Yusef Lateef/Roberto Garcia
Jihad (or struggle)
1. Go
Left your daddy’s name,
left Chattanooga & the ghost of
Bessie whispering
Motor city music / hustle / learnt
riff lick improv & sit in / skipped booze
& tucked your babies in at night
Gentleness—that’s your karma,
you play sax like a muezzin
calling the faithful to prayer
& they come, boy do they come / see
all the Black man’s continents up
on stage—under America’s merciless light
2. Fat Heavy Sound
O decades—O big band & swing—
O bebop & hard bop—Cool Jazz & Free
Humble Yusef, mister listen & earn
Miles / Dizzy / Sonny / Trane / Bird
You keep rising rising rising
& Jazz falls falling fallen / like heroes
O Schaeffer—O record labels & studios!
Savoy / Verve / Prestige / Impulse / Argo
O flute—rabab—bassoon & oboe
3. Flow
Breathe deep—Yusef
Deep—like trees
like the crowd’s gonna be
listening for a long long time
Yusef observes the photo of Trane at the Guggenheim
(After the photo by William Claxton)
cool jazz swag eyes,
you high,
up there on the fourth rotunda,
masterpieces nailed to walls?
pointing at the case like,
this what's up, this is art
trane, i remember that look,
42 minutes into favorite things,
crowd watching you desperately,
waitress freaking out
your sweaty stare & hell-bent focus
on the notes
i dig the white curved concrete,
the couple folks hangin' around
say, why don’t you count to four
kick it at the hot cross-bun,
break out the pipe &
blow!
Plum Blossom
there is art
there is beauty
Beauty appears effortless
Art sometimes like practice
The art—ist understands when
the muse
panting in passion's reeling
surrenders the gift then
Art isn’t just toil
but a sun breaking
through the brain’s dark matter
The art—ist dies trying
dies knowing
if art and beauty become one
time
in each of us
for as long as we live
is Arrested