Sounds of Jazz Echo Out

As I was struggling to describe the experience of working with Elvin Jones and co., on Ask the Ages, I got a call from Beverly Korenwasser who had an old poem I'd written that conveys the nature of it in a general way. I wrote it a few years ago to go on a brochure about Jazz Art.





Sounds of jazz echo out of the crowded clubs
down streets ablaze with neon lit sculptures of light.

Flurries of syncopated notes scatter and tumble out of saxophones and trumpets soloing, signaling a group excursion toward an unknown domain.

Deep moods of indigo, chartreuse and blue swing the soul of the night further out to foreign spaces, traces of the human life transcending routine and hardship
expressing joy, pain, loneliness and community,
to make a home for intrepid explorers of dissonance and harmony.

What time is it?
No, not by the spin of the earth
but what is the signature of time this time?

Rhythm, the foundation, the keystone,
the motive force driving the sound to
heights, depths and dimensions in-between.
Jazz. Ecstatic. Takes us out of ourselves.

New insights, new outsights, delicate melodies,
bombasts of chord clash all conspiring
to take us through the night.