Bird, strings, Big Chief: 100: Harlem (For Charlie Parker/Donald Harrison/Harlem Symphony Orchestra) | Black Agenda Report

Bird, strings, Big Chief: 100: Harlem (For Charlie Parker/Donald Harrison/Harlem Symphony Orchestra)

Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence

08 Sep 2021

🖨️ Print Article

Photo: Janine Robinson

Bird, strings, Big Chief: 100: Harlem

(For Charlie Parker/Donald Harrison/Harlem Symphony Orchestra)

Gathering witnesses bearing beautiful collisions—

Kansas City, New Orleans, Harlem—in Harlem. Only

Harlem fetes YardBird in Marcus Garvey Park. Only

Harlem has Big Easy Chief of Congo Nation do the

honors. It’s still a COVID 19 scene and Black masking’s

an act of communal resistance…

It’s still a COVID 19 scene and the virus’s variations

are playing “Giant Steps” within Monk’s complicated

compositions. It’s still a COVID 19 scene and greed

driven confederate governors are playing with lives;

Playing simple songs sounding like “Mississippi Hot-

dog”/“Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars and Bars…”

Spy Boys check Jazz Tribe temps and statuses.

They buy Big Chief time to procure and secure

Suspenders; adjust his invisible headdress and

prepare sacred songs for meeting The Peoples’ Tribe.

Charlie Parker’s music’s magic—Blues magnet gathering

grassroots, salt of the earth—Harlem’s finest—like

shavings of steel hardened by white heat and hammer

A drizzle decrescendos and morphs into the perfect

prelude, into micro climate mist—handing humidity a

rare defeat. The weather’s a bittersweet reminder of

Impermanence. Change—spiraling lower to higher—birth

to death; reminding us who are “Just Friends,” “Now’s

The Time” to connect—this evening’s the only time we own…

Older gentlemen—second wave Jitterbugs—with

muscle memory of Lindy Hop to Bebop honor the

Moment. They select skilled younger partners to

Swing, spin, twirl; showing off middle year bodies

more beautiful than perfect: cleavage, calves and

sculpted thighs revealed as colorful knee-high skirts rise

Maybe they couldn’t keep Malcolm alive or hold on to

Houses grandparents paid off. But tonight they hold

on to one another—hold on to Charlie Parker—Bird

with strings attached…

Former forklift driver/warehouse worker/janitor, Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet; BAR's Poet-in-Residence; and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC. You can Vote for his work at:

GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-town-criers-big-tooth-fund

PayPal: paypal.me/towncrierRNT

© 2021. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

Music

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.

More Stories

Editors, The Black Agenda Review
INTERVIEW: France and the Colonial Roots of Black Citizenship, Maboula Soumohoro, 2021
11 Dec 2024
“How do you fight racism in a land where racism obviously exists, the far right is ascendent, but race is not accepted as a category?”
Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
From Relative “Peace” to Chaos: The First Phase of a New War Returns to Syria
11 Dec 2024
The fall of the Syrian government is being heralded by Western liberals and "leftists." The collapse is not the liberation that is being presented by the US and its corporate media partners.
Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
French Court Convicts French-Cameroonian Journalist Charles Onana of Speech Crime
11 Dec 2024
A French criminal court has convicted a journalist for writing dissident history about Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Jon Jeter
The White Settlers’ Bizarre Economic Strategy of Terrorizing Black People
11 Dec 2024
Jordan Neely's killing and the subsequent acquittal of Daniel Penny can be seen as part of the reactionary existential panic felt by whites whenever the country experiences growing economic…
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
History’s Hired US
11 Dec 2024
"History’s Hired US" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.