Rigorous Freedom

For Joël Dilley

Take One

Rigorous freedom of jazz that Beethoven invented—
Ellington our Beethoven in his "trench coat of dignity,"
natural rhythms become our dance in the arts.

Take Two

Prez wore music on his reedy sleeves,
Lady Day sported white gardenias dying in splendor.

Lester's story naked inside a hipster's horn,
Billie voiced instincts as a new instrument.

They lived behind the beat as the next best thing to being alone.

Take Three

Bird roosted on that wave after swing—
a dark wit in wolf's clothing, attacking
symptoms of Being; Dizzy be-
bop's existential jester.

Reinventing time without a wheel,
turning 'round midnight to Monk it new.

Take Four

Trane don't run on no tracks—
jazz won't play station to station

Schedules and maps obsolete—only
detours hear Naima's refrain terrain

Loco motion not afraid of the dark—
rhythm section always on time

Jazz won't play station to station—
Trane don't run on no tracks.

Take Five

She sang from a high balcony
while he played her jazz Romeo—
trapped in their epic studio,
they improvised a way out!

Her body a stand-up bass, living
solo across string theory: two hands,
two ears, two minds, one heart attentive
to a tone, a touch, a throb, a thump.

Always longing for Arco love,
five strings re-inventing grief
as her spirit blossoms
into