let's not diss one another

[Wayne Johnson]

Hey, Jon, way cool poem, dude!

I played a Baritone horn for some ten years.  It has three valves, as does
the $26.00 Indian valve trombone.  Had a real, slide trombone but I just
didn't want to spend all that time learning the positions.  Is that lazy or
what?

Bob Brookmeyer is like a G*D to me!

Don't you know.

Meanwhile, back to Miles Davis and friends.

Keep your, uh, bongos, dry.

wj

Ever hear the Danny Kaye song about the Congo?  "Bingo, bango, bongo, I
don't want to leave the Congo, oh, no, no, no, no, no."  I used to drive my
grandmother crazy playing this when I was a kid.  I think the flip side was
Spike Jones!

Heh, heh, heh.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jon Ford" <jonmfordster@hotmail.com>
To: <austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net>
Sent: Sunday, March 28, 2004 3:41 PM
Subject: Re: let's not diss one another


>
>
> &gt;btw.  You will, no doubt, be equally horrified to learn that I have
just
> &gt;purchased (from India) a new valve trombone and am trying to get my
> &gt;embouchure (sp?) back to what ever degree that is possible at this
late
> &gt;date.  Want to play some Billy Strayhorn and Cole Porter.
>
>
> Wayne, I believe everyone has a right to play music badly. Once, as a kid,
I
> tried to play my father's beat up trumpet; I even pounded the bongos for a
> couple of years back in high school.
> Enclosed is a poem about one of  my adolescent efforts at musicianship. So
> at least something came out of it !
> Jon
>
> Roy Eldridge
> "Serious as a heart-attack.he was at his best when he let it rip."
> (Francis Davis, The VillageVoice 2004)
>
> I heard his name on the radio
> and a sampling from the Verve box, just released
> coffin back from hell
> the flames still licking at the embers
>
> scratchy old 78s re-mastered
> filling the tight space of my car
> with a trumpet, groaning like a man's voice
> hacking and spitting--it took me back,
>
> lifting the horn from its black,
> velvety cradle, putting to my lip
> tasting brass once again
> trace of old spit on  the mouthpiece.
>
> And  I played it, the wild
> loose sound of a  kid with no lip,
> no discipline, no idea
> of where I  was supposed to come in,
> aware the whole time this  horn
>
> was not mine, but tasting it,
> making it vibrate the cheap chandelier
> thinking of the Dayton high school
> marching band, a picture framed in black,
> young Dad in his uniform, skinny as a white clarinet
>
> clutching this same horn for dear
> life, trying to stay in that moment
> the war just a speech on the radio
> knowing he'd go if he had to
>
> hoping he'd live long enough
> to play in  a band like Roy Eldridge
> his black hair slicked back,
> tux immaculate,
>
> only the sound of the band in his head,
> the trumpet almost playing itself,
> except when he soloed, oh then, all that tracking
> veered off  in sheer free-fall
>
> down to the river of notes, drinking it up
> spewing it out in the room.
> They could feel it all over their ears, their bodies,
> the invasion of something they never had dreamed
>
> would be there, the rest of the century
> calling them up, drawing them in.
>
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