Jazz Out
(Sam Trio stands at the mic, snaps fingers lightly, takes a drag on a Marlboro, and smiles to the crowd) Dig this, we’re going back in time, way back to the smokey jazz clubs and cool sounds and jazzy vibes of the 50s and 60s jazz scene in America/
I’m talkin’ bout a sound, a feeling, a way of life from sun up to sun down/Ya dig? A movement that changed the way we listen to music forever/the politics of Jazz/ racial injustices against people of color, Black, Brown, Red, and Yellow/ think about it/ Miles Davis cookin’ up a neu unheard sound in modern Model jazz(Model allows for a more open and melodic improvisational approach)/ take his 1959 album “Kind of Blue” it blew the minds out of the straight ahead jazz freaks/ they thought they had it down cold/how to play and break down what jazz was/ Man, step back jack “Kind of Blue” was a harmonic simplicity master peace in freedom to blow jazz as you wish/ Sonny Rollins blowin’ his soul out on the Williamsburg Bridge for two years after sayin’ no more to jazz clubs BS/ movin’ on to Kenny Clark layin down his rock-solid jazz beat/ So dig/these weren’t just jazz musicians in the dog eat dog back stabbing’ days of bounced checks from club owners and booking agents/ Man, finding a paying gig was hard enough/they were sonic alchemists, transforming there everyday life into a full gas tank on the ride to the jazz life/
and then there’s Stan Getz, the boss horn man of the Bossa Nova/ hippin’ the world to Brazilian Jazz/man, the 50s and 60s jazz scene was the ultimate smoken’ time/ the groove cool jazz culture was born/ are you into it? As Cad Mack would say/ That’s the heart of jazz, beating strong as ever/ It wasn’t just background music/ it was way out there, like way gone brand new jazz music ready to be discovered by the American listening public/ radio and TV of the 50s and 60s jumped on the jazz thing/ let me hip you to King Curtis, Gene Ammons, Art Farmer… his Farmer’s Market song with other jazz greats music was brunin’ up the radio airways/ all mornin’ long, all day long, right into the late night jam sessions/ that’s a far cry from what’s happenin’ today/ cultural identity was at the forefront of the jazz scene of the time/ multi-instrumentalist Rahsaan Roland Kirk was a master of circular breathing and brought to jazz a whole new imaginative approach to improvising/Kirk was so far gone and so far in at the same time/ he was what it means to be jazz/ Movin’ on know to the sessions/ Chicken and Dumplin’s with Bobby Timmons, that hip talk and walk with a Be-Bop frame of mind/ relaxing with Soul Trane…John Coltrane/grooving to Art Taylor, Hank Mobley, Barry Harris, Donald Byrd down at Noodle's place with Max Roach burin’ high with Abby Lincoln’s soul jazz voice of protest/ soul food, man, mixed in when diggin’ the Lucky Thompson Quartet was sayin’ somethin’ bout getting’ with it/ brother Jack McDuff doin’ his organ jazz funk thing/ and Monk always takin’ care of business/ settin’ the pace in the new concepts of jazz with his tip of the hat to Duke Ellington/
weed, sex, drugs, and heroin were a big part of jazz/ man, cats be flyin’ on and off the bandstand/ but dig/ it was the soul of a new sound energy of jazz in the 50s and 60s that made you think about community, expression of self, about what to wear, politics, and how to live and get along with one another/ we all were living among jazz Giants who blew our mind out with their master play and talent/ we as jazz buffs did not get hip to it until the 50s and 60s were way gone/
So next time you are digging some real authentic jazz music/ go back in time to the real of it and dig the jazz scene on vinyl/ let the music wash over you, and feel the magic moments coming from your HIFI/ of a time when jazz music was king/ when men opened doors for women/man landed on the moon and TV shows utilized jazz music in their theme songs/”Dragnet,” “Peter Gun,” “ Mister Lucky,” “Mission Impossible,” and are you ready for it? “The Flintstones,” man, I gotta stop now/ I gots a snow storm of thoughts popin in my head/ Jazz out…
Copyright ©
Tony Adamo
|