#24 “my melancholy baby” for stevenson palfi in the awful aftermath of hurricane katrina, amid the wreckage of his city, his neighborhood, his home, his painstaking work & his life itself, looking forward to nothing but increasing pain & suffering beyond measure as far as he could see, the relentless public indifference to the fruits of his labors, the bitter impossibility of completing his allen toussaint film already 15 years in the making, songwriter: unknown, pieced together in fits & starts, when he could wheedle enough bread for a shoot or get a print made or edit something together so he could see it—money he had to beg for from people at arts agencies who couldn’t stand him & tried to ruin his life, or people who dug his work but never gave him enough cash to make it all happen the way it was supposed to, this beautiful cat with a big heart & huge imagination, & a mind that never stopped working, the creator of “piano players rarely ever play together” starring professor longhair & tuts washington & the great toussaint, documenter of emmanuel sayles & papa john creach & jabbo “junebug” jones, employer of my daughter celia & treasured friend & accomplice ever since that day in 1982 when me & harry duncans banged on his front door on banks street & begged him to let us see “piano players” & he showed it to us— & that’s the way i’ll remember him, a guy who gave & gave of what he had, smiling through the pain that wracked his body & his heart, in love with his work & his daughter nell & the music we all love— always & forever, brother stevenson palfi, always in love with the music —st. philip st, new orleans december 30, 2005 > february 22, 2006 rochester ny january 19, 2007

#25 "leap frog" for steve cannon over the top of everything that's come before, & then hunched down for the future to vault over your back, lest we forget that these are young men, playful yet deep with intelligence, bursting with the joy of discovery & their unparalleled virtuosity, beautifully seasoned in the history & practice of their music & sure enough determined to move the music forward— leap frog, leap frog, bird & monk & dizzy in the days before the second world war —north rampart street new orleans december 10, 1996

#26 “relaxin’ with lee” for andrew jones, larry hayden & henk botwinik mr. lee bridges was around for a very long time & never a square, he lived 77 years & carried himself so humbly all over the world in his infinite hipness, never at a loss for a way to make it through whatever troubles might present themselves & come out on top with his dignity intact, & his splendid wardrobe & his beautiful smile, always revealing the radiant warmth of his personality & hustling his little books of poetry & his memoirs & his heartfelt performances, relaxed & at home wherever he went with his hundreds of friends who loved him so madly, mr. lee bridges was just about the sweetest man you would ever want to meet, from the ’40s & ’50s when he followed the music from detroit to new york city & all the high points in between, smoking reefers with king pleasure & hanging out with all the cats on the scene, then making his way across the ocean in the early ’60s, smuggling hashish from morocco & the orient to paris & amsterdam & reading his poems in the streets & the coffeeshops & cafes, mr.. lee bridges, the cannabis poet, a great American & an exemplary human being who graced our lives with love like no one else on earth & lives now forever in our hearts —detroit april 2005/ rochester ny january 18, 2007

#35 "skippy" for dr. dorothy to skip out with no word of warning, & abandon the foreseeable future without reason or thought of tomorrow or the days to come, & wipe out our long year together with no care for what might come next— then like they used to say, if you think that shit will work then, baby, skippy is a goddamned sissy —fossa cesia > roma, italy june 30 > july 1, 2007