Best Jazz Poems
JAZZ MAN
Lips of sweat,
Igniting catalyst tune as they burn,
Crossed eyes, attention spreads
feeling the whiteness in the pure magic
Each memo confronts the other,
Soul cord of depth,
and for one short-lived moment.
Losing sight of reality in a stasis of oasis.
The passionate barb sticks note directly into the atmosphere
Each message is a flood of scheme,
singing the blues, this smooth criminal
angel of birth, in your hands
luring you to a road in heaven.
The lights are all you feel;
you can see the forgotten masterpiece.
Bathing in it, as the drums go on,
the mob gathers, to feel the whiteness of the trumpet.
He is rotating his saxophone,
making love to the crowd.
His horn comes with words that deepen the soul,
the crowd is mesmerized.
He extends his hands,
A standing ovation,
Slamming and whistling,
Louder than thunder,
Mr. Jazz man is done
With no condom at all……………………….
by;
His hand is strafing the castellation on his trumpet, the valves moving up down up down like deranged pistons under the random machine gun fire of his fingers. Each note is a projectile that concusses the air, chases the one before it, nudges it from behind, bleeds into it, and is itself tailgated by the next one, all the way down the line in unrelenting succession, until all the distinct notes fuse, compacted into a single, furious, careening soundscape that leaves the ear always half a beat behind, struggling to catch up, out of breath, high on an overdose of heard adrenalin.
sounds supersonic
air graffitied with contrails of soaring notes
solo flight
Still they come, the notes, jostling and pouring from the bell of the trumpet glinting in the small cone of spotlight, the man’s puffed cheeks like a magician’s hat from which all kinds of disparate, crazy things - playing cards, rabbits, ribbons, doves - appear and instantly cohere into a hyperventilating sonic dream. You’re caught off guard by every note: you never heard it coming, then you hear it, and you’re snatched by it and all its brethren, and carried into the kinetic night.
ears beguiled
vibrations collide, collude, segue
harmony
Lady Ella, Queen of Jazz:
you brought so many songs to life.
Forget the words? Just make up new ones
like you did on 'Mack The Knife'.
Satchmo Armstrong, so unique:
in 'Summertime' my soul is freed,
with 'Hello Dolly', 'Cheek to Cheek';
'What a Wonderful World', indeed!
Sassy, classy Sarah Vaughan:
your 'Autumn Leaves' fall scattingly.
Your 'I Feel Pretty' makes me 'Misty',
'They Can't Take That Away From Me'.
Mel Torme, the Velvet Fog:
'The Christmas Song', 'How High The Moon'.
I love it when you scat away
The 'Lullaby Of Birdland' tune.
Astrud, 'Girl From Ipanema'
walks on by, a sight to see.
Your 'One Note Samba' swings so lithe,
Brazilian skies in harmony.
Basia sings of 'Time And Tide'
and woos me with 'Astrud's tribute.
'An Olive Tree', 'Baby, You're Mine';
Each song you sing, a perfect beaut.
Time and space do not allow
for Nat, Al, Tim, or more such names:
Diana, Johnny, Janis, Cheryl*,
Jazz burns bright - you light the flames!
//Poet's Notes: Mentioned here are my favorite Jazz vocalists (*with a quick nod and smile to Nat King Cole, Alan Paul, Tim Hauser, Diana Krall, Johnny Hartman, Janis Siegel, and Cheryl Bentyne). Let me know in the comments if you have favorites I did not mention. Perhaps someday I'll write a sequel for my favorite jazz instrumentalists. //
You spoke a new language
of rarefied air
guided nonchalantly
through curving channels of brass
Conduits of cool
juries of jazz
floating past soulful valves
harbingers of what will come
Slender fingers
improvising storylines
magistrates of melancholy
bailiffs of bop
Miles from the mainstream
a milestone of
modern modalities
kind of blue
What is that feelin'
Creepin' 'bout my heart,
I think its kind of blue
Breakin' me apart
Fallin' into pieces
How many a heart has,
Once throbbed with neon
And all that jazz
I'm feelin' kind of blue
Not deep enough to cry,
A solemn kind of blue
Don't need to wonder why
Revolving slowly into
This somber attitude,
Azure leanin' on green
A pale, indigo mood
Muffled sounds carry
The smoothest baritone,
Over a muted trumpet
And a sad, sad saxophone
It's nothin' strange to me
Been right here before,
... Turn up the music
Slowly, close the door.
Jazz was born beneath a heap of rubble,
An abandoned stray, her life was a poem
The more she shivered, slunk and tried to hide
The more she appealed to my rescuing side.
It took lots of convincing to bring her home.
She was certainly worth all of the trouble.
