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

Julie Varughese
‘Anti-Black’ Claim Raised About Cuba As Solidarity Activists Stopped at U.S. Border & Black Socialists Arraigned in United States for Collaborating with Russia
10 May 2023
Claims of anti-Black racism in revolutionary countries should be treated with great skepticism. This trope is used as a tool to target countries for regime change plots and other attacks. While in…
Austin Cole
Witnessing Afro Cubans and Social Change
10 May 2023
There cannot be any discussion of Cuban politics that does not include perspectives from the African descended population. There is much to learn from people who are living in a revolutionary process…
Micah Herskind
This is the Atlanta Way: A Primer on Cop City
10 May 2023
Cop City is the culmination of years of "Atlanta Way" neo-liberalism intended to advantage corporate interests and affluent white people. Black people have been pushed out and those that remain live…
Ramzy Baroud
Erasure vs. Sumud: How the Nakba Came to Define the Collective Palestinian Identity
10 May 2023
The catastrophe for the Palestinian people began 75 years ago and their struggle against the apartheid state continues.
Abayomi Azikiwe
Sudan Conflict Provides Rationale for Further Imperialist Militarization
10 May 2023
The United States deploys naval warships and drones after creating the conditions for destabilization in Sudan. AFRICOM's presence is expanding under the guise of protecting US nationals.