Saxophonist/composer John Coltrane memorialized this incident in his song “Alabama.” In this video excerpt from a radio special, “Tell Me How Long Trane’s Been Gone” radio journalist Steve Rowland documents a speculation that one of Coltrane’s compositional influences was the cadence of the eulogy Dr. King delivered at the girls’ funeral. I find this extraordinary, a further, subtle example of the innovative ways Black music and words can resonate with each other.

This clip, “Blues Montage,” features Langston reading a couple of his own poems, from the LP Weary Blues, recorded 3-17-1958. For digital-aged listeners, LPs (short for “long playing” vinyl recordings) had sides, and flipsides. On this A Side, the band organized by producer Leonard Feather consisted of Milt Hinton (bass); Sam Taylor (clarinet & tenor sax); Osie Johnson (drums); Al Williams (piano); Vic Dickinson (trombone); and Red Allen (trumpet). On the flipside, Langston's backup band was the then current Jazz Workshop aggregation led by bassist/composer Charles Mingus.

Following their successful collaboration, the pair made plans to work on another serious work. Langston wrote the poetry, Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz, and annotated his manuscript with musical ideas to run by Mingus and pianist Randy Weston. But Langston passed before they had a chance to record it. 

Studying tedjoans was one assignment. We asked the poets to analyze the interactions between ted and his band members while reading. We expected them to put themselves in the poet’s place, and say anything else they noted about performance parameters. We wanted saturation in the response, not a simple like-dislike type of reaction. This meant watching the video several times.

I invite you to do the same now, if you are so inclined.

Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers
“A Night In Tunisia”
Blue Note Records (1960)

Morgan’s “Yama” Jazz Mess

If you could get into saxophonist

Wayne Shorter's musical head 

what could you find?

Dude's been playing stuff

a long life's worth.

But you can. 

On his Facebook page he recommended "Yama," 

little something he played with 

now passed masterful collaborators

six decades back: Morgan, Timmons, Merritt,  Blakey.

Shorter thought this outing 

was sorta cool, what they did 

doing time at 

the university of buhaina blakey. 

And to think he played this 

with them nightly for a while, 

when all we have is this one 

measly take. 

The definition of music

somebody literarily

wants to call 'jazz.'

Sounds