Fly Right
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Friday, 23 December 2005 10:55 |
#12
monk's mood ( why do you evade the facts? )
for melba boyd & sadiq muhammad
what would piss you off if you were monk but the superficial gesture,
the appropriation of the formal weirdness
without the content or any intent to keep the code
of manly conduct, that what one says & what one does must be one & the same
or either bullshit reigns & walks & talks like a man, but no man
is there to be found in the action, like hats & beards & funny names, or dreadlocks
& canes, the constant iteration of the sainted litany of the great masters
as a form of intimidation the pointed finger, the crooked
tongue, the phony shit that monk despised, & not the word made act, no pose
but for real, no crooked intention or weird overlay, like
this cat is a chump, let's set him up, we can get the money out the bank
without him knowing about it & not pay the other musicians for the concert
& blame it on him, that they never got paid & put some crow jim
shit in the game too, like it's about color or anything else but sincerity
of expression, depth of soul, intelligence, it's not about
race it's about culture, motherfucker,
like what you learn from constant exposure to what people be doing,
it is learned or ac- quired, from birth on or from when you be born into it,
like the way the music can be studied, & the life & the code of behavior can get in
to the sound, like monk & james p. johnson, willie the lion smith,
the cats in his neighborhood & in harlem where monk was well known
the piano players hung out together, they bought each other drinks
& meals, or a place to sta but they took care of e ach other
with no hand in the other cat's pocket, no knife in the back,
no phony shuck & jive, twisted, super hip sneer on they jibs,
straight-ahead cats with the ethics that made them for real
men of music we worship & study long after they have passed from this sphere
detroit august 1 /september 15 /december 18 -23 , 1985/ july 7 , 1989/ edit for steve gebhardt/may 14, 1991
3.1.665 |