[07] "fly right" |
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Fly Right
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Friday, 23 December 2005 10:51 |
proem
fly right (mr. monk: 1917-1947)
for jack kerouac, who was there
a straight line drawn across the years of artistic growth is not
as the crow flies but a nexus of development, so far
as it goes there is no strait line but the accretion of experience
& the many twists & turns one takes to gain & measure the sizes
& shapes of activity & its transformation into song or verse,
the flight thru geography & human, material, flesh & circumstance
to bring a charlie parker from kansas city to chicago, new york,
dan wall's chili house, minton's playhouse in harlem, a gig in a taxi dance hall
downtown, the particularities of experience, to be in one place at one & the same time
out of cheraw, south carolina to philadelphia, pa. like a john birks gillespie
who said, if you don t know why they call me `dizzy, you don t know me very well,
from philly to new york & the teddy hill orchestra & cab calloway & duke
& such other aggregations as would have him for a week or a month,
the constant fellowship of musicians riding on buses through the long american nights,
talking, gambling, eating together & the burning inside to make a change in the music,
to enlarge it so th at it would encompass their enormity of intelligence,
the recognition & joy, the great leap of the heart to encounter another
spirit presence in the same mold, & of i- dentical shape, from
rocky mount, north carolina to new york city & back out on the road
with a faith healer in a medicine show, playing for the shake dancers
& pitchmen & snake oil sellers all across the south
& the midwest, a gig with cootie williams & his orchestra at the savoy ballroom,
the choice of kenny clarke & joe guy for the house band after hours at minton's playhouse
in harlem, where monk would meet bird & dizzy & charlie christian
& the rest of the cats & play past dawn, until their music established itself
& they were the pick of the greatest of the bandleaders, earl `fatha hines, billy
eckstine, & in monk s case the father of the tenor saxophone,
coleman hawkins & a first recording for victor, october 19,
1944, before hawk cut i mean you two years later, & monk
& charlie parker & dizzy gillespie put it all together,
click, on the stage of the spotlite club
in the summer of 1946, the magnificent dizzy gillespie orchestra with arrangements by tadd dameron & gil fuller
let us now hail the author of the 52nd street theme, the pace-setter for the modern sound,
a singular individual, a giant among giants, a man of whom it can be said
there has never been another even remotely to resemble him, a twister & shaper of rhythm & rhyme
& a maker of musical works which have bent & altered the course of modern life,
o thelonious, we salute you at the outset of your career, we are eager to receive your magic
as it flows into the grooves of master recording discs of 1947, we would have your songs & improvisations
re-structure the insides of our heads & our hearts, to see out
thru the eyes which have seen what you have seen
& to hear thru the ears which have no peers
o monk, if you please! now grace us with your incredible music
detroit institute of arts, july 7 / greektown, july 9 & 30, 1985
cincinnati, march 17 & detroit, march 22, 1991
3.1.665 |
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