SHAZZ HAZZ JAZZ-
Come sup wit me, Come sup wit me
Come sit here under my tree
Come time wit me come dine wit me
Shhh! Smoken
Ahhh! Smoken waters , cooling brezze
flown, come here sir dance wit me
Come Tago in front of the ocean
Come fly away, in the skies with me
Just flowN, floating
We hazz jazz, we hazz jazz, we hazz jazz, we hazz jazz in jubilee
We hazz jazz, we hazz jazz, we hazz jazz, we hazz jazz
We hazz jazz, we hazz jazz, we hazz jazz, we hazz jazz
We hazz jazz, we hazz jazz, we hazz jazz, we hazz jazz in jubilee
We have it, we got it, we got this smokeN fire
We B jamming rhythm got ta beat, rhythm got tha beat for hours and hours and hours
We hazz jazz, we hazz jazz, we hazz jazz, we hazz jazz, we hazz jazz
I am the Lady Jazz
Mine name is lovely as
I hazz jazz, we hazz jazz come rhythms wit me Shazz hazz jazz
SmokN fire, hearts desire
Music meaning I juz keep on singN
We hazz jazz, we hazz jazz, we hazz jazz, we hazz jazz in jubilee
We hazz jazz, we hazz jazz, we hazz jazz, we hazz jazz
We hazz jazz, we hazz jazz, we hazz jazz, we hazz jazz
We hazz jazz, we hazz jazz, we hazz jazz, we hazz jazz in jubilee
We have it, we got it, we got this smokeN fire
We B jamming rhythms got ta beat, rhythm got tha beat for hours and hours and hours
We hazz jazz, we hazz jazz, we hazz jazz, we hazz jazz, we hazz jazz
We got it, come git the beat
We got it, come taste the sweet
We got it, we b come cool in the heat
They be sweeping at our feet
We B danceN like Cholly Atkins
We got it, we got this
Cool as it is, we got this
We got it we got this what we
Cause what we got we got is Jazz
We begot We hazz Shazz Jazz
3/31/25
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr.2025©
Rock
n' roll-
two-beat blues
In Africa you were born
In deep serenity
To the sounds of mighty drums
And rhythm’s authenticity.
Stole you from your righteous land
Cut it up like a birthday cake
Gave it back to Anglo hands
But your birth was no mistake.
Hot sun baked your deep skin
In their souls your people knew
Down in the delta the cotton moved
By the ***** spiritual, you grew.
The teachings of gospel embraced you
When Abe’s 13th had you lost
When the choir called you responded
Learned you could share your talent, but at a cost
A burnt cork mask for the audience
Buffoonery and minstrelsy, Jim Crow and Daddy Rice
Exploitation in a racist Nation
Theatrical vice.
You got the blues
Had a melancholy mood
Broke down walls with the drowsy tunes
That free and rootless attitude
On the shoulder of Scott Joplin
Mesmerized with how his fingers played
Ragtime floats on running notes
In New Orleans your future lay.
The melting pot, jazz hotspot
Black people, white people, blue, and green
Creole heritage swirling all it meets
Street smart, fine art, everything in between.
Jazz is about freedom
You have to improvise
The band prides the electric ride
Sharing music with each other’s eyes
A jazz baby was born in the USA
Dare I say the American way
Day by Day by Day
A growing Jazz Baby played.
- a solo nijuin renku -
English version by Liviu Martinescu
entrance to an underground
crowds in winter's clouds
and an atomic clock to boot
the first snowflakes on
the punching bag in the yard
the jazz poem
the town is creeping into
the golden scale
enormous through teardrops
the whitewashed houses
symphonic white
out of scores of thunderbolts
some leaves on the moon
"and thus she sleeps awake
long after she's got up"
the motorcycle
that's carrying them entwined
is curbing the hour
raceless race-course
the loneliness of no-horses
the streets sweat out
in the glove of speed
no time for tomorow
seven doves go clink
against the rosetta of the cathedral
the pollen at night
migrates into saints' bodies
as well as violins
the lark's feathers
made iridescent by the moonshine
circling the deserted
merry-go-rounds the glider
a whirl of silences
only balmy tree-branches
breeze here not whispers
each body
leaks out its own time
two abysses
dark rails
pulsating under streetcars
yellow saxophone
toward the super-yellow sky
it's me in there in the sound
the concert eroticized
new swallow nests
the raw soil blooming
among cherrytrees
beyond the wall
in the shadow of the piano
the spring bread
From bebop, swing to hip-hops thing
True poets had it best
For there is a rhythm in the soul,
Which they all just had to express
Some could not control
This powerful thing
Was so often put to the test
It began to dawn coming on strong
Within the birth of a thing
Called the Harlem Renaissance
That jazz, that poetic-jazz, of intense birth
Possessing syncopated rhythms
And chronic expression of surreal tunes
That perfected blend of jazz-poetry
Developed into what it is today.
