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

Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
Getting Ethiopia Dead Wrong
20 Sep 2023
Rasmus Sonderriis's book is a thorough exposé of the West's destructively deceitful narrative about Ethiopia's two-year Tigray War.
Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
BAR Book Forum: Celeste Winston’s Book “How to Lose the Hounds”
20 Sep 2023
This week’s featured author is Celeste Winston.
Jon Jeter
Understanding the White Supremacy at the Center of the 'Class Over Race' Debate
20 Sep 2023
Any talk of discussing class instead of racism is disingenuous in a country which uses every opportunity to indulge in anti-Black racism. The history of racism in the labor movement is just one…
Essam Elkorghli
Libya’s disastrous flooding… Causes and hope?
20 Sep 2023
The U.S./NATO destruction of the Libyan state in 2011 was followed unilateral coercive measures, sanctions, which rendered that nation unable to maintain dams which failed during a recent storm.…
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
Whiter than Green: How a Not So Secret Listserv Exercises white “Supremacy” Ideology In Lieu of Climate and Racial Justice
20 Sep 2023
Liberalism impacts every movement in the U.S. and climate justice organizations are not exempt.