Liner Notes

White Buffalo Prayer: John Sinclair & His Blues Scholars featuring Wayne Kramer

2006-01-16T10:23:33Z

White Buffalo Prayer
John Sinclair & His Blues Scholars
Featuring Wayne Kramer
SpyBoy Records SBCD-1001

By John Sinclair

For many First Nations people, the birth of a female white buffalo calf named Miracle on a farm in Janesville, Wisconsin in August 1994 fulfilled a key Lakota prophecy and signaled the beginning of a new era in human relations.

According to this prophecy, White Buffalo Calf Woman materialized long ago in a Lakota village in the guise of a beautiful maiden. She gave the people the gift of the sacred pipe of peace and taught them how to live respectfully and harmoniously with everyone on earth. She would leave them now to learn these lessons for themselves, she explained, but upon her return she would lead them into a new social order based on her teachings.

As the woman left the village the people saw her change into a black buffalo calf. The calf rolled on the ground and came up red; rolled again and turned yellow; rolled once more and changed to white, signifying that people of all colors are one. Then the calf disappeared, and it was prophesied that the woman would return in the form of a white buffalo calf when the people were ready to receive her wisdom.

As keeper of the sacred White Buffalo pipe and interpreter of the Lakota prophecy, Dr. Arvol Looking Horse has traveled far from his home on the Green Grass reservation in South Dakota to spread the word of universal peace to world leaders and people from all walks of life. In January Looking Horse was invited by President Clinton to pray at the Inaugural festivities in Washington DC, where he spoke of the drum as the heart of Mother Earth and of the need for global healing through the power of the drum and the music it brings us.

Chief Looking Horse enjoys a special relationship with the city of New Orleans since his 1996 visit for our annual White Buffalo Day celebration, where the Lakota holy man blessed Congo Square as sacred ground and sanctified the remarkable treaty made between Lakota and Choctaw Ghost Dancers and the Mardi Gras Indians at their long-awaited first meeting on August 27, 1994.

On that day a Sacred Circle was formed in Congo Square by Kam Night Chase (Lakota Pipe Carrier) and David Carson (Choctaw) to greet and honor Big Chiefs Tootie Montana (Yellow Pocahontas), Donald Harrison Sr. (Guardians of the Flame), Larry Bannock (Golden Star Hunters), Spy Boy Nat (White Eagles), other Big Chiefs and representatives of the Mardi Gras Indian Council.

There the Mardi Gras Indian Natiion was formally accepted as brothers by the Native Americans, gifted with medicine bundles, and invited to share the sacred 1500-year-old Choctaw clan pipe of Mayan origin with the face of an African warrior on the bowl. The treaty was solemnified by drumming and sacred songs of both peoples, including a Lakota Ghost Dance song and a jubilant "Indian Red" led by Tootie Montana.

* * * * *

Kam Night Chase, a Lakota Pipe Carrier active in the Ghost Dance movement, had learned of the Black Indians of New Orleans from his friend Goat Carson, a half-breed harmonica preacher and barbeque specialist, and his wife Sharon Marie Asch, new residents of the Crescent City.

Goat and Sharon had met members of the Carrollton Hunters at Carson's weekly Sunday afternoon cookouts at Snake & Jake's Christmas Club Lounge uptown. When they spied the Wild Indians in the streets at their first Mardi Gras, Goat and Sharon's minds were blown by the many forms of homage paid to Native American culture by these inner-city Americans of African descent.

Carson could hear the echoes of Cherokee and Choctaw ceremonial music in the songs and chants of the Mardi Gras Indians; he wasn't surprised to learn that these distinctive forms had been arranged for the original Creole Wild West tribe more than a hundred years before by a full-blooded 7'2" Choctaw named Eugene Honore. But the Mardi Gras Indians had developed through successive generations without the benefit of actual contact with First Nations peoples, and Goat and Sharon resolved to try to bring the two together.

Night Chase was shown tapes and photos of the Mardi Gras Indians and heard a recording of the Black Indian prayer, "Indian Red," which struck a deep, responsive chord. Soon Night Chase would receive a vision revealing the Mardi Gras Indians as fellow Ghost Dancers, honoring and keeping the spirits of the ancestors alive with song, dance, and elaborate ritual costumery. In keeping with the teachings of White Buffalo Calf Woman, their prayer for recognition as brothers should be answered.

