"Time Remembered: Blue in Green"
We danced
so slowly,
Me — blue,
Her — green.
To the most iconic ballad
from the most iconic jazz recording
by the most iconic jazz artist,
Mr. Miles Davis.
As they played
and sang through their horns,
a light shined
so bright
that 60 years was
for her and I
a mere blink of an eye.
Back and forth,
our dance traversed
Time and Place,
remembered.
When Time stood still long enough,
long enough for me to feel
Five Time Zones coagulating in my being
all at once . . .
Miles’s sinuous trumpet
snaked through my periphery,
more magician than director,
more satellite than building.
Meanwhile,
Mr. Bill Evans,
the creator of the journey Blue in Green,
lifted my arms
and spoke to my hands that held her tight,
as though choreographed by
a cunning spider.
Her body,
caressed by Coltrane's saxophone,
wandered in my consciousness,
floating and sinking into my body.
Feeling echoes of her ancestral
yet not-so-distant past,
as a single city dweller in Korea,
dancing with US servicemen
during that war.
The players not knowing how
an original 3-line sketch by Bill would be received.
Yet, trusting each other implicitly about
why they were there,
in that studio,
that day.
I never heard so clearly
all their pain,
in all that beauty
from Five Men, playing.
Of private and public torture
exacted on those who dared to truly improvise
in 1950's America.
To
paint non-representationally,
write non-iambic poetry,
choreograph nonsensically.
amid a decade of omnipresent conformity.
Feeling each player's family breathe
into this singular ballad,
their neighborhoods streaming
before their eyes and ears,
their teachers praising, yelling, acknowledging,
stunned . . .
All the while,
intuiting their Great Ancestors
who supplied enough
musical wisdom
and pain
to stamp their playing forever
with
arms that lifted
and
spoke through their hands.
Yes,
I was there when
Time Remembered
to turn
Blue into Green…
June 2019
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©2019,
Michael Smolens