Debora Curry
English Dept - Administrative Assistant
Email: debora.curry@gcccd.edu
Office Hours: Monday-Friday 8am to 10am and 2pm to 4pm - email Debora for link for her Zoom Office hours
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| Poem: Blues |
Blues Pt. I
Ole blues
Them Ray Charles blues
with weeping
willow tree Bags
I mean Milt Jackson
“Soul Brothers”[1]
Brother in the Lord
Lord God Blues
Who created
Leadbelly
& Jimmy Yancey[2]
& Lightnin’
Brothers
Ole Black God
Up in Blues-Heaven
With the angel
of Bessie Smith on his left hand
Leadbelly on his right
& Jimmy Yancey
Jimmy Yancey
Who recently died
11 years ago
Ole Jimmy Yancey
His Christ
Jimmy Yancey
Messiah of piano play
Buddha of the Blues
How mournful
& Ray Charles
In the dark
Ray Charles
Who lives in hell
who spits anguish
and agony of sightlessness
Through his alto sax
on old traditional
“How Long Blues.”
Oh God
Ray Charles
When you die
& go to blues heaven
God will bow down before you
as his superior
& what man with soul
can even forget
that chorous [sic]
on Soul Brothers:
“How Long Blues,”[3]
or “Sweet 16 Bars.”[4]
On this “Soul Brothers”
which I listen to
you have also
the later Oscar Petiford [sic][5]
who fell of a bicycle
In Germany
And lay asleep on the cobblestones
Until they found him
& Rushed him
to a hospital.
Too late
He hemorraged [sic].
The great Oscar Pettiford
Composer of “Bohemia After Dark.”
But on the date in question
When they recorded “How Long Blues”
He knew his place
in relation
to Ray
& Bags[6]
He kindly stepped back
to let his mentors pass.
But for the music!
I play it
over and over
again.
Yeah
Here comes that Ray Charles solo again
That crying alto saxophone
Groaning in the night
In eternal night
for the man who plays it
for the man
who will never see me
or his album covers
or his audiences
or the recording engineers
with tears in their eyes
marveling at the beauty
of it all.
Ray Charles
and the blues
and my tears.
Oh yes.
Pt. II
The blues
Go get um, bags
Whail [sic] im
tear im up
oh rockin blues
Blue Funk
Oh soul, Bags
Yeah!—
Change ‘em
You know
that secret
you go
Go Rock. These blues are tough
[1] Ray Charles and Milt “Bags” Jackson collaborated on the 1958 blues album, Soul Brothers. [See “Letter: Dec.13, 1962”]
[2] Yancey, Jimmy. b. 1894. African-American boogie-woogie pianist, composer, and lyricist.
[3] "How Long Blues”: originally recorded in 1928 by the American blues duo Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell; credited as one of the first blues standards and subsequently covered by many artists in the 20th century, including Ray Charles.
[4] “Sweet 16 Bars”: instrumental composition considered a standard-setter for sixteen-bar blues, covered by Ray Charles and covered by many others
[5] Pettiford, Oscar. b. 1922. American bebop jazz musician and composer
[6] Ray Charles and Milt “Bags” Jackson.
Debora Curry
English Dept - Administrative Assistant
Email: debora.curry@gcccd.edu
Office Hours: Monday-Friday 8am to 10am and 2pm to 4pm - email Debora for link for her Zoom Office hours
8800 Grossmont College Drive
El Cajon, California 92020
619-644-7000
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