"Sendin' The Vipers"

Way back in the day
when marijuana was something
people smoked in Mexico
or Mexicans brought with them
to the United States
& smoked quietly amongst themselves

there were musicians
in New Orleans & Los Angeles & Chicago
who were introduced to weed
by their Mexican friends
& began to apply its magical properties
to the shaping of the new music

just then beginning to emerge
from deep within
the hearts & minds
of a new generation of Americans
born after the Emancipation
of the slaves
& on or around
the turning
of a new century
propelled by electricity
& charged with the promise
of a wild new kind of individual freedom—

Way back in the day
when the music that would be called jazz first issued forth
from the trumpets & drums
of musicians in New Orleans
who knew how to make people dance

& took the music with them
to Los Angeles in 1912
& Chicago a couple of years later
& Joe "King" Oliver & his Creole Jazz Band
came up from New Orleans
to pack the cabarets & nightclubs

of the South Side
with the sound of jazz
& set the tempo
for the development of the music
for everyone
who followed them

& in 1922
Joe Oliver called up Louis Armstrong
to join him in Chicago
& set the whole world on fire
with their brilliant improvisations
& the unbridled power of swing

—November 1998