Night Chase extended an "Invitation to a Ghost Dance and Sacred Treaty" to Big Chief Alison "Tootie" Montana of the Yellow Pocahontas on behalf of the Mardi Gras Indian Nation. Montana asked that a public ceremony be held in Congo Square to celebrate the realization of this deeply cherished "hundred-year dream." The historic meeting was capped by the participation of City Councilman Troy Carter, who smoked the peace pipe and joined the City of New Orleans to the treaty.

Following the Sacred Circle ceremony Night Chase continued to pray for a sign that he had done the right thing by accepting the Black Indians as brothers of the Lakota Nation. That night the birth of the white buffalo calf in Wisconsin was announced by Dr. Looking Horse as a harbinger of the return of White Buffalo Calf Woman.

Night Chase now felt certain the Sacred Circle had fulfilled the Lakota prophecy that red, yellow, black and white would all come together and pray, each in their own way, for unity, peace and healing. The Sacred Circle should be joined to the birth of the white buffalo calf as a day of celebration in New Orleans each year.

In the spirit of White Buffalo Calf Woman, may it help lead us to the ultimate goal of unity for the family, peace for the tribes, and healing for the wounds of all nations.

New Orleans
April 23, 2000

(c) 2000 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.

White Buffalo Prayer John Sinclair & His Blues Scholars
Spyboy Records SB 1001

[1] The White Buffalo Legend (9:11)
[2] The White Buffalo Prophecy (8:17)
[3] History 101 > White Buffalo Day (17:40)

Produced by John Sinclair for Big Chief Productions

John Sinclair, voice " Wayne Kramer, guitar " Charles Moore, trumpet " Ralph Buzzy Jones, tenor saxophone " Craig Stuart, alto saxophone " Paul Ill, bass " Michael Voelker, drums.

This performance is taken from a live radio broadcast on KXLU-FM, Loyola-Marymount University, Los Angeles, California, August 18, 1997 and was recorded in performance by Matt (Justin Time) Fitzgerald.

The original DAT masters were destroyed by fire in New Orleans on January 24, 2000 and the performance restored from cassette tapes and edited with the assistance of Andy Soloviev and David Kunian. Mastered by Henry Petras, John Sinclair & Greg Troyer at Side One Studios, Metairie, LA, April 22, 2000. Remastered by Tom Morgan at Elysian Fields, August 3, 2000.

(P)(c) 2000 John Sinclair

Composers:
1 Chief Arvol Looking Horse / Sinclair/ Michael Voelker (Big Chief Productions, ASCAP)
2 Looking Horse / Sinclair / Kramer (Big Chief Productions, ASCAP)
3 Charles Neville / Sinclair / Kramer / Moore (Big Chief Productions, ASCAP)
4 Goat Carson (Nophir Music)/ Sinclair / Kramer / Moore (Big Chief Productions, ASCAP)

Executive Producers: John Bouille & Mario Madero for Spyboy Productions
Production Coordination: Henry Petras for New Orleans Music Online
Cover & package design: Celia Sinclair for Mojo Graphix

This album is dedicated to Chief Arvol Looking Horse and Rev. Goat Carson
August 8, 2000

Full Moon Night: John Sinclair & His Blues Scholars

2006-01-13T08:48:58Z

Full Moon Night
John Sinclair & His Blues Scholars
Live at Kaldi's Coffeehouse, New Orleans
September 20, 1994
Alive!/Total Energy Records

By John Sinclair

My friend Lee Bates has a song called "Overnight Sensation (Ten Years in the Making)." Me, I've been doing this--music & verse--for more than thi years now, and I'm still trying to make an overnight sensation. Maybe 1995 will be my year at last.

I started performing my verse to musical accompaniment in 1964, not long after I began composing poetry "by field" following the inspiration provided by Charles Olson, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Creeley and LeRoi Jones, and shortly following a fateful meeting with the great Detroit trumpet player Charles Moore.

We were introduced one late spring evening by the poet George Tysh and became immediate friends, sitting up all night smoking one joint after another and listening to records by Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Ornette Coleman and Sonny Rollins. The next afternoon Charles returned with his small belongings and his cornet in a paper bag and moved in with me for nearly two fun-filled years, which ended when I was incarcerated at the Detroit House of Correction on February 24, 1966 to begin serving a six-month sentence for marijuana possession.

