Song Of Praise
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Thursday, 09 February 2006 11:58 |
HOMAGE TO JOHN COLTRANE
for David Sandburg
1
you are sorry you are born with ears
or you are sorry. yr ears. how they can become the stuff of such lies.
how a man can stand, & fall. stand. a coil around things. a sound
(or a test of what music can bear. a SCREAM
for the time
2
John Coltrane can do this for us :
teach us to stand up right in the face of the most devas- tating insensi- tivity. can touch us where the hand or mouth or eye
can t go. can see. can be a man. make a love from centuries of unplumbed music & a common metal tool anyone can misuse.
can make you think of a lot of weird & wonderful things :
yrself.
beauty.
love.
gold & miles
of trees. elvin
jones. murdered
dreams. a-
pocalypse.
turtles.
the moon (& be-
yond.
ornette.
grapefruits.
silver pendulums.
M U S I C
t i m e .
Screaming, jumping up & down, moaning for some strange new dignity
before anyone can listen. before time. before promises, & lies. before it all collapses on our heads.
before it's too late
3
If you ve ever sat in a Coltrane audience, you ll understand what I mean.
It could happen to you, too, a loss of control, a be-
ginning, a reshaping of what they ve always told you to believe, the old forms
& music, that we ve been fooled with, the songs they taught you, & lied.
when we begin to understand that what we ve been told is how they can put us exactly where they have to believe we have to be
4
man,
if you can t hear,
what can you do?
yr born
with ears
Detroit 1965
Quotations in italics from LeRoi Jones liner notes to Coltrane Live At Birdland (Impulse Records)
3.1.6125 |