Jazz at Houston's Brasil

Melodies get lost in this instrumental jungle.

A jazz trio plays their avant-garde sound soooo surreal:

It spices the food with such exotic flavors

That the audience savors it like ambrosia of the gods!

That music infuses the space with hues never seen

Flung like paint on a Pollock canvas

Or slapped with a splash like graffiti.

The chord progressions lift as they mix

with the patrons' laughter and patter,

Till the words are blended and blurred,

Replaced with raw syllabic sounds

That undulate like scat.

I swear the notes slide down the brick walls

Now wet with their sweat

As those jazz cats strain

To the strains of Monk and Coltrane,

It shimmers off the sax that hoots and howls,

That yelps and yowls, squeals and squawks

Until those folks have to stop their talk,

And get up and move to the groove.

I tell you it's not just music:

It's a current of high voltage.

Go ahead touch it: it'll make you jump!

Written January 2011, published in Preoccupied with Austin , part of AIPF 2012