During this period Charles and I began working together to create musical settings for my first batches of serious jazz and R&B-inspired verse. Charles organized a state-of-the-art small ensemble, the Detroit Contemporary Five, with Larry Nozero (reeds), Ron English (guitar), John Dana (bass), and Danny Spencer (drums), and devised musical arrangements for several of my works, which were then presented in a series of concerts at Wayne State University, the University of Michigan, and the Detroit Artists Workshop, an artists' collective of which Charles and I were two of the principal organizers.

Soon Robin Eichele, Magdalene (Leni) Arndt and I established the Artists Workshop Press to publish our works and those of our comrades in painfully mimeographed editions of 500 copies or so. My first book, This Is Our Music, where several of the pieces used here in the John Coltrane section were first printed, was issued in June 1965 with a cover photo picturing Charles and myself sharing a joint on the steps of our commune at 4825 John C. Lodge.

For the past 30 years I have pursued the artistic vision I first developed with Charles Moore at the Detroit Artists Workshop, performing my works in verse with a diverse consortium of accompanists and attempting to develop musical settings which perfectly fit each poem.

Since my work in verse is principally derived from jazz & blues performances and is directly informed by specific pieces of music recorded by artists like John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Percy Mayfield ("The Poet of the Blues"), Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Sonny Boy Williamson, Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, Howlin' Wolf, Elmore James and Robert Jr. Lockwood, performing the verse to appropriate musical accompaniment serves to return the poems to their precise sources in the music itself.

Thus is drawn a comfortable circle connecting the poet with the root of inspiration, the flower of the composed verse, the breath of bardic performance and the fertile ground of the musical setting. This circle pulsates with energy and life and--so long as the music is correctly selected and properly played--keeps the verse fresh and listenable no matter how many times it is uttered. While the texts remain the same, the music is different every time, making the performances infinitely various for poet and audience alike.

* * * * *

In 1967 my poetic output began to diminish after the completion of my third book, Meditations: A Suite for John Coltrane, an early attempt at a serial work in verse from which "Consequences" and "Welcome" here have been drawn. In the Fall of that year I started working as manager for the MC-5 and took up the challenge of cultural and political activism for the next 15 years.

When I was once again blessed with the gift of poetic invention in 1982, I determined that my central bardic focus would be on the "live" performance of my verse in uncompromised musical settings. As I resumed composing verse on a serious tip, spurred equally by the writings of my mentor Edward Sanders in his pivotal work Investigative Poetry and by a careful reading of Robert Palmer's epochal book Deep Blues, my artistic vision had expanded to encompass the blues idiom, and I began work on an elongated serial work in verse titled Fattening Frogs For Snakes: Delta Sound Suite.

At the same time--in the spring of 1982--I began work on a parallel serial work in the jazz idiom devoted to an investigation of the music, life, times, and impact of the great African-American pianist and composer Thelonious Monk, titled thelonious: a book of monk. (A recent recitation of the first volume of the book of monk ["proem" & #s 1 through 20] will be released by New Alliance Records this spring.)

At the end of 1982 I organized a small ensemble, the Motor City Blues Scholars, to perform a selection from my new works at an Artists Workshop reunion concert with poets Robin Eichele, George Tysh and Ken Mikolowski, presented January 2, 1983 at Maximus & Co. Books in Birmingham, Michigan.

This initial edition of the Blues Scholars included tenor saxophonist "Showtime" Johnny Evans, drummer Martin "Little Tino" Gross, and several members of the Sun Messengers band, including Rick Steiger (alto and baritone sax), James O'Donnell (trumpet), and R.J. Spangler (percussions). This band, augmented by bassist Kurt Krahnke, trombonist John Paxton, and percussionist Brian "Akunda" Hollis, presented a second Blues Scholars concert in April 1984 at the Detroit Institute of Arts.

A third Blues Scholars presentation at Alvin's Detroit Bar a year later added Mike Arbanas on alto sax, Paul Bauhof on guitar, and John Dana (replacing Krahnke) on bass. Selections recorded at these concerts were edited into a cassette album titled We Just Change The Beat in 1986 and, two years later, M.L. Liebler at the Ridgeway Press published a companion volume of the same title (now out of print).

