Song for Song For (Elegy for Joseph Jarman, 1937-2019)

I'm a good few weeks late with this, which was written soon after Joseph Jarman's passing in early January.  I haven't been keeping up with the blogging for at least a year now; things should change soon. In any case, this is for Joseph Jarman out of deep respect for what I believe his music and his poetry have taught me. And how his work has taught me more about how to listen.

Song for Song For

(Joseph Jarman, 1937-2019)

whoever heard about a better way to dance, then did;

whoever sensed life soon enough gets over with itself;

whoever got called to call out hardline America;

whoever learned to ghost-finger an alto’s sacred glyph,

a baritone’s raw mark-up language, a tenor’s thick throat;

whoever showed righteous moxy in situations when

righteous moxy was not exactly needed; whoever 

testified to the unkempt scurf of little instruments;

whoever understood the fraught, feral imperatives

of compassion; whomever good gumption never let go;

whoever decided on fiercely striated face paint

most gigs, most nights; whoever chased “uncharted microtones”;

whoever caught nothing shy of the heft of complete light; 

whoever said, “I seek new sounds / because new sounds / seek 

                                                                                                     me.”