Thanks to poets like Carl Dunbar and Langston Hughes
That jazz, that jazz, that wonderful poetic-jazz
Being bred of pride, lyrical form and grace
Transcended cultural barriers
Readily accepted in the 1950’s by the humane race
Therefore, the mantra had begun to be
So freely expressed within poetic lyrics
To syncopated beats moving on through the 60’s and 70’s
By way of beat poets like Amiri Baraka
Returning strong throughout the 70’s and 80’s
Thanks to artist like Gil Scott-Heron
Oh, snap he was one of the founding fathers
Of spoken word poetry known to youngsters
Borne to free-styling or hitting the beats
On stage or in the streets
Yes, you’ve guessed it, most def its rap
Re-educating the poet in me, thanks to that thing
In which made many a heart sing
As these icons did their thing
Starting with something called modern day jazz-poetry…
Born during the Harlem renaissance and still going strong
Comments: I hope that you have enjoyed this free verse
tribute to some of the greatest modern day
founders of what is known as Jazz-Poetry.
Jazz Horn
Now put your left foot forward.
Next put your right foot ahead.
See how that works?
See how the workings of these two appendages
Facilitates the outcome
Of one continuous forward motion
To where you’re going … in this world?
Welcome, my friend,
To this deliciously dark dish of desperate cravings!
Look all around you as we walk this stalking street.
See all the dark places.
Where countless lost souls huddle in bare survival,
And share the hot knob over a weak fire.
I can hear a jazz horn, way off in the distance there.
It’s surely there, and it reassures me I’m still living, here.
Maybe some words by Langston Hughes might be nice right now.
Please, my friend, do me the honor.
Oh, I see. You don’t have your poetry anthology.
And it’s dark too.
Let us then visit the old pawnbroker
Mr. Tattoo Neck knows the price for our private fears.
Piss puddles and crushed beer cans.
And an old used tire hanging hopelessly
By the cracked front window.
I see the world is one inch closer to doom since last we talked.
May we rest in peace, my friend.
Any murders lately on the street?
I hear the blond dish in Shire Apartments has moved out.
Black sooty smashed gum and litter of coupons and girlie guides.
Only one killing this week, my friend.
The butcher from 27th street; the guy who never talked to anyone.
His bowling ball is in the window.
Life is hard. It knocks you on the head when you least expect it.
I hope I make it.
I don’t know if some ******* will come in here and shoot me in the face!
I live my whole freaking life scared!
It’s ridiculous that we all have to be hostages to these evil people.
The city grows darker at night.
I have noticed it because I live mostly with the night.
The night is my secret lover, and there is no other.
The city is as dark as nothing in the middle of nowhere.
Something bigger than a final sunset is needed.
You know what I mean, my friend?
Here, I will buy you that jazz horn there.
You can sweetly serenade me,
And lovely night naked,
As we make love here
In the calming mad darkness.
Slow drawn, steeping tea bags, in an etched glass pitcher,
Lazily infuse its Oriental musk into the sun warmed brew.
My ice crackles along with the thunder over the great Mississippi
As the ewers’ spout releases the torrents of Southern comfort
Into the tall, foggy, frost laden glass; I await my fill.
A frigid sip chafes my lips and briefly deadens my longing,
Only momentarily, as the turgid air, again, envelops my throat.
The chills grip my spine, even in this oppressive heat.
Sauntering droplets roam slowly down my bare skinned back
And puddle where my hips widen at the curve of my waist.
Hope is lost for those of us who float through purgatory.
The weight of two centuries of sorrow hangs heavily on our skin.
The burden is at its worst to bear just before autumn,
When slave ships broken by storms washed up on the river.
Airlessness provides no clemency for those gasping for pardon.
Sorrow lies heavily in the lungs of the poor souls of August.
Heat, fetid and damp, feverishly enables man’s basest passion,
To be disguised as music, that wails from the saloons in the Quarter.
Deep, boiling, fermented tales of sorrow are turned into song,
Melodic tales spun of sorcery, savagery blue and untethered souls,
Forged metals and the scat of primitive voices, break the fugue.
Echoes of blasphemy wrought suffocating havoc and destruction,
As hot jazz blows cool through the streets of the Ninth Ward.
Chips and Salsa (22 Feb 2019)
Life could be better, but easily worse.
Sometimes I feel blessed, other times cursed.
As I get older, I look back and see—
Life’s mostly better, when you are with me.
Sometimes we argue, but don’t really fight.
I know you love me, so it’s all right.
You know I love you, so it’s plain to see--
Life’s clearly better when you are with me.
If you should leave me, don’t know what I’d do.
My life’s completely invested in you.
I’ve gotta keep you, wherever I go
Life’s surely better together, you know.
I’m moving forward, but keep looking back.
Anything missing? Anything lack?
With hindsight vision, I look back and see,
Life’s been always better when you were with me.
We’re like chips and salsa, with some cilantro inside (kinda feisty).
We’re like chips and salsa – with jalapenos inside (kinda spicy).
We go together, obviously; I hope, forever, that you’ll stay with me.
We’re like chips and salsa, with guacamole one the side (really tasty).
Jazz Pleiades
Just feelin’ kind of blue
Jazzy blues harmony
Joined modal indigo
Juxtaposes smooth joy -
Jaunty jives splashing notes -
Jiven’ through the moonlight -
Jeweled mood reflections
10-14-20
Contest: Pleiades – Music
Sponsor: Joseph May
Dedicated to Miles Davis; Kind of Blue
Duke Ellington's Mood Indigo