BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE
JOHN COLTRANE
Angela, if you like Alice, you should listen to her husband, John
Coltrane. He was the Malcolm X of jazz during the 60s. He and Miles Davis had
it sewed up. I heard him for the first time when I was 12 years old, and by the
time the tune was over I was a grown man, and I never looked back. No more
sandboxes for me.
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By the time I was 16 years old I was exactly the person I am today. While I've watched my associates change as they grew older, I never changed a bit, because people like Miles and Trane helped me to see exactly who I was, and I became locked in to that identity. That’s why I’m such a loner, because when I was growing up I had absolutely nothing in common with the Motown crowd. I always saw it as frivolous skinin' and grinin' and tryin' to be cool while their lives were being torn apart - essentially, fiddling while Rome burned.
.
But just listening to Miles and Trane made me dead serious about life and who we are as Black people. There were no words to their music, so I had to add my own lyrics - and I have, which I routinely try to sing to my people today. Their essence taught me what it meant to be Black, and their melodies still sing in my heart. So, I taught the knowledge of their melodies to my children, and the knowledge within those melodies inspire everything I write to my people today. And yes, I take myself VERY seriously, and I don’t apologize for it . I'm not a tribalist, I don't follow anybody, and I'm my own hero – I learned that from them as well.
By the time I was 16 years old I was exactly the person I am today. While I've watched my associates change as they grew older, I never changed a bit, because people like Miles and Trane helped me to see exactly who I was, and I became locked in to that identity. That’s why I’m such a loner, because when I was growing up I had absolutely nothing in common with the Motown crowd. I always saw it as frivolous skinin' and grinin' and tryin' to be cool while their lives were being torn apart - essentially, fiddling while Rome burned.
.
But just listening to Miles and Trane made me dead serious about life and who we are as Black people. There were no words to their music, so I had to add my own lyrics - and I have, which I routinely try to sing to my people today. Their essence taught me what it meant to be Black, and their melodies still sing in my heart. So, I taught the knowledge of their melodies to my children, and the knowledge within those melodies inspire everything I write to my people today. And yes, I take myself VERY seriously, and I don’t apologize for it . I'm not a tribalist, I don't follow anybody, and I'm my own hero – I learned that from them as well.
THE MAN
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Young and curious, crusin' the street, my partner and I, with life at our feet. Beautiful days of summer's ilk, and beautiful ladies with legs of silk. Miles on the box with Thelonious in tow, playin’ "Round Midnite", with nothin' but soul. Miles was moanin', Thelonious was Monk, our senses were spinnin' - our top in the trunk.
.Down Century Boulevard, past Sportsman Park, North on Crenshaw, Can't wait til it's dark. Crenshaw was jammin', not like today, with cognitive people, who went their own way. Cadillacs gleamin', prosperity galore, Ladies a struttin', that gait I adore. The hood left behind, no denial or shame, among my kind of people, who'd mastered the game.
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Dreamin' and crusin', yet, chained to the hood, but into an element we both understood. Jazz was the thing that had lured our route, and no chain of poverty was keepin' us out! Cause THE MAN was in town, with his mighty ax, and he was jammin' that night at Dynamite Jack's.
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So anxious to worship THE MAN in the flesh, the first thing that mornin' we started to dress. In our youthful exuberance we saw nothin' wrong, with the hours to kill before HE would go on. Hence, there we were with nothin' to do, THE MAN'S first note at nine, and it was now only two.
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So we went to a park on Rodeo Road and proceeded to get in our Mack-daddy mode. We needed two women with presence and class, who were progressive, and sexy, and dug modern jazz.
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We lucked-out, no doubt, with Debra and Gwen, two sisters on cruse in their step-father's Benz. These women were ladies we soon recognized, not only quite lovely but exceedingly wise. We spoke of Dizzy, Dexter, Thelonious and Bird, and all of the monsters of jazz that we'd heard. Then just as our session was starting to end, Gwen mentioned Dolphy, and we were at it again.
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We partook of the bush, and we had a few beers. By eight it was like we'd been partyin' for years. But now it was time to hit Dynamite Jack's, to hear THE MAN blow, sip Scotch and relax.
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So we followed the ladies up into the hills, to a fabulous pad, must've cost a few bills. We dropped off my car, then got in the wind. We split to see HIM, in their stepfather’s Benz.
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Dynamite Jack's was the place to be, there seemed to be thousands of new things to see. Doctors, lawyers, pimps and whoes, dope fiends with their nostrils froze; Perverts, politicians (one and the same), everyone seemed to have some kind of game.
.
At 16 years old I was really impressed, with this flash, this glitz, this flamboyant success. I knew before long, that my turn would come, I'd shoot for the stars - at least, out of the slum.
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Then HE came on stage to a mighty roar, as bustling humanity hung all out the door. A quiet MAN, of knowledge and taste, yet HIS presence sent a chill through the place!
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Then flash became silence, and glitz bled to awe. Pure greatness just glistened from THIS MAN we saw. No posturing, no swagger, no hipster-like Mack, Just unfettered greatness, the essence, in fact....
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On that one precious moment, as I gaped at the stand, my young reckless mind would take hold as a man. That moment estranged from the kid that I'd been. Life’s door was flung wide, and a new man would step in.
.
Now, many years later, assessing my life, after raising two kids and a dog with a wife. THE MAN is long gone from this earthly plain, but HIS unflaunting manhood stays etched in my brain.
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A kid on that night gave birth to a plan, that night when he looked up in awe at THE MAN. Revealed was a path that would color his life, that shunned the flamboyance and glitz of the night. To shoot for the stars! That was his plan - for the stardom that's found in just being A MAN!
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He's taken two souls, and molded their lives, away from the flash, and the glitz of the night. Two college age kids now view him with awe. He now see in their eyes what that night HE saw.
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Greatness is relative, he learned from THE MAN, through HIS confident eyes and demeanor on stand. You don’t have to be famous to be someone grand, just pull up your trousers and stand tall like a man.
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It was KNOWLEDGE and WISDOM that night the kid saw; the EXCELLENCE of DISCIPLINE that put in awe, of one humble spirit, so sweet and sublime, but a spirit that'll speak to all man for all time!
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So a droplet of beauty, from this "kid" to mankind; a pearl of wisdom, a wistful rhyme; some insight he gained as he bat away tears; might his essence endure through the unfolding years?
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A journey began, on that faithful night, that moment a young set of eyes saw "First Light." When HE tapped out the rhythm to Africa Brass . . .
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and my dream to see COLTRANE had come true at last.
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Eric L. Wattree
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Eric L. Wattree
http://wattree.blogspot.com/
http://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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