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
DECLARATION: The Commander in Chief, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, to the People of Hayti, Gonaives, January 1, 1804
04 Jan 2023
A round-up of The Black Agenda Review’s posts from 2022 – and a reprint of Haiti’s January 1, 1804 declaration of independence.
Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
If You Wouldn’t Ask Hannibal Lecter to Stop Mass Atrocities, Don’t Ask “The International Community”
04 Jan 2023
The hope that the U.S. will intervene anywhere in the world for humanitarian reasons is misguided in the extreme. Claims of concern are always a ruse hiding ulterior motives. Imperialist…
Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
In 2022 the U.S.-Led Unipolar Order Was More Unstable Than Ever
04 Jan 2023
Every U.S. action intended to increase its power actually results in it being diminished. Multipolarity is here to stay.
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Scouting
04 Jan 2023
Scouting day dreaming, dreaming, anticipating a Hollywood Bowl where some master painter splashed stars all over night’s navy blue canvas…
Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
BAR Book Forum: Interview with Adam Bledsoe
04 Jan 2023
This week’s featured scholar is Adam Bledsoe. Bledsoe is Assistant Professor of Geography at the University of Minnesota. His article “Neither Ground on Which to Stand, nor Self to Defend: The…