1. |
Humphf
02:38
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|
#2
"humphf"
for big red
they say monk
couldn't play the music. they say,
monk, he limited
by his own vision
& just can't play right. monk,
he too weird. his music
don't sound right, and he gets up
& dances
while he's playing,
like a jackleg preacher
at a revival meeting
in an old tent in north carolina.
they say monk sound too much
like a whorehouse piano player
from some pre-harlem ghett o
stuffed with back-woods renegades
& sporting women & gamblers,
street-level intellectuals. they say
monk, what is that shit
you trying to play, you just can't
do it that way,
you too way out baby,
that stuff ain't you. & monk
in his infinite knowledge
& wisdom, shoots a grin
from behind the piano,
wiggles his ass on the stool,
lays down another few bars
of utter genius,
turns it over to the tenor player
& rises to dance beside the piano,
some more of that old north carolina boogaloo
—oak park, mi
may 30, 1984
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2. |
Everything Happens To Me
02:56
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|
#97
“everything happens to me”
for mark ritsema
all my life I’ve paid
& paid, until my dues card
is punched up
on all 4 sides,
a child
of relative privilege who chose
to ‘take the way
of the lowest’ in most things—
race traitor & renegade,
beatnik,
dope fiend,
poet provocateur
living from hand to mouth
& euro to euro,
sleeping on the couches
& extra beds of my friends,
a man without a country
& a post office box in new orleans
for a permanent address,
a pre-pay vodafone
& a laptop computer,
one suitcase stuffed with clothing
& a bag full of manuscripts
& hand-burnt CDs—
to keep my head straight
& my heart right
to keep up my travels
& carry on the struggle
into another new year,
taking my little verses
& great big world outlook
everywhere people will have me
—amsterdam
january 7, 2004/
rotterdam
january 15, 2004
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3. |
Remember
00:37
|
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4. |
April In Paris
03:00
|
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5. |
Ruby, My Dear
03:36
|
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|
#6
"ruby, my dear"
for estelle
a red candle
burning in a red
glass on a red tablecloth
in a dark corner
of a darkened nightclub,
a cigarette
burning in a red
plastic ashtray, a chesterfield
king
with lipstick red
on the end
& the smoke
from the cigarette in her eyes,
her hair is black satin
against skin of chocolate brown
or golden cream, or any of the million
gorgeous hues of american women
of african descent, purest black
to highest yellow
& every imaginable shade
in between, this is a song
to the woman in the red dress,
erzulie, or ruby
my dear
as monk would have her
pinned against the keyboard,
lush in the hips & thighs,
lush of lips & breasts,
the most beautiful ass
in the history of western civilization,
turned out over the top
of the thighs, out
to the western edge of africa
& back to the states again
to meet the small of her back,
the smell of jasmine & musk
rising from her flesh
in the closeness & warmth
of the tiny room, her eyes
so impossibly soulful
trained on the bandstand,
the band is bird,
monk on piano,
mingus & shadow wilson
at 3:00 am sunday morning,
a bottle of champagne
half drunk on the table,
the music is soft & sweet
yet as deep with intelligence
& spirit as the woman herself—
"ruby, my dear"
filling her big heart with song
—detroit
january 12 , 1985
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6. |
Pannonica
02:50
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7. |
Blue Hawk
00:35
|
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8. |
Brilliant Corners
11:03
|
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9. |
Functional
02:00
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10. |
Consecutive Seconds
00:31
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11. |
I Surrender Dear
03:03
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12. |
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13. |
Criss Cross
02:18
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14. |
Friday The 13th
06:35
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15. |
Monk In Orbit
03:59
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16. |
In Walked Bud
08:13
|
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17. |
Reptile House / Fat Boy
06:45
|
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John Sinclair Detroit, Michigan
"Sinclair is an iconic figure of ‘60s counterculture, famous for, among other things, having co-founded the anti-racist
White Panther Party"
daily.bandcamp.com/features/beatnik-youth-interview
"John has taken the Blues, many Blues, many Blues singers, their words, their feeling, their lives, their conditions, the places and traces of where they was and is.
--Amiri Baraka.
... more
John Sinclair recommends:
Mobile Homeland
by John Sinclair
John Sinclair with a Detroit All-Star line up.
go to album
MONK’S DREAM JOHN SINCLAIR & PLANET D NONET
by Planet D Nonet wsg John Sinclair
John live with The Planet D Nonet playing Thelonious Monk.
go to album
John Sinclair And Youth change the musical landscape.
go to albumIf you like Criss Cross, you may also like:
Cerebral palsy curbed his ability to play guitar the conventional way, so Nagoda learned double slide, this is his debut LP.
go to album
A concept record about coming-of-age gleefully grifts from all types of rock music, from garage to glam to power pop.
go to album
Inspired by their travels in New Orleans, Naples, and the UK, the “Italian-hills country blues” duo pen a global love letter to roots music.
go to album