Between 1986 and 1991, when I left Detroit to relocate in New Orleans, the Blues Scholars appeared with increasing frequency at bars, art galleries, concert halls, college auditoria and community venues in the Detroit area, Ann Arbor, Lansing, and elsewhere in Michigan and the Midwest. Johnny Evans and Martin Gross were constant factors, along with tenor saxophonist Ron "Big Red" Redman, organist Lyman Woodard, guitarist Jeff Grand, pianists Bob Baldori and Leonard Moon, drummer Danny Spencer, alto saxophonist Phil Lasley, and a host of others.

We played places like Union Street, Michigan Gallery, Alexander's, the Detroit Festival of the Arts, the City Arts Gallery, 1515 Broadway Theatre, Two Doors Down Gallery, Boars Head Theatre, Performance Network, Power Center, Old Heidelberg, the Blind Pig, Alvin's, Sam's Records, Albion College, Cass Cafe, Hart Plaza, and the Attic Theatre. At my favorite date we shared the bill with Jayne Cortez & The Firespitters at St. Andrews Hall in Detroit; my band had two tenors (Big Red and Showtime Johnny), Woodard on the Hammond B-3 organ, and Little Tino at the battery.

* * * * *

After I moved to New Orleans in the Summer of 1991 I began performing my verse mostly in duet settings, accompanied by artists like saxophonist Earl Turbinton, guitarist Walter "Wolfman" Washington, alto saxophonist Marion Brown, drummers Johnny Vidacovich and Kufaru Mouton, guitarists Coco Robicheaux, Kenny Holladay and Phil DeVille at places like Cafe Brasil, Pie in the Sky, the Maple Leaf Bar, Contemporary Arts Center, Storyville, Buffa's, Cafe Istanbul, Howlin' Wolf, and the Louisiana Music Factory.

During this period I appeared several times as a guest with Michael Ray & the Cosmic Krewe at Snug Harbor, Charlie B's, the CAC, Voices from the Deep Theatre, and Margaritaville. I worked with Nick Sanzenbach and Blood & Grits at Loyola University, Kaldi's Coffeehouse and the Dragon's Den. I met Phil DeVille and Mike Voelker through my friend Barbara Hoover and did some dates as a guest of their band Mustang Lightning at Muddy Waters, Beach Ball Bennie's and Howlin' Wolf.

On several trips to Chicago my comrade Bob "Righteous" Rudnick had hooked me up with saxophonist Richard Theodore for a series of duet performances at Weeds, the Heartland Cafe, Estelle's, L&L Lounge, Border Line, the Green Mill, and the Frankie Machine Music Festival in Wicker Park. When Richard moved to New Orleans last August he spent several weeks as a guest at our home in Treme before locating his own apartment across the street, and we did some little dates together while he was getting settled.

The New Orleans Blues Scholars started to come together right after Phil DeVille and I played the Spoken Word Stage at Lollapalooza in August and Louise Wehner invited me to do a weekly performance series at Kaldi's Coffeehouse on Decatur Street. Phil brought in his rhythm section, I brought Richard, Lucky Joe brought Nick Sanzenbach, and my wife (and manager) Penny Sinclair invited Mike Ray, Walter Wolfman Washington and Larry "Rockin' Jake" Jacobs to join us as guest artists on different nights.

At our first rehearsal we worked on Phil's arrangements of material from the Delta Sound Suite and the band began jamming on a riff from "A Love Supreme" to fit behind my poem "Consequences." When they turned the riff upside down and jammed on it some more underneath Nicky's intense tenor saxophonics, something clicked and I started rummaging around deep in my manuscript stash to find a series of Coltrane poems I had written in the mid-1960s but hadn't performed in many years. We shaped them into the long Coltrane suite heard on this disk, setting off the texts with horn solos and collective improvisations to make a flowing, seamless whole out of several disparate parts.

John Sinclair & His Blues Scholars opened at Kaldi's just after Labor Day, jammed with Wolfman the next week, and invited my engineer and co-producer Keith Keller to come down to Kaldi's to make a recording of our third gig there on September 20th. Mike Ray and Rockin' Jake would be on hand, and the band was set to perform an entire two-hour concert of jazz and blues favorites.

The third Tuesday in September was Full Moon Night at Kaldi's, and a nice warm audience was there to groove with us from beginning to end. Keith put a mike on me and two more out in front of the band and took down the performances presented herein. Everything fell right into place under the full French Quarter moon, and now we're able to pass this on to you.

