Jumoke decided to take Cynda Williams DOWN on Sunday night, singing "Harlem Blues " from Mo' Better Blues. She was talking Denzel in a wifebeater and I started thinking bout the movie, and writing this right there at Ronnie Scotts.
embouchure
the lips form
themselves into tone
notes bend to kiss their creases
pressure on off off on on
light extreme round tight
stretched to satchel
interplay of pressure and exhale
can render you Dizzy
this is a marriage of breath
this intimacy of metal to flesh
like lance piercing stiff night blue
there is a call to swing in tandem
to treble on the wire of whim
to adagio into thin air
to bend back back bend limbo
til it sees its own ankles
this is what it means to blow for a living –
alchemize wavelengths into melody
pressurize physiognomy
til it aligns with divine
taking creation myth between lips
rendering it blissful soundstrings
singing the world new to your own signature
preaching 6/8 to 4/4 existence
this
is tastier than sex
more sublime than woman
this here
holds you
enters your dreams
wakes you reverie
this
is why you don’t stop
when you taste
your own blood
will never let anyone bust you up
why you will die
with that horn in your hands
midway to raising it
for one last
blast.
c. e. amato
4.11
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