Christmas Music and Vee W. Garcia's Fiction

This time of year people listen to Christmas songs by pop, R&B, jazz, blues, country, and classical artists.  Some folks enjoy carols, hymns and sacred music and may feel something is missing if they don't experience Handel's Messiah (The Hallelujah Chorus) at some point during the season. 

My taste in Christmas music includes selections from all of the genres above.  A couple of my favorites are "The Christmas Song," by Nat King Cole and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" by Ella Fitzgerald.  

By the way, this writer used Ella Fitzgerald's biography and recorded singing style to inform the jazz singers in the novels Intrigue in Paris and The Jazz Flower.  There are no singers in my short story collection titled Indigo Tales; however, there are a few references to jazz music and musicians in a few of the stories.  The three books I've mentioned here are available at Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com, and IndieBound.org.

Random Thoughts about April

In many areas of the United States, the month of April is a confirmation that spring is trying to settle in and display all of its beauty. Such is the case in the DC/Maryland/Virginia area, the region where I live. The famous Cherry Blossoms are in bloom, as are apple blossoms, jonquils, tulips, chrysanthemums, and other colorful flowers of the season. The grass is verdant again, and leaves on the area's myriad trees are budding green. The air seems fresh as it alternates between cool and crisp on some days, and mild and not-so-crisp on others.

 April seems to say that good things are still possible for this troubled world as well as for people's individual lives. April tries to take care of the environment with its rains and breezes and its renewal of all of Earth's creatures. Not only is April a renewal month and a poster month for the environment, April is also, as most people know, a big month for travel.

In Aprils past, I've traveled to California, Florida, and New York, among other places. Thinking of April travel destinations reminds me of songs like "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" and "April in Paris." I've never been to Paris in April.  But some of my friends will be traveling to the City of Light in a couple of weeks. While they're in Paris, I'll be "in the shed" working on my literary projects. However, I'll be thinking about my friends during the coming weeks, whenever I think of the song "April in Paris," and whenever I have my own memories of Paris in mind.

Mellowness and Flight

Ever wake up at dawn to the sound of a bird chirping outside your window?  This morning was one of those times for me.  My eyes opened slowly, naturally and I heard a bird chirping.  I thought about what a nice moment that was.  And for some reason, my next thought was a line I had heard somewhere before.  The line was “ever heard Bird flap his wings?”  That line echoed in my head, and then I thought:  Okay.  Where have I heard it before?  Where?  Then I remembered.  That was a line—actually two lines—from a poem about saxophone player Charlie Parker, who was also called Bird by his legions of fans. 

I knew I had a copy of the poem somewhere; because I’d used it with several other poems in Conversations about Jazz Poetry, a public event I conducted a few years ago.   Remembering where I’d filed those poems, I decided that a poem whose lines had echoed in my head after I awoke to the sound of a bird chirping outside my window, deserved to be pulled out of file and reread.  My intent was to pull it out after I poured my usual morning cup of coffee.

With my cup of coffee in one hand, I located my hardcopy jazz poetry file with the other hand and pulled out the poem, which turned out to be “Mellowness & Flight,” by George Barlow.  And the lines that had haunted me in a good way at dawn turned out to be:

Ever heard Bird                                                                                                                                      flap his wings

Those two lines begin and end the 19-line poem.  The poem compares Charlie Parker to:

a bright blackbird                                                                                                                             slicing blue sky 

There’s no punctuation in “Mellowness & Flight.”  A few well known standard songs in Charlie Parker’s discography are mentioned as examples of the musician’s mellowness.  The bird-in-flight metaphor is used to describe Parker, and it asks us readers/ listeners if we’ve ever felt like we were flying with him. 

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Drinking my morning cup of coffee and rereading “Mellowness & Flight” have put me in a mellow mood.  And thoughts the poem have inspired in me have gotten my day off to a flying start.