The Ghost of Paul Desmond

Sometimes it’s enough to give over
completely your own talent and ambition
and thus find a bit of reflection,
the way Boswell did with Johnson,
or Einhard with Charlemagne.

 The case of Paul Desmond was taken up
by someone I never saw, who played above
a grating on 8th Street and Broadway,
a noisy corner, populated, in those days,
by people dressed all in black,
with needle-sharp shoes, and removed
by a generation from those sallow men
in suits and ties who flew, thrilling
and beaming, into measures unconstrained.

 But nevertheless,
there he was, or maybe it was a she,
playing in the summer when the weather
was hot and the horns and boomboxes blared,
the subways rumbled, motorcycles roared,
sirens chirped in the traffic-whirled air,
and the car alarms screeched their
monotonous panic;

playing even in the winter
above the warmth of the grate,
sending up through all
the dissonance the careful notes
in a sinewy winding strand;
an alto sax as sweet as yearning,
being guided, inflection for inflection
through Desmond’s solos—Take Five,
Skylark, Angel Eyes—
as if the whole town could be redeemed
by such a charming sacrifice.

~~~~~~~~~~

Douglas Logan

"The Ghost of Paul Desmond" also appears in Danse Macabre.

Comments

[ellwort]

Saw the guy!. Boston - Symphony Hall. Just a nice old guy in a tweedy jacket playing his soprano (maybe alto?) sax and making his point persuasively. Dave Brubeck comping along behind him. Mullligan waiing around patiently.
Dave's kids, Darius et al. , warmed up the stager for 'em. The kids' band now featured a semi-hirsute edgy guitar player named Nelson Bogart.