Make Jazz Not War!
an affiliation of Citizen Artists
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I first heard Kidd Jordan at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. I spent the day in the jazz tent while my friends wandered the fairgrounds sampling the other musics. I told them to be back at the jazz tent well before the last set – the World Saxophone Quartet. The seats I was...
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Kidd famously played along with squeaky doors at SUNO. I heard him play with the sound of the air conditioning at Columbus’s King Arts Center during a workshop for elementary school students. I listened and learned and thought I understood. I listened and played with the sounds around me. I wrote a poem about it...
News, Note
In The Princess Bride, Vizzini uses the word “inconceivable” so often and so inappropriately that eventually Inigo Montoya says “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." The less-than-liberal media and our fascist politicians keep using the word “unprecedented”. I do not think it means what they think it means. It’s a basic tenet that America puts no person above the law. It is totally precedented to indict people who are believed to have broken the law. Unprecedented was letting Nixon off. Never before had a President so clearly criminally subverted our democracy. There was......
News, Note, Poetry
TARGET PRACTICE During George Floyd Summer Blacks Lives Matter signs were planted in Glen Echo with almost the frequency of spring bulbs. Diversity and inclusion wafted on the summer breeze. Refreshing. Inviting. Chasing the burnt stench of yesterday, the sweet scent of tomorrow made cliches like sweet scents on a summer breeze fresh again. I...continue reading...
News, Note
It’s been a busy couple of weeks. Two Fridays back, we played a wonderful gig at Hot Times. Then, last Sunday, we shot for our new short docu-poem, “Target Practice”. I’ll talk about that real soon. Right now: Hot Times. Ten minutes before we went on, the tent was almost empty. Ten minutes later, The Governor struck his first note for a good small crowd. As we played, the crowd filled out inside and outside the tent in the beautiful evening air. It wasn’t stifling on the stage and the monitor mix was good. Everything clicked and the crowd knew......
News, Note, Poetry
Some appreciation has been coming in for sharing the words before this Friday’s show. So here’s another piece we’ll be performing at Hot Times. (This Friday, Sept 9, 6:45. Parsons and Main.) It’s based on Gil Scttt-Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”. We took off from that with our “The Repression Will Not Be Televised”. Then NOLA Resistance did “The Resistance Will Not Be Televised”. Now we’ve got: The Counter-Revolution WILL Be Televised C#7 Racists will speak openly of “Replacement Theory” While they gang-rape critical race theory Or any race theory except the master race All on cable TV.......
Note, Poetry
At Hot Times, We’ll be performing “F.O.P.”, our new-ish piece written in response to the murder of Casey Goodson. It seems appropriate to share it here on this Labor Day weekend just after the murder of another unarmed Black man by another Columbus F.O.P. member. F O P F-ed up Our Police!Say What? F O PF-ed UP Our Police!Say What? F O PF-ed up OUR Police!Say Wh? Wait a minute.Whatchu mean OUR police? Ain’t never been OUR police!Rich white people’s police – yeah.But never OUR police. Lot of ‘em started out slave-catchers.Most of the rest were Pinkerton or the likeThey......
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Why “Make Jazz Not War” rather than “Make Music Not War”? My great-nephew Henry’s father asked me that. My flip pat answer is to reel off Wagner, Sousa, Dixie, Uber Alles, fight songs, and any other reference to fascistic music that pops. Music is too broad a term for a contrast with war if only...
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Greg sent me this first draft for a post here on our Citizen Artist Notes & News page: I grew up on Motown, The Beatles, rock ‘n roll - then more esoteric rock, RnB, pop, And, then… the funk. Recorded, mixed and hung with several of my heroes along the way. Some truly surreal experiences. Lots of hard work and hard partying. I thrived – and survived. I thought I knew a bit about jazz – had a comfort level with the improv and the stretched envelopes. But, I had no idea. This was a different animal for me. The......
