remembering jimmy smith
(1925-2005)
u pulled out that stop, that third harmonic, & the bulb
lit up… thunder & lightning, u said, & stars fell out
of the sky! silver & blakey brought the bop, the hard
edged urban bop, but u, jimmy, brought the funk to jazz
long before the mothership touched down -- when george clinton
was still working his way thru’ doowop -- the chitlinstank
in the neighborhood funk, the sweetsweat-not-acid shirt
soaking funk, the left-hand walkin’, foot pedal stompin’
got my mean mojo workin’ funk partnered with a sizzling
virtuoso horn solo playing right hand. made that hammond
b3 hum, shriek; made it blues shout, holler & scream, or
purr & coo or softly cry -- an ascended master
ere the cognoscenti knew the jazz organ had one.
©Joseph McNair; 2010
i heard … a cat playing forty choruses of georgia brown in pure
'nashua' tempo & never repeating. i heard futuristic,
stratospheric sounds that were never before
explored on the organ."
--babs gonzales
u pulled out that stop, that third harmonic, & the bulb
lit up… thunder & lightning, u said, & stars fell out
of the sky! silver & blakey brought the bop, the hard
edged urban bop, but u, jimmy, brought the funk to jazz
long before the mothership touched down -- when george clinton
was still working his way thru’ doowop -- the chitlinstank
in the neighborhood funk, the sweetsweat-not-acid shirt
soaking funk, the left-hand walkin’, foot pedal stompin’
got my mean mojo workin’ funk partnered with a sizzling
virtuoso horn solo playing right hand. made that hammond
b3 hum, shriek; made it blues shout, holler & scream, or
purr & coo or softly cry -- an ascended master
ere the cognoscenti knew the jazz organ had one.
©Joseph McNair; 2010
WE CANNOT CHOSE BUT HEAR
ReplyDeleteIn an agonic tone, Samuel Taylor describes the disasters that hit the ground earth and the ocean. Taylor laments on the fact that the negligence of the human being tends to destroy the gifts that the mother nature gives us.He wonders: could we prevent all of this? Our greed does not let the time to think about the negative effects that we are causing to ourselves; instead , we tend to run after the short term advantages while we ignore the catastrophes. in the future. The erosion that drive the soil to the ocean is done based on the fact that the inhabitants cut trees and transform them in chalkcoal. Also, the oil that spills into the gulf is the result of greed from the oil's company.
WE CANNOT CHOSE BUT HEAR
ReplyDeleteIn an agonic tone, Samuel Taylor describes the disasters that hit the ground earth and the ocean. Taylor laments on the fact that the negligence of the human being tends to destroy the gifts that the mother nature gives us.He wonders: could we prevent all of this? Our greed does not let the time to think about the negative effects that we are causing to ourselves; instead , we tend to run after the short term advantages while we ignore the catastrophes. in the future. The erosion that drive the soil to the ocean is done based on the fact that the inhabitants cut trees and transform them in chalkcoal. Also, the oil that spills into the gulf is the result of greed from the oil's company.