At the Essex Poetry Festival 2006 – photo by Derek Adams
Pink Champagne -
Published in "Chimera" no 1
The
Tenor Man - Published
in "Openings" 18 (OU Poets)
Bluenote
Time - Published in
"Openings" 17 (OU Poets)
Free
Music - Solo - Published
in "Southend Poetry 2002"
Playing
the Armchair Blues - Published
in "Chimera" no 1
String
Bass - Published in
"Chimera" no 4
Afraid
of the Silence -
Published in "Read the Music” no 6
Pink
Champagne
(for
Digby
Fairweather)
Not blues in twelve
but there is joy
and
pink champagne,
the maker’s music
trading
eights
in syncopated synergy
from Dixieland to Rock ‘n’
Roll,
and here the cornet-master
leads in tones
a
trumpet cannot blow.
The sidemen nod their
harmonies,
engrossed;
their music coursing
through an
energy of swing;
piano-player’s fingers
dancing
round the tune;
a lover’s touch
caressing melody from
bass;
and sax, deep throated tenor
shouting
counterpoint
above the drums’
percussive
ricochets.
Not blues in twelve,
but upbeat late
and
shimmying
like Sister Kate.
The cornet-master
blows
an
emptiness away.
Adrian
Green
Note: - Pink Champagne is a track on Digby Fairweather's Half Dozen CD Twelve Feet Off The Ground. Check Digby's website here.
The Tenor
Man
Pottering around the stage,
a hyperactive
ancient in his own backyard -
independent of the band it
seems.
Disrhythmic shuffling of ashtray,
beer, a pack of
cigarettes,
adjusting microphones,
then in the middle
eight
he draws, exhales, and catches breath,
stoops forward
to the mouthpiece
and blows,
a tumbling
counterpoint,
scales soaring from his horn.
The melody
flows
until the break,
and then he shoulders arms,
a
truce between the music and his ailing lungs.
Between
choruses he sits apart
to light another cigarette,
a sideman
counting out the bars
until he rises for the coda -
this
Lazarus of swing.
Adrian
Green
Bluenote Time
in
the soft jazz and midnight hour
your eyes are dancing close to
mine
a sway of hips, a touch of lips
while on the
stand
piano player’s fingers
dance around the
tune
above a gentle touch
caressing music from the
bass
your fingers up and down my spine
in the soft
jazz and midnight hour
we lose ourselves in bluenote
time
Adrian
Green
Free Music - Solo
(for Lol Coxhill))
with
disconnected scales
drawing us
into his own madness
the
longer we listened
the more co-
herent he became
trapped
by freedom
and the promise of poetry
but doubting
the
world
we each inhabit
Adrian Green
Playing
the Armchair Blues
Playing
the armchair blues,
clarinet held horizontal,
the old man's
music
from the Blue-Note club
cheerfully remembers a
time
when the suits fitted
and the shoes danced
lightly
round the stage.
Now, sitting out the rests,
his inward
gaze is focused
on the Ragtime years -
their strutting
rhythms
jiving through his head.
Adrian
Green
String
Bass
Some
like to dominate,
others caress
a voluptuous rhythm
on
pliant strings.
This pulse drives life
through wanton
counterpoint,
the heart and harmony
of things.
Adrian
Green
Afraid
of the Silence
The
night
the chops aren’t
there
the embouchure’s
gone
or arthritic fingers
snatch
discords
from
the keys
marking
time
and
counting out the bars
while
music flows
from
someone else’s horn
or
sitting-in
with
someone else’s band
until
there’s no-one
willing
to risk
the
cracked top C
and
broken counterpoint.
Afraid
of the night
the
spotlight moves
and
rests go on
and
on.
Adrian
Green