth century, contributor to the Family of Man exhibit and the first black photographer to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship. These are the words of a man who focuses his lens, sensitivities and conscience on the life, tempo and sensibilities of black people and the contemporary urban environment.

The first time I met Mr. DeCarava was when I was five years old. We lived on Riverside Drive and my father knew him as an up and coming photographer and he became our family photographer most of all a dear friend.  He took family pictures that I have lost over the years of moving around the country.  However, he had a distinct “eye” for the details of our daily life.

Flickr Share Roy Decarava 4th of July, Prospect Park, New York, 1979
Flickr Share Roy Decarava 4th of July, Prospect Park, New York, 1979

 

There was one photograph that effortlessly appears when listening to jazz guitarist Rens Newland’s “About aesthetics” is a sepia toned photograph of New York Ciy Riverside Park across from our loft taken in the late ‘50s on the Saturday just before  Labor Day.  Mr. DeCarava was capturing families and folks in the park.  We would always go out on the weekends either to the park, movies, museums, etc .  Mom was wearing a brown striped sun dress; I was wearing one of my Sunday best dresses that was white with red polka dots with white socks with black patent leather Mary Jane’s. My father was sitting on a bench, mom was looking down at both of us and I was holding a bottle of  Coca Cola that was three quarters my height at the tender age of five that dad had given to me.  He wanted to pour the soda into my mouth,  Mr. DeCarva was perched in a tree about five yards from us and he captured my snatching the Coca Cola bottle away from dad declaring “I do it, I do it” turning away from him and lifting the bottle straight up and didn’t miss a drop.  The shutter closed on each and every frame as though watching a slow motion film with a syncopated tempo.  Mr. DeCarava was so excited he ran over and said to us “that was crazy man!”  My mother and father laughed and I was looking at these old folks wondering what was so funny…  There was no such thing as a digital professional cameras back then.

 

Courtesy of Creative Commons Administrative Offices
Courtesy of Creative Commons Administrative Offices

In the early 60s technology was in its infancy stage.  Mom had cradled me and taught me how to read at three years old.  My father was very busy and had a grand piano in the loft that he would let me sit next to him and he would teach me how to sight sing and hearing while watching him play the keys.  Sometimes he even let me stand in front of him and he would move my hands and we would sing the notes.  It was the same way he taught me how to ball room dance atop his feet.  It was an enchanting time and when I actually remember falling in love with reading with mom or sitting on the piano bench learning jazz at the piano and sitting on the couch nestled between my rents looking at photographs.  My world was either black and white or sepia which felt as though it was a treasure of times gone past and something that made me feel safe and warm and most of all loved.  Today, when I reflect on those times the aesthetics were a part of liminal living.  It was commonplace to go the Metropolitan Museum of Art, to movie theaters, Broadway plays, a chic and marvelous urban living that held magic and secrets hidden in the streets.

Roy Decarava's Boy in printed shirt, New York, 1978 Flickr Share
Roy Decarava’s Boy in printed shirt, New York, 1978 Flickr Share

Now it seems that the more we include technology in our lives, i.e. iPhone, IPad, iPod, Androids, laptops, tablets, Xbox the list is growing exponentially.  I think it happened overnight.  Growing up it was a big deal to have a Black and White television set.  However, I know that I am not too old to remember that life and school was about developing and creating and finding out about the world and making your way in the world.  Slowly but surely technology is seeping into our lives and causing a sense of “dissociative identity disorder” that is manifesting and causes us to live in a virtual reality plunging us into a chaos that is impacts and influences how we conduct our lives.  If  we  had a brown out or black out folks would absolutely lose their minds  they become filled with anxiety, frustration and not knowing what to do.  Arianna Huffington in her book “Thrive” she speaks of living life plugged into an outlet sort of life you must take back the control in your life and reconnect and reclaim the part of ourselves that makes us who we are.

I honestly believe that the society is reflecting how technology and reliance on it to define and design our life that will become fragmented, mindlessly drawn into a virtual nightmare  that addicts us to our tablets, Xbox and being educated in hybrid classrooms further dis-associating us to the point that we have surrendered to the wrong master.  I want to live a life that is evolving and changing everyday with or without electronic apps, tablets, video.  I know that God has a plan for all of us and we become complacent finding ways to engage and inspire one another.  If this continues we will eventually lose the ability to create and identify aspects of  our lives that we are living.  Mindfulness improvisation is a portal for me to reconnect and reaffirm my life in the present tense and  to effectively and completely live the life that our Creator has Graced and Blessed us with…  See you between the notes…more on Aesthetics, get your shades, kicks and open your mind to explore The New Aesthetic and Jazz terrains and vistas.  Peace Out!  JBC

Copyright 2011-2014  by Jannat Marie/Jazzybeatchick. All rights Reserved.

