[Dixielandjazz] Jazz and Poetry

[Steve Barbone]

Not strictly OKOM, but some of the list, like Charlie Suhor, will certainly
get a kick of the below article. Interesting that on his first night in the
USA, after emigrating from Yugoslavia, Charles Simic (now poet laureate of
the US) went to the Metropole in NYC and saw Coleman Hawkins with Henry Red
Allen. (1954)

Cheers,
Steve Barbone


A Breezy Exchange Between Old Friends (Jazz and Poetry)

NY TIMES - By NATE CHINEN - January 10, 2008

³This is not an exercise in nostalgia, or giggling at the ¹50s,² the poet
Robert Pinsky said on taking the stage at the Jazz Standard on Tuesday
night. Along with his colleague Charles Simic, the current poet laureate of
the United States, Mr. Pinsky was taking part in a program billed as ³Words
and Music.² And his disclaimer doubled as a pledge. ³We hope the evening
will not be about goatees and berets,² Mr. Pinsky said, ³but about art.²

On that count the experiment in booking was a great success. Both
distinguished writers came to the club not only with an aura of literary
celebrity ‹ Mr. Pinsky is a former United States poet laureate and no
stranger to the spotlight ‹ but also a healthy regard for jazz.

Mr. Simic, who was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, recalled hearing Coleman
Hawkins with Red Allen at the Metropole Cafe on his first night in the
United States, in August 1954. (³So my American experience started out on a
high note,² he said.) For his part Mr. Pinsky described himself as a
frustrated saxophonist before reading his ³Ginza Samba,² which breathlessly
invokes both the inventor of the instrument and the ancestral legacy of the
Atlantic slave trade.

For that poem there was appropriate accompaniment: a samba, played by the
evening¹s resident trio of Mike Mainieri on vibraphone, Lonnie Plaxico on
bass and Andrew Cyrille on drums. Later Mr. Pinsky and Mr. Cyrille engaged
in a back-and-forth exchange of pithy couplets and improvised percussive
fills, and the premise, meant to suggest jazz¹s tradition of trading fours,
worked with breezy charm.

But these were the only instances of poetry coming into direct contact with
music, which meant there were some missed opportunities in the set. None was
more obvious than ³Crepuscule With Nellie,² Mr. Simic¹s moody reverie on the
subject of Thelonious Monk at the Five Spot. It could have easily been read
in concert with the Monk ballad that shares its name; instead Mr. Simic went
first, and the musicians followed (with ³ŒRound Midnight,² a different Monk
tune). It seemed at times as if the poets were so wary of Beat Generation
trappings that they closed off any chance of alchemy with the music.

Then again the title of the engagement promised a meeting, not a melding, of
practices. And in context, the format committed both poets to a sort of
cutting session. Mr. Simic used much of his stage time to hint at a bygone
New York bohemia, where jazz provided the soundtrack. He struck a sly and
sensuous note with three short pieces in a row, beginning with ³Unmade
Beds.² In another poem, ³Shelley,² he conjured an image of shadowy solitude
along rainy city streets. (Mr. Mainieri could have amplified this feeling.)

Mr. Pinsky read several striking recent poems, including ³Samurai Song² and
³Antique,² studies in tension and opposition. He also touched upon his
acclaimed translations of Dante Alighieri. And with ³The Green Piano² he
filtered personal history through the language of rhapsody. Though no
exercise in nostalgia, it harnessed the power of memory. And it echoed an
earlier observation by Mr. Pinsky: that jazz and poetry are ³two profound
arts that have to do profoundly with time.²