* * * * *

Our program starts with a long tribute to John Coltrane (born September 23, 1926): "Spiritual"; "Consequences" and "Welcome" (from my book Meditations); the Homage to John Coltrane suite including "blues to elvin," "some other blues," "like Sonny," "the drum thing" (all from my book This Is Our Music) and "blues to you." These pieces and several others have been collected into a small volume titled Song of Praise: Homage to John Coltrane, still unpublished.

Two numbers from the blues section of the Full Moon Night session conclude this disk: "Pea Vine Special," with train sounds from Rockin' Jake and a rocking riff from the horns; and "Louisiana Blues," which incorporates a long quote from Muddy Waters taken from Robert Palmer's Deep Blues. These are part of Fattening Frogs For Snakes: Delta Blues Suite, from which we played several additional numbers that night, plus two pieces from thelonious: a book of monk, not included here.
So, after 30 years of preparation, here at last is my first full-scale release--with the verse set the way it's supposed to be, a clean recording, and a terrific ensemble with an immensely creative horn section and the completely idiomatic harmonica of Rockin' Jake--just the way I wanted it.

I hope you enjoy hearing it as much as we got off on playing it under the full moon in the Crescent City that night. I'd particularly like to thank the musicians and Keith Keller for making this recording happen, my wife Penny for putting this whole thing together for us, Patrick Boissel for putting it out, and my daughter Celia for her splendid contributions to the packaging, the cover design, the Big Chief Productions logo--hey, and just for being here, 25 years since I was graced with her entry onto the planet.

--New Orleans
January 17, 1995

(c) 1995, 2006 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.

Full Moon Night
John Sinclair & His Blues Scholars
An Evening of Music & Verse
"Live" at Kaldi's Coffeehouse, New Orleans
September 20, 1994
Alive!/Total Energy Records NERCD-2002

This album is dedicated to the memory of John Coltrane
& to my daughter Celia, on her 25th birthday

1. "Spiritual" (5:05)
2. "Consequences" (6:45)
3. "Welcome" (3:55)
4. "Homage To John Coltrane" (6:54)
5. "blues to elvin" (3:01)
6. "some other blues" (2:46)
7. "like Sonny," (1:35)
8. "the drum thing" (3:17)
9. "blues to you" (4:16)
10. "Pea Vine Special" (7:33)
11. "Louisiana Blues" (7:05)

Produced By John Sinclair & Keith Keller for Big Chief Productions

John Sinclair, verse & recitation
Michael Ray, trumpet & percussions
Richard Theodore, alto saxophone & bass clarinet
Nicholas Sanzenbach, tenor saxophone
Larry "Rockin' Jake" Jacobs, harmonica (#10-11 only)
Phil DeVille, electric guitar
"Lucky" Joe Drake, electric bass
Michael "Lightning Boy" Voelker, drums

Recorded Direct to DAT by Keith Keller at Kaldi's Coffeehouse, New Orleans, September 20, 1994. Edited & mastered by Keith Keller at Chez Flames Recording, New Orleans, January 17, 1995

All Texts (C) 1995 John Sinclair and published by Big Chief Productions (ASCAP). All rights reserved for the author. Music for all selections arranged by Phil DeVille, improvised by the Blues Scholars, and published by Big Chief Productions (ASCAP). This performance (c)(p) 1995 John Sinclair.

Cover & package Ddesign and Big Chief Logo by Celia Sinclair (c) 1995 Total Energy Records Logo by Gary Grimshaw Back Cover Photograph by Michael P. Smith (c) 1995 Project Coordination by Patrick Boissel Special thanks to Robert Palmer for the excerpt from Deep Blues and to Louise Wehner and the staff at Kaldi's Coffeehouse, Penny Sinclair, Victoria Lenza, Celia Sinclair, Bill Lynn, and Phil DeVille and to Jerry Brock & Barry Smith at the Louisiana Music Factory, 225 N. Peters, New Orleans, for their extraordinary assistance and support during the course of this project.