This material has been copyrighted, feel free to share it with others; it can be distributed via social media or pingbacks or added to websites; please do not change the original content and please provide appropriate credit by including the author’s name or visual artist @ http://jazzybeatchick.com your readers shall not be charged by you under any circumstance.

 

Jazz on Canvas “Wild Chestnuts” an Acoustic and Visual interpretation featuring a Jazz Byte of Chef Marco Pierre White Recipe for Brussel Sprouts with Chestnuts Sounds by James Moody performing “Wild Chestnuts” w/Liner Notes

Courtesy of Creative Commons Wild and beautiful painting
Courtesy of Creative Commons Wild and beautiful painting

 

In America, jazz and the chestnut tree share a part of life  that has given a beautiful and abundantly fluid vistas and terrain all across the eastern United States for  years.  This remained true for jazz until the introduction of Rock and Roll and pop music as well as a fungus from Asia wiped irtually every tree standing in North America.   Both entities  share a rich history and creates a template for “Wild Chestnuts” as a jazz big band sound to get yourself moving and a culinary dish that will tantalize the pallet.

I first heard Bill Hood’s original version of “Wild Chestnuts”, it was an early Sunday morning during Memorial Day weekend of 1965.  The sound traversed from a state of the professional art  stereo  system my father designed with wall to wall speakers that gently negotiated the cream carpeted stairs and breach the threshold into my bedroom that was positioned on the front left end of our house.  It felt as though I was hearing and listening to the pure 100% proof, original composition that likens an artist inspiration in selecting the opaqueness of colors and textures that tells the secret life that jazz and the chestnut tree share with one another.  Kindred spirits in terms of the trials and tribulations that life tosses into the mix that ignites and mobilizes you to want to come up with mindfulness improv to deal with the situation straight on.  The beauty of this original tune for me is hearing and appreciating  my father’s distillation and interpretation that is very special and unique to you and you alone.    Dad’s arrangement seems to take what Tom Reed of WJLB in Detroit, Michigan describes it as “Gil Fuller closes out this tremendous musical surprise package arrangement of “Wild Chestnuts” …as a toe-tapper, finger-snapper which really shouts….”  (Liner Notes) What do you think?  I must agree.  Peace Out!  JBC 😎

musical_note_clip_art_12518

Copyright 2011-2014  by Jannat Marie/Jazzybeatchick. All rights Reserved.

This material has been copyrighted, feel free to share it with others; it can be distributed via social media or pingbacks or added to websites; please do not change the original content and please provide appropriate credit by including the author’s name or visual artist @ http://jazzybeatchick.com your readers shall not be charged by you under any circumstance.

 

Poet’s Beat on Jazz Canvas ~“I have been a stranger in a strange land” by Rita Dove Featuring Kyle Eastwood – The Way Home Art by Adrian Piper

Adrian Piper since 1965
Adrian Piper since 1965

Adrian Piper is a painter, collagist and teacher of philosophy. She is an artist who deals mostly with issues of racism and sexism as they confront the black woman in her everyday life. Many of her artworks in the past have been very successful due to a direct and personnel approach. Piper has also been recognized for including typed print on her pieces. These remind the viewer of various artists during the pop era in the 1960s, when tied text or magazine articles were often part of artistic pieces.  Courtesy of Yale

Sometimes I feel lie Rita Dove because of the situations and circumstance of my birth.    The lines have been blurred by the imposed by American society and cultural differences.  My prologue set the stage for an adventurous and mysterious life.  When I was three years old mom opened my world to the power of words.  I read everything she brought home.  When I was eleven that was my prolific learning of jazz, art and words.  Being careful with my selections and following rules I made up.  I love seeing jazz, life and the world differently and always in the present tense.  Adrian and Rita share aspects of the vision that has taken place in my heart.  Kyle Eastwood sets the tone, ambiance and a great appreciation of that fact.  To this end, I hope you like the area I have chosen today.  Peace Out!  JBC 😎

 

“I have been a stranger in a strange land”

by Rita Dove

Life’s spell is so exquisite, everything conspires to break it. ~ Emily Dickinson

 

It wasn’t bliss. What was bliss

but the ordinary life? She’d spend hours

in patter, moving through whole days

touching, sniffing, tasting . . . exquisite

housekeeping in a charmed world.

And yet there was always

 

more of the same, all that happiness,

the aimless Being There.

So she wandered for a while, bush to arbor,

lingered to look through a pond’s restive mirror.

He was off cataloging the universe, probably,

pretending he could organize

what was clearly someone else’s chaos.

 

That’s when she found the tree,

the dark, crabbed branches

bearing up such speechless bounty,

she knew without being told

this was forbidden. It wasn’t

a question of ownership—

who could lay claim to

such maddening perfection?

