New Day Jazz
Justin Desmangles
We of the Streets By Richard Wright
Streets are full of the scent of us—odors of onions drifting from doorways, effuvium
of baby new-born downstairs, seeping smells of warm soap-suds—the streets are
lush with the ferment of our living.
Our sea is water swirling in gutters; our lightning is the blue flame of an acetylene
torch; billboards blossom with the colors of a billion flowers; we hear thunder
when the “L” roars; our strip of sky is a dirty shirt.
We have grown used to nervous landscapes, chimney-broken horizons, and the sun
dying between tenements; we have grown to love streets, the ways of streets; our
bodies are hard like worn pavement.
Our emblems are street emblems: stringy curtains blowing in windows; sticky-fingered
babies tumbling on door-steps; deep-cellared laughs meant for everybody; slow
groans heard in area-ways.
Our sunshine is a common hope; our common summer and common winter a common
joy and a common sorrow; our fraternity is shoulder-rubbing crude with unspoken
love; our password the wry smile that speaks a common fate.
Our love is nurtured by the soft flares of gas-lights; our hate is an icy wind screaming
around corners.
And there is something in the streets that made us feel immortality when we rushed
along ten thousand strong, hearing our chant fill the world, wanting to do what
none of us would do alone, aching to shout the forbidden word, knowing that we
of the streets are deathless. . . .
from New Masses, April 13, 1937
Harlan Jackson's Mask No. II (from 1949; shown at right)
Genre
Blues & Classical & Experimental & Jazz & Poetry & Literature
Missed the Show?
Artist | Song | Album | Label | Comments |
---|---|---|---|---|
Ella Fitzgerald & Ellis Larkins | Someone To Watch Over Me | Ella Sings Gershwin | Decca | |
Ella Fitzgerald & Ellis Larkins | My One & Only | Ella Sings Gershwin | Decca | |
Charles Mingus | Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams | Newport Rebels | Candid | |
Miles Davis | Solar | Walkin' | Prestige | |
Kenny Dorham / Ernie Henry | Jazz-Classic | 2 Horns 2 Rhythm | Riverside | |
Kenny Dorham | Blue Spring | Kenny Dorham & Friends | Jazzland | |
Karin Krog & Dexter Gordon | Blue Eyes | Some Other Spring | Storyville | |
Airbreak | ||||
Sarah Vaughn | All I Do | Sarah + 2 | Roulette | |
Sarah Vaughn | I Understand | Sarah + 2 | Roulette | |
Sonny Clark | Minor Meeting | Sonny Clark Quintets | Blue Note - Japan | |
Sonny Clark | Eastern Incident | Sonny Clark Quintets | Blue Note - Japan | |
Betty Carter | Look No Further | Inside Betty Carter | United Artists | |
Betty Carter | Beware My Heart | Inside Betty Carter | United Artists | |
Tadd Dameron | Just Plain Talkin' | The Magic Touch | Riverside | |
Tadd Dameron featuring Barbara Winfield | If You Could See Me Now | The Magic Touch | Riverside | |
Louis Bellson | Softly With Feeling | Thunderbird | Impulse | |
Paul Chambers | Melody | 1st Bassman | VeeJay | |
Airbreak | ||||
Sarah Vaughn | Squeeze Me | Sarah + 2 | Roulette | |
Sarah Vaughn | All Or Nothing At All | Sarah + 2 | Roulette | |
Sarah Vaughn | The Very Thought Of You | Sarah + 2 | Roulette | |
Miles Davis | Squeeze Me | The New Miles Davis Quintet | Prestige | |
Sonny Rollins | Mangoes | Sonny's Time | Jazzland | |
Kenny Dorham | The End Of A Love Affair | 2 Horns 2 Rhythm | Riverside | |
Eddie Jefferson | Back In Town | Letter From Home | Riverside - Japan | |
Eddie Jefferson | Soft & Furry | Letter From Home | Riverside - Japan | |
Mark Murphy | Doodlin' | Rah! | Riverside - Japan | |
Airbreak | ||||
Charles Mingus featuring Eric Dolphy | Stormy Weather | The Complete Candid Recordings | Mosaic | |
Karin Krog & Dexter Gordon | I Wish I Knew | Some Other Spring | Storyville | |
Karin Krog & Dexter Gordon | Everybody's Somebody's Fool | Some Other Spring | Storyville | |
Charles Mingus | Reincarnation Of A Lovebird | The Complete Candid Recordings | Mosaic | |
Airbreak | ||||
Eliot Lawrence Orchestra | Elegy For Two Clarinets | Elliot Lawrence Plays Gerry Mulligan Arrangements | Fantasy |