Total Energy Records
a division of Alive! Records
P.O. Box 7112
Burbank, CA 91510

If I Could Be With You: John Sinclair with Ed Moss & The Society Jazz Orchestra

2006-01-13T08:43:19Z

If I Could Be With You
John Sinclair & Ed Moss with The Society Jazz Orchestra

Recorded in concert at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Cincinnati, Ohio
January 15, 1994

By John Sinclair

It was a cold, bitter, snow-bound Wednesday afternoon in January when I got off the plane from the sunny Southland to prepare for a concert with Ed Moss and his eight-piece Society Jazz Orchestra at the Cincinnati Hyatt Regency that Saturday night. The Queen City was frozen damn near solid, and Steve Gebhardt was doing a lot of slipping and sliding on the ride across the Ohio River bridge and up and down the hills of Cincinnati on our way to meet with the enigmatic Mr. Edward Moss.

It would get even colder--down to 5, and then 13, below zero--and even snowier, with eight inches more on Monday, before I got out of town and headed back to the relative warmth of New Orleans. But for four days, from Wednesday through Saturday, I had one of the warmest and most satisfying musical experiences I've ever enjoyed as a performer, and the evidence is right here in your hands.

I'd first met Ed Moss in 1988, when my friend Ron Esposito took me down to the old Blue Wisp Club on Madison Road in Cincinnati on a Thursday night to sit in with Moss's eight-piece band, the Society Jazz Orchestra. I was in the Queen City to attend yet another World Premiere screening of Steve Gebhardt's still-unreleased feature film, Ten For Two: The John Sinclair Freedom Rally, which had been shot at Crisler Arena in Ann Arbor on December 10, 1971, just three days before I was released from prison after serving 29 months of a 9-1/2-to-10-year sentence for possessing two marijuana cigarettes in December 1966, five long years earlier.

That's another story, but I d hooked up with Esposito in the mid-1980s in Athens, Ohio, where he ran an extremely hip used book and record store and hosted great jazz and blues programs at WOUB-FM, the voice of Ohio University. I d read some poems on the air for him there, and then performed live in the studio with harmonica man Steve Tracy and guitarist Dudley Radcliff on Ron's Blue Spot program at WVXU-FM in Cincinnati, where he was working as program director for the Xavier University radio station.

When I came back to Cincinnati for the Ten For Two screening, Ron had kindly set up several opportunities for me to sit in with the local jazz cognoscenti. Before taking me over to the Blue Wisp for my first encounter with Ed Moss, Esposito regaled me with racy tales of the debonair raconteur, a gourmandizing, cigar-smoking, cognac-snifting pianist, composer and bandleader whose immense talent and relative longevity had propelled him to the top of the local music scene.

Lots of laughs were had by all when Moss and I were introduced during the band's first break, but there was nothing at all funny about the sounds coming off the stage after the Society Jazz Orchestra took its seats for the second show. Featuring a wide-ranging repertoire of Ed Moss originals and freshly-arranged jazz classics, Ed's little big band shouted and roared through the flag-wavers and performed its less frenetic material with great sensitivity and depth.

Veteran drummer Art Gore, son of former King Records recording artist Rufus Nose Gore, swung the band with unflagging spirit and careful attention to dynamics, while tenor saxophonist Arthur Quitman cut an imposing figure amongst the soloists. But everyone played very well indeed, and Moss's music was some of the freshest and most exciting large-group jazz I d heard in quite some time.

Moss called me up to do a series of Thelonious Monk pieces over the band's exceptionally tasty chart on Blue Monk, then launched into one of the most gorgeous versions of Round Midnight imaginable. To perform my humble works in verse to the accompaniment of music like this had me walking on air, floating above the bandstand on a lovely fat cloud of delectable sound--a musical experience I ll never forget.

Not too many months later Steve Gebhardt and I began work on a new film project titled Twenty To Life, now nearing completion but then simply an idea to film some performances interspersed with testimony by my family and friends towards a sketch of my life and work to date.

One early concept was to bring Ed Moss and me together for a series of intimate duets which could be filmed and recorded for the movie. I insisted that we record a suite of my Monk poems titled fly right, Moss prepared the musical texts of Monk for the accompaniment, and we ended up, thanks to Ron Esposito, doing four recording sessions in the WVXU studios for the project--by now a full-blown album, initially commissioned by New Alliance Records--in the spring and summer of 1991.

