"Cooking With Hi Heat"
My favorite foods are usually cooked with
Hi Heat —
A fast blast at first,
followed by a slow coast.
The memory of that blast
imbuing every bite,
With a subtlety and nuance
that is spherical,
and numinous.
Some of my favorite composers
seem to create in the same way,
Bringing the memory of their pioneering heat
to familiar forms,
usually inhabited by more
pedestrian practitioners.
I read that Igor Stravinsky
wrote his charming ballet Petruskha
in the same breath as his riotous
Rite Of Spring.
I marvel at Olivier Messiaen's
sublime setting of O Sacrum Convivium,
written within feet of Two Monodies in Quarter-Tones
for the electronic Ondes Martenot.
I heard the outrageous
(and outrageously colorful)
Little Richard
going back to singing Gospel,
steeped in the knowledge that
The Almighty was already in each of us.
I saw first-hand the irreverent Art Lande
penning a ballad at his piano
while his multi-charactered polyphony
and moments of stage reclining
faded into deep repose.
I sensed that when Dave Douglas
composed a blues on his trumpet,
his modernity gently swept the listener over
with gardenias and wisteria.
Are composers the only artists who use
Hi Heat ?
I doubt it . . .
May 2020