 

And there was no voice in her head,

no whispered intelligence lurking

in the leaves—just an ache that grew

until she knew she’d already lost everything

except desire, the red heft of it

warming her outstretched palm.

 

Source: Poetry (October 2002).

musical_note_clip_art_12518

Copyright 2011-2014  by Jannat Marie/Jazzybeatchick. All rights Reserved.

This material has been copyrighted, feel free to share it with others; it can be distributed via social media or pingbacks or added to websites; please do not change the original content and please provide appropriate credit by including the author’s name or visual artist @ http://jazzybeatchick.com your readers shall not be charged by you under any circumstance.

Poet’s Beat ~ “Transformation & Escape” by Gregory Corso feat.Gil Fuller & Monterey Jazz Festival – Things Are Here – Feat. Dizzy Gillespie

For Kandinsky-Great grandson Anton S. Kandinsky
For Kandinsky-Great grandson Anton S. Kandinsky

This is a prelude to an understanding and appreciation for poetry and jazz in terms of harmonic complexities and spontaneous or improvisation utterances from the soul of the poet in both an acoustic and literary styles.  The American social and literary movement of the 1950s and ’60s brought out the artists’ communities in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York.  For me, I had the best of all of these locations growing up and experimenting with sounds and words and colors.  Its modality was expressed alienation from conventional society and advocated personal expression and illumination infused with an awareness and higher state of consciousness.  The Beat poets, included Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso who sought to liberate poetry from academia creating verse that was syncopated extrapolations of American life that was sometimes sprinkled with missives, and digressions but very powerful and moving.  It was a time that was riddled with LSD and mushrooms from Kerouac that I felt was not truly an expression of genius but a drug induced state that smacked of “Alice in Wonderland” perspective leaving out the key elements of Jazz Poetry and its impact in our lives.  This poem I believe establishes that.  Peace Out! JBC 😎

 

 Transformation & Escape

BY GREGORY CORSO

1

 

I reached heaven and it was syrupy.

It was oppressively sweet.

Croaking substances stuck to my knees.

Of all substances St. Michael was stickiest.

I grabbed him and pasted him on my head.

I found God a gigantic fly paper.

I stayed out of his way.

I walked where everything smelled of burnt chocolate.

Meanwhile St. Michael was busy with his sword

hacking away at my hair.

I found Dante standing naked in a blob of honey.

Bears were licking his thighs.

I snatched St. Michael’s sword

and quartered myself in a great circular adhesive.

My torso fell upon an elastic equilibrium.

As though shot from a sling

my torso whizzed at God fly paper.

My legs sank into some unimaginable sog.

My head, though weighed with the weight of St. Michael,

did not fall.

Fine strands of multi-colored gum

suspended it there.

My spirit stopped by my snared torso.

I pulled! I yanked! Rolled it left to right!

It bruised! It softened! It could not free!

The struggle of an Eternity!

An Eternity of pulls! of yanks!

Went back to my head,

St. Michael had sucked dry my brainpan!

Skull!

My skull!

Only skull in heaven!

Went to my legs.

St. Peter was polishing his sandals with my knees!

I pounced upon him!

Pummeled his face in sugar in honey in marmalade!

Under each arm I fled with my legs!

The police of heaven were in hot pursuit!

I hid within the sop of St. Francis.

Gasping in the confectionery of his gentility

I wept, caressing my intimidated legs.

 

2

 

They caught me.

They took my legs away.

They sentenced me in the firmament of an ass.

The prison of an Eternity!

An Eternity of labor! of hee-haws!

Burdened with the soiled raiment of saints

I schemed escape.

Lugging ampullae its daily fill

I schemed escape.

I schemed climbing impossible mountains.

I schemed under the Virgin’s whip.

I schemed to the sound of celestial joy.

I schemed to the sound of earth,

the wail of infants,

the groans of men,

the thud of coffins.

I schemed escape.

God was busy switching the spheres from hand to hand.

The time had come.

I cracked my jaws.

Broke my legs.

Sagged belly-flat on plow

on pitchfork

on scythe.

My spirit leaked from the wounds.

A whole spirit pooled.

I rose from the carcass of my torment.

I stood in the brink of heaven.

And I swear that Great Territory did quake

when I fell, free.

Gregory Corso, “Transformation & Escape” from The Happy Birthday of Death. Copyright © 1960 by New Directions Publishing Corporation. Reprinted with the permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.

Source: Mindfield: New and Selected Poems (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1989)

 

musical_note_clip_art_12518

Copyright 2011-2014  by Jannat Marie/Jazzybeatchick. All rights Reserved.

This material has been copyrighted, feel free to share it with others; it can be distributed via social media or pingbacks or added to websites; please do not change the original content and please provide appropriate credit by including the author’s name or visual artist @ http://jazzybeatchick.com your readers shall not be charged by you under any circumstance.