Foreword
VAMPING (Early Jazz Poems)
LANGSTON HUGHES
Jazzonia
Jazz Band in a Parisian Cabaret
The Cat and the Saxophone (2 a.m.)
Trumpet Player
CARL SANDBURG
Jazz Fantasia
HELENE JOHNSON
Poem
VACHEL LINDSAY
The Jazz of This Hotel
E. E. CUMMINGS
“god pity me whom (god distinctly has)”
WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS
Ol’ Bunk’s Band
STERLING A. BROWN
Cabaret
MAXWELL BODENHEIM
Bringing Jazz
MURIEL RUKEYSER
Homage to Literature
FRANK MARSHALL DAVIS
Jazz Band
GWENDOLYN BROOKS
We Real Cool
SWINGING (Jazz Origins, New Orleans & Ellingtonia)
ROBERT SARGENT
Touching the Past
WILLIAM MATTHEWS
The Buddy Bolden Cylinder
LUCIEN QUINCY
In Praise of Buddy Bolden
ANDY RAZAF
Black and Blue (What Did I Do to Be So Black and Blue?)
ERNST MOERMAN
Louis Armstrong
A. B. SPELLMAN
“Jelly wrote”
HAYDEN CARRUTH
The Fantastic Names of Jazz
PHILIP LARKIN
For Sidney Bechet
DANA GIOIA
Bix Beiderbecke (1903–1931)
HAYDEN CARRUTH
“Sure,” said Benny Goodman
JAYNE CORTZ
Rose Solitude
BILLY STRAYHORN
Lush Life
ELIZABETH ALEXANDER
Billy Strayhorn Writes “Lush Life”
Four Bongos: Take a Train
CLARENCE MAJOR
The Syncopated Cakewalk
NTOZAKE SHANGE
Mood Indigo
BOP (Bird & Beyond)
BOB KAUFMAN
War Memoir
Walking Parker Home
Crootey Songo
STERLING D. PLUMPP
Eleven from Velvet Bebop Kente Cloth
WARING CUNEY
Charles Parker, 1920–1955
DAVID LEHMAN
May 12
OWEN DODSON
Yardbird’s Skull (for Charlie Parker)
ROBERT CREELY
Chasing the Bird
CATHERINE BOWMAN
Charlie Parker Birthday Celebration, Tompkins Square Park
DIONISIO D. MARTINEZ
Charlie Parker: Almost Like Being in Love
KING PLEASURE (CLARENCE PETERS)
Parker’s Mood
ROBERT PINSKY
Victrola
LAWSON FUSAO INADA
Filling the Gap
HORN SECTION
FRANK LONDON
Jazz
TED JOANS
Jazz Is My Religion
Lester Young
TED BERRIGAN
String of Pearls
AMIRI BARAKA (LEROI JONES)
Pres Spoke in a Language
AL YOUNG
Prez in Paris, 1959
FRANK O'HARA
Personal Poem
GREGORY CORSO
For Miles
DARRELL BURTON
Blue in Green
PATRICIA SPEARS JONES
The Blues of This Day
KYLE DARGAN
Melody Forensic
MARK DOTY
Almost Blue
EDWARD HIRSCH
Art Pepper
QUINCY TROUPE
Snake-Back Solo
CHARLES WRIGHT
Body and Soul II
PAUL BLACKBURN
Listening to Sonny Rollins at the Five Spot
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA
February in Sydney
SHEETS OF SOUND (Coltrane & Co.)
A. B. SPELLMAN
John Coltrane
MICHAEL S. HARPER
Dear John, Dear Coltrane
Here Where Coltrane Is
Reuben, Reuben
JEAN VALENTINE
Coltrane, Syeeda’s Song Flute
MATTHEW GRAHAM
After the War; When Coltrane Only Wanted to Play Dance Tunes
CORNELIUS EADY
Alabama, c. 1963: A Ballad by John Coltrane
William Carlos Williams
SEAN SINGER
Photo of John Coltrane, 1963
CALVIN HERNTON
Fall Down
ETHERIDGE KNIGHT
For Eric Dolphy
HAKI MADHUBUTI (DON LEE)
Don’t Cry, Scream
AMIRI BARKA (LEROI JONES)
Am/Trak
KAMAU BRATHWAITE
Trane
WILLIAM MATTHEWS
Blues for John Coltrane, Dead at 41
PHILIP LEVINE
Soloing
NATHANIEL MACKEY
“John Coltrane Arrived with an Egyptian Lady”
RHYTHM SECTION
ANGELA BALL
Jazz
WILLIAM MATTHEWS
Mingus at the Showplace
Bud Powell, Paris, 1959
PAUL ZIMMER
One O’Clock Jump
KEORAPETSE KGOSITSILE
For Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers
MARTÍN ESPADA
Shaking Hands with Mongo
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA
Copacetic Mingus
Elegy for Thelonious
CHARLES SIMIC
Crepuscule with Nellie
BILLY COLLINS
Snow
WILLIAM CORBETT
Thelonious Sphere Monk
LAWSON FUSAO INADA
Listening Images
AL YOUNG
Ruby My Dear
FREE JAZZ
JOHN KEENE
Dark to Themselves
MAJOR JACKSON
Leaving Saturn
THULANI DAVIS
C.T.’s Variation
KENNETH REXROTH
from Written to Music
HARRYETTE MULLEN
Music for Homemade Instruments
N. H. PRITCHARD
Gyre’s Galax
AMIRI BARAKA (LEROI JONES)
Epistrophe
MUTING ( for Billie Holiday)
LANGSTON HUGHES
Song for Billie Holiday
LEWIS ALLEN
Strange Fruit
BILLIE HOLIDAY and ARTHUR HERZOG, JR.
God Bless the Child
KEVIN YOUNG
Stardust
C. D. WRIGHT
The Secret Life of Musical Instruments
TERRANCE HAYES
Lady Sings the Blues
TONY HOAGLAND
Poem in Which I Make the Mistake of Comparing Billie Holiday to a Cosmic Washerwoman
SONIA SANCHEZ
For Our Lady
JANET M. CHOI
What I’m Wild For
FRANK O'HARA
The Day Lady Died
RITA DOVE
Canary
LAWON FUSAO INADA
The Journey
List of Authors
Acknowledgments