This record of Monk works by Ed Moss and myself features a great deal of exceptionally fine piano playing by Mr. Moss and a reasonably coherent reading of his texts by the poet. Events have conspired to prevent its release for the past four years, but fly right: a monk suite is now scheduled to be issued later this year by Schoolkids Records. The duets with Ed Moss also furnished filmic portraits of two performances to be used in Twenty To Life: "rhythm-a-ning" and "i surrender, dear."

Gebhardt continued shooting footage for the film, mostly interviews and talking segments, as funds permitted, then began to devise a scheme to stage and capture on film a more elaborate presentation of my work in verse with musical accompaniment, at the same time showcasing and documenting the original compositions and arrangements of Edward Moss.

The omnipresent Ron Esposito was now in charge of producing the weekly Jazz at the Hyatt concert series at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Cincinnati. He was able to gain approval for a mid-January 1994 concert by Ed Moss & the Society Jazz Orchestra with myself as Ed's special guest in An Evening of Music & Verse. Then Gebhardt and Moss went to work--Gebhardt with his grant-writing and production-planning genius on full blast, Moss whipping his compositions into shape with the orchestra.

When I climbed out of Gebhardt's car and groped my way up the stairs to Moss's Over-The-Rhine urban hideaway that icy Wednesday evening, the maestro was more than ready for me, and we spent a very pleasant evening matching up my texts to his compositions in preparation for the first of two scheduled rehearsals with the full band.

Moss and I first decided to use only his own musical works, and preferably those for which rehearsed arrangements already existed, as the settings for my poems. Since the Monk poems are each written after a specific performance by Thelonious Monk, I almost invariably insist that the number they're titled for be played with the poem, but in this case I was able to select works from the Moss ouevre which were akin in spirit and tempo to the Monk recordings that had inspired the poems.

Schoenberg on Death Row worked wonderfully with my text for in walked bud, and A Doleful Tear seemed tailor-made for friday the 13th, an elegy for the late John Lennon which I wanted to perform for Steve Gebhardt, who'd been close friends with Lennon during his early years in New York City. Bird Droppings went with bloomdido, a paean to Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, while Midnight Mood and Rhythm Changes took perfect care of round about midnight and rhythm-a-ning, respectively.

At this point another small artistic compromise was effected after Gebhardt reported that the hotel's management would almost certainly take offense if any of the characteristic "fucks" or "motherfuckers" which occasionally crop up in the heat of composition were to be uttered by the poet when approached in the texts during performance. "Goddamned" and "bullshit" might be okay, but the fucks had to go in the interest of industrial peace on the gig. "We must be flexible and retain our sense of humor at all costs," I always say, and there it is.

"The Screamers" was composed in 1965 and set to music by Charles Moore; the music sounded something like "Green Onions," as performed by the Detroit Contemporary 5. I still use the same arrangement with my New Orleans band, the Blues Scholars, but here the poem is set to Moss's "The Unexpurgated Blues" (identified in the concert program as "Blues For Conversationalists"), and it lends the text a jazzier edge.

I perform my verse in all sorts of musical settings, from duets with saxophonists, drummers, guitarists or pianists to jazz trios, quartets and big bands, rhythm & blues groups with horn sections, and my own band, which features tenor saxophone, harmonica, guitar, bass & drums. Each time the music changes, the text is changed as well, its delivery is altered, layers of musical and poetic depth are added or subtracted. It keeps the texts especially fresh for me and keeps things interesting into the bargain.

I've recorded "spiritual" in two different settings: as a duet with alto saxophonist Marion Brown, and in the oceanic Coltrane mode with the Blues Scholars for our Full Moon Night CD on Total Energy Records, where it's coupled with "consequences" over a riff from "A Love Supreme," the way we do it in performance. For our concert Moss contributed a piece titled "Strange Mood," and it recasts the verses into a new musical language with which they feel strangely very comfortable.

Between these arrangements and the Monk pieces we'd selected earlier, Moss and I now had enough material for two of the three sets we were to present at the Hyatt. Each of the sets in the program would feature the orchestra--billed as Ed Moss & His Improvissatori--with 30 minutes of original works by the composer, at which point I would come on and offer several works in verse accompanied by Moss and the orchestra.

