Edgar Cool's
Jazz Boat Journals

June

      It's raining in the afternoon. "Everything Must Change" and many greats and near greats of jazz are gone. It's amazing how jazz musicians in their recordings are alive again as we play their music. If we were lucky enough to hear them "live" the tapes replay in our heads. Charlie Rouse's "Epistrophy" album is playing in the Jazz Boat. It's Charlie's last recorded concert. It's a San Francisco birthday tribute to Thelonius Monk, 1988. Charlie and Monk live in that recording.
     Last week we lost Susannah McCorkle. I play her "Let's Face The Music" album. Her medley: "Everybody Knew But Me/ When You Walked Out, Someone Else Walked Right In" is followed by "Cheek To Cheek" and "Supper Time" I didn't feel so sad when I hear her living in those recordings.

ROETHKE'S VISITORS

We are visited by his language
A language of creatures
of cold air suns
of bell tapping birds
of howling coyotes
In the wet old growth
left for us by the wind
life nourishes around us
The Great Nature is
with us as we fall over the edge
Our dark dreams are washed
away in the stream

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