Jazz Appreciation Month – Dreams are the poetic expression of the soul.

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Davis III, Miles Dewey 26/5/26 <0> 28/9/91 Tiger 8.4.4 = 7

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I am so looking forward to the opening of Don Cheadle’s Miles Ahead this week. i think of any other Jazz artist, Miles is the only one whose every album, on listening to it, I conclude is a favourite. This creative genius just oozed authenticity. Of course, a major part of his outréness and originality had to do with his having been an actual old soul.

I have always been partial to him as he was briefly married to Cicely Tyson who was a maternal first cousin of my late mother’s who in her youth did play the cornet. Of course, Cicely Tyson, who is still going strong and currently starring on Broadway, is an entity mate of Miles Davis’.

My creatively gifted mother whose songs are published in the hymnal of the now Wesleyan Church was a remarkable woman who was pure intellect and a source of fierce pride. She whose paternal grandparents were Sephardi from the small Brazilian community which settled in Nevis. Indeed, she who is now reincarnated in London, England, male and first-born and about whom I have dreamt – East Indian/Caucasian heritage in this lifetime and currently aged 13 years old.

Sadly, none of my dream encounters with Miles Davis were ever audiocassette-recorded as they were never had during the decade when I did so – 1989 to 1998. Each of those dream encounters did, though, validate his agedness of spirit and he seemed every bit an old soul during astral plane encounters.

In anticipation of this long overdue film – imagine that, the paucity of Jazz biopics when so clearly Jazz is rooted in Klezmer! More than that, on to the matter of saluting a true original, a true creative genius and a giant of Black high art.

*Sadly, I have spent the last couple of weeks trying to track down the title of the Miles Davis painting herein featured; alas, to no avail have I managed to have discovered its title et al.

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Birth of the Cool, 1957.

Kind of Blue 1959.

– This is the music (Kind of Blue) I am mostly likely to listen to, after having audiocassette-recorded the dreams, on awaking from a flying dream. This music is about finding centre whilst simultaneously remaining aloft in the realms of the flying dream. As West Indians would say, it’s sweet!

Milestones, 1958.

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As it is Jazz appreciation month, here’s to one of the most glorious elixirs that each time setting foot in my home – after experiencing racial animus in it myriad manifestations – takes me higher. Jazz is that one language, indeed, the only idiom capable of absolving the bile of being subjected to the ugliness that is the racial predator’s birthright.

Of course, like all addicts: drunks, crackheads, sexual predators – the racial predator does not self-identify and, like all addicts, is ever in denial and will angrily maintain his right to deny that there is a problem. So, since the racial predator does not exist; yet, for those of us for whom the racial predator is as real as the drunk, why wait for these marvellous boors to self-identify? There is power in labelling a problem for what it is and until one has a name for a malaise of spirit, one has no power because the well-armed and socio-economic top-baboon will always laugh his vacuous skull off whilst alleging one is crazy for stating there is a problem when there is not even a name for this non-existent problematic entity and speciously imaginary the racial predator.

Naturally, the one addiction – without fail – of the racial predator is ever his obsession with the culture of the prey he so loves feasting on. The most powerful word for the racial predator when dealing with Blacks is ‘NO’ in all its manifestations… and then, of course, you expect us to come home and settle for your apeing the culture because well… you can like that authentic-sounding sonic bleed-through from that queer parallel universe where Jazz allegedly has its roots in Klezmer… NO! Life is about callously being unpromising in one’s truth… and as has been oft declared – if you can’t sing Strange Fruit sorry, not having it.

This music is a testament to the spirit of a people who, despite the racial predator’s obsessive addiction, remains free, beautiful and ever soaring higher… Goodness, how could you ever fathom the depth and beauty of this music when you remain incapable of accepting and embracing our humanity…. your humanity?

John Coltrane’s Michael Overleaves to follow… breathe.

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Dreams are the poetic expression of the soul.

Tag: Jazz Appreciation Month

Miles Ahead!

Blue Train – John Coltrane (Full Album)