Jazz Synchrony.
There’s a mystery within
the creation of jazz and blues
within the combinations
of instrumental souls who’ve deeply
inhaled the spirit of culture
to breathe the enormity of universe infinities
through Earth-grown steel
and resound echoes that
rise up dormant and passive minds
In Motion.
As the bands play…
As music paves the way
for all she touches to
give new life and new reason
for lives filled with the coldest-Winters
to see the season of Spring
arrive and churn life back
In Motion…
VERSE:
…To Let Jazz be Jazz again
Let the blues be that savoring mystery;
To use rhythm to engrave the voyage of
the great motionless synchrony;
Which convenes us here-
At the footsteps of the bases that
churned this motion into the formula
mixing the magician’s potion
with the desires of cultures
to find the medium to strum
change in the ways we live
the ways we express, the ways
we poetically discover the mystery
of the creation of jazz and blues;
through the combinations
of instrumental dances to
reveal and revel in its simplicity-
We commence in New York City
Who wears the American
crown of liberty, though freedom
jazz-istically resides at the streets
numbered above the one-twenty-fifth.
Leave me where I lay
in Harlem, who once looked beyond
the amasses of harmonized New York City
growth and direction and said
“I’ve changed my mind- I choose Jazz instead”
Inbred into the fabric of Manhattan’s
Rigged workdays and ruffled relaxations
Jazz in Harlem learned its craft
As the child of lives who didn’t find crystal
stairways but torn-up boards dark-corners
And hills to climb to be emancipated from
the fields of oppression, to pick The Cotton Club
as the venue to whirl autonomy
In Motion.
As Cab Calloway, Dorothy Dandridge, and Duke Ellington play…
As music paves the way
for all who she meets
as she listens to the desires and needs
of lives seeking artistic seeds
to plant self-expression into
fertile grounds to send growth
In Motion…
VERSE:
…To Let Jazz be Jazz again
Let the blues be that savoring mystery;
For Harlem once set the stage for
the great motionless synchrony;
Which brings us here-
Where jazz speaks of rivers,
An ancient, dusky river that
Re-discovered its flow around
The curve of Missouri at the inviting banks of
Middle-America’s downward force of nature,
the Mississippi River, where we find the place
We named, Saint Louis-
Who guards Western America
With its gateways, while revving up the Blues
for its journey downstream
Before the song lyrics cry, in melancholy,
“Got the St. Louis Blues – Blues as can be.”
Influenced by cities miles afar, Tell me everything
I’m not, In St. Louis where the ancestral
feast of melody grabs hold to the arms of Ragtime,
to sparkle gleams of Joy across faces of even the
least-traveled trotters, globing the sounds of cakewalks,
two-steps, and fox-trots, to define the
the indescribable and obscurities of
the meanings of life into channels
that mimic nature’s downward course of river flow action
In Motion.
As Scott Joplin, Tina Turner, and Miles Davis play…
As river streams pave the way for two
southern sisters to grow from
nourished deltas-breed hearts while settling themselves
apart, yet keeping the harmonized
echo consistently
In Motion…
VERSE:
…To Let Jazz be Jazz again
Let the blues be that savoring mystery;
For St. Louis raised pyramids above
the great motionless synchrony;
Which brings us here-
At the crest of limitlessness,
Not defined by time, nor space,
nor genre, for no one face can capsulate
the relentless and unforgiving rhythms
that envelop themselves in the sweetest
lyrical melodies. This is the blues.
This is Memphis.
Who rolled the mold and rocked
the form to set the groove, and the blueprint
to how constellational stars would align
their music, within their music
The Beale Street Blues give reason to
ration if pain and anguish exist as the catalyst
For the means of roping our outer
Expression with the most secreted and
Stored away human emotion-
For all things of breath, have purpose,
And there’s a life in blues that strikes
cords that soothe solitude and conceive
connectivity, bringing forth ideological
meanings to replicate Beale Street ways
to intensify the significance of this tuneful form
This is the blues.
No statistical data sought to prove, the
Unproven yet people who know it feel it even
believe it, as if faith is defined in notes, and
followers follow sermons of the ministerial messages
In Motion.
As Ma Rainey, B. B. King, and W.C. Handy play…
As musical notes pave the way for another
way to love again, and finds its message
in the songs, overpowering heart-trodden wrongs,
from keeping the blues
stirring without restraint
In Motion…
VERSE:
…To Let Jazz be Jazz again
Let the blues be that savoring mystery;
For Memphis laid concrete pavement for
the great motionless synchrony;
Who followed me home-
To the destination bayou
The multi-purposeful master who
captured the civilizations of two continental
drifts, to single-handedly pull the grounds
of many lands to co-exist with the
measure and tempo of an artistry of
collaborative culture-turned solo.
All eyes wink at New Orleans–
(America’s.highest pitched soprano)
Who turned her sheer existence into a dichotomy
In discernible disguise- the antithesis
and the mistress of America the silent reminiscence
Who turned her sheer existence into a dichotomy
In discernible disguise- the antithesis
and the mistress of America the silent reminiscence
and the brass band explosion
All inside, little ole’ she.
Officially, Jazz was born here, through
the wombs of the underprivileged
And the hopes of the destitute
So saxophones and trombones
could play cards with trumpets to decide
When ragtime, rhythm and blues
should be introduced to the masses
for spiritual consumption, if the appetite was there
Which indeed it was, and still is - for New Orleans
And her quarters, her people her music
her literature this is the place that turned marsh land
Into ports, and low-lying sea into thriving brick
Roads. The dream that never should’ve been
a work a wizardry with our ears
attuned to the re-invention of the wheels
that put the sounds of the renaissance
in Motion.
As Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Kid Ory play
As music paved the way, rebuilding
spirits, and cores, after traumas
and tragedies tugged open evil’s doors
but couldn’t stop the ignition of
the resurrection
In Motion…
VERSE:
…To Let Jazz be Jazz again
Let the blues be that savoring mystery;
For New Orleans is the resurgency of
the great motionless synchrony;
As the bands play
We convene here
In celebratory dances
taking breaths of artistic chances
Through the spirits of music
That all paved the way
for all she touches to
give new life and new reason
for worlds in midst of the coldest seasons
give new life and new reason
for worlds in midst of the coldest seasons
in search of taking their Springtime blooms
In Motion…
…To Let Jazz be Jazz again
To Let Blues Be Jazz again
To Let America be Jazz again
And not let our instruments just pretend
There’s a mystery within
the creation of jazz and blues
within the combinations
of souls, instrumentally, who’ve exhaled
the spirit of cultures to breathe
and consume the motionlessness of
life giving static, instead of steam
toward refueling the ways we live
retooling ways we express and repealing
ways we’ve poetically discovered the mystery
within the creation of jazz and blues
To stop the bands and remind ourselves
…To Let Jazz be Jazz again
To Let Blues Be Jazz again
To Let America be Jazz again
And not let our instruments just pretend
that they are only Earth-grown steel
But are history too,
History
In Motion
Mark Anthony Thomas
Copyright © 2006