In heaven, I dig Afro Blue
(To Jonathan Blake)

A.J. Juarez

On the way to work I listen to the radio.

Searching for something good,

I stumbled onto a jazz station.... and

Miles Davis' Sketches of Spain, pour out as

Robust echoes of Roma music released

Through magical fingering putting just the right pressure on the trumpet's valves.

These notes decant through the radio,

Becoming clairvoyant investigators of the grove they create

Because in the ordinary acts of our machine drenched world-

Like listening to the radio on the way to work; we can find the miraculous

in the melody

Or the beat or that gorgeous riff we just heard

just like miles laid it.

there are other possibilities, other beauty bound, samples,

Maybe Jazz touches a

Maybe a pissed off boy invested the scars of race and class that

Continue to wound us. Maybe he

he discovered Dexter Gordon's cool sax, Or Sun a magical cacophony,

or   the feet moving, heart thumping vulgarity of the Louis Jordan's songbook

While

Listening to Jonathan Blake's Jazz show on

On WCUW Radio.

Maybe it works that way,

that magic,

that human vibe that shakes things.


The station I am listening to could be the Emerson College station-

It could be B.U.

I am stuck in traffic and want to be here forever.

Getting to work can wait- I am in heaven.

Maybe they will play some Earl Garner or

Lady Day, or better yet, get esoteric and play

Some Mongo Santa Maria: I dig Afro Blue.

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