For the middle set we constructed a special program including several works I'd rarely performed and a fancy new arrangement for three of my favorite courtship poems to my wife Penny. Inspired by the closing couplet to "double dealing," Moss pulled out his arrangement of an old Ellington song, "Chocolate Shake," and segued it up against a chart called "Pasticcio Promenade," over which I recited "when will the blues leave" and "double dealing." Then Moss sings the lyric to the Ellington song, and I finish with "i mean you," which normally goes with the Monk composition of the same name, but I dug the way Ed made it all work the way it does here.

We opened the second show with three piano poems--inspired and named after pieces by Cecil Taylor and Andrew Hill--over Moss's tune, "Fat Man," which was chosen solely for its musical values. Here as throughout the concert the orchestra performed beautifully; the solo and ensemble work of Jerry Conrad (trumpet), Clarence Pawn (trombone), Tim McCord (alto sax and flute), Arthur Quitman (tenor sax & clarinet), Joe Gaudio (baritone sax), bassist Chris Dahlgren (who flew in from New York for the concert) and drummer Art Gore was everything one could have ever asked for.

The final piece in the set, "If I Could Be With You," is an investigation in verse into the McKinney's Cotton Pickers, a popular Detroit-based band of the 1920s and 30s which originated in Springfield, Ohio. I was eager to perform this piece with Ed's orchestra and especially wanted to offer it in honor of the occasion of this major concert appearance in Ohio. We set the verse against Moss's work "Mr. Gloom," and I'm very pleased with the result.

The rehearsals were held Thursday and Friday at the new Blue Wisp club on Garfield Place in downtown Cincinnati, and everything went according to plan. It's always a kick for me to rehearse or perform with people for the first time; the almost universal indifference of musicians to the idea of backing up a poet slowly changes to open interest and then strict attention as the texts unfold. The Society Jazz Orchestra was no exception, and by the end of the second rehearsal saxophonist Arthur Quitman was asking me for a copy of the manuscript to take home.

I'll never forget the Friday afternoon run-through at the Blue Wisp. We completed rehearsing the material and agreed on the order of performance, then Steve Gebhardt and I walked out of the nice warm club into the 8-below-zero weather and staggered five blocks to the car. It was so cold I thought I'd never make it, but the car started right up and we were soon on our way to a typically epicene evening meal.

The temperature leveled off at 5 below zero on the day of the concert, and it seemed kind of silly to expect a lot of people to brave the weather just to see our presentation, but that night the atrium at the Hyatt Regency kept filling up until there were few seats left for the second and third shows.

Gebhardt had a full film and sound crew on hand to capture the proceedings, and I was blessed with the presence of my mother, Elsie Sinclair, who was about to celebrate her 82nd birthday. My daughter Sunny, who'd driven down from Detroit with her grandmother for the occasion, took me around the atrium during our first break and proudly pointed out how many people were there.

Despite the sub-zero temperature outside, there was plenty of warmth on-stage that night, and by the end of our Evening of Music & Verse there were lots of smiles and good cheer everywhere one looked. The musical results can be heard on this compact disc, and the entire performance can be seen in the accompanying video, produced and directed by Steve Gebhardt.

I'd like to thank Steve and Ron Esposito once again for making all this possible, and Ed Moss for everything he contributed to this project: his music, his piano and orchestra, his humor and good sense, his warm and unerring hospitality. Thanks, fellas!

--New Orleans
November 15, 1995

Recorded "live" to 4-track DAT by Geoff Maxwell at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Cincinnati, Ohio, January 15, 1994 as part of Jazz Live at the Hyatt. Mixed & edited by Bruce Ellis with Steve Gebhardt & Ed Moss at The Corbett Studio, WGUC, Cincinnati.

Art direction & booklet production: Frank Bach & Associates, Detroit.
Cover design: Steve Gebhardt. Cover Photo by Tom Hayes.

This project was made possible by the generous funding of the Arts Allocation Committee, City of Cincinnati; the Media Arts Panel of the Ohio Arts Council; the Projects Pool of the Fine Arts Fund, Cincinnati, Ohio; and the Public Benefit Corporation, Detroit, Michigan. Fiscal Agent: Diverse Media Zone, Inc., Tom Hayes, President.

The poet would like to dedicate his performance to his mother, Elsie Sinclair, and his daughter, Marion Sunny Sinclair, with special thanks and appreciation to Jerry Brock & Barry Smith of the Louisiana Music Factory, 225 N. Peters, New Orleans, LA for their extraordinary assistance and support during the course of this project.

(C) 1996, 2006 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.