Occasional Jazz Conjectures

. . .delight the ear and eye
And bring mirth to the mind.
-Sima Xiangru (ca. 179-117 B.C.)
As musicians trundle out into the evening, filling corners (like so much Victorian clutter and ornament by Reverdian “lamplight taking shelter”) in foreign living rooms, rented halls, country clubs, or next to the cheese counters in the A& P, it […]

“We’re here to have a ball” - Art Blakey
Drum on your drums. . .
Sling your knuckles on the bottoms of the happy
tin pans. . . go husha-husha-hush with the slippery sand-paper. . .bang altogether drums,
traps, banjos, horns, tin cans–make two people fight
on the top of a stairway and scratch each other’s eyes
in a clinch tumbling […]

Years ago, jazz was dance music — into the bebop period, contrary to what many historians would have you believe — even after the demise of the big bands it still remained in the public’s consciousness as a form of social music. So what killed the dancing? As many will tell you, the economic realities […]