Jazz: The Music of Serious Black Minds

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

Jazz: The Music of Serious Black Minds
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Dexter Gordon

I’d like to take a minute to play you an essay, a little intellectual funk, from a Black perspective. Listen for Ray Brown’s struttin’ bass line beneath my words, because if you listen closely, you can hear him struttin’ down Central Avenue, past the ghost of L.A.’s Dunbar Hotel, the Brass Rail, and down the streets and alleyways of Harlem, New York, in a slow and funky blues.
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It was listening to this big-city blues drenched in the language of jazz as a kid, that initially turned the lights on in my head. It was while listening to people like Bird, Miles, Trane, Jackie McLean, Dexter Gordon, and the other denizens of the jazz culture, that it became clear to me that a people who could produce this kind of excellence could do anything. I then began to explore the claim that we hadn’t, and the resulting knowledge - which I'm still accumulating - has served to broaden both my consciousness, and my horizons.

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Today, I even base my writings on Charlie Parker solos. First, I lay-down a foundation, by thinking outside of the box and questioning conventional wisdom. Then I lay-out the chord progressions of my theme, by beginning to tell the people what I think they NEED to hear, instead of trying to become a star by regurgitating what they WANT to hear. I then elaborate, expand, and substantiate in a flourish of thoughts from a Black perspective, which lays out the landscape as I see it, in a slow and funky blues.
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So, yes, I always instill the essence of bebop into my prose, because as I see it, that’s who we are. Our consciousness is the music of our minds, so going through life trying to play Mozart, or a variation thereof, is a gross waste of time. It’s just not us, and we will never achieve our full potential as a people by playing someone else’s tune. We’ve got to stick to a slow and funky Blues, because that's what we know - and that’s who we are.
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Now, about Jackie:

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When Jackie McLean first appeared on the scene he swung it like nobody else;
He stood all alone, with that bittersweet tone, owing nobody, only himself.
With his furious attack he could take you back to the beauty of Yardbird’s song,
but that solemn moan made it all his own, as burning passion flowed
lush from his horn. Hearing "Love and Hate" made Jazz my fate, joyous anguish
dripped blue from his song. He both smiled and cried and dug deep-down inside,
until the innocence of my childhood was gone.
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He took me to a place that had no face, I was so young when I heard his sweet call,
but he parted the fog and in no time at all, a child of bebop sprung fully enthralled.
As I heard this new sound, and embraced the profound, childish eyes now saw as a man; I stood totally perplexed, but I couldn’t step back, from the hunger of my mind to expand.
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I saw Charlie and Lester, and a smiling young Dexter, as I peered into Jackie’s sweet horn; it was a place that I knew, though I’d never been to, but a place that I now call my home.
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Buster, let me hear you strut, - Da doom da doom doom da da da doom doom doom . . . Now, take us on outta here, Sarah.

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Eric L. Wattree
wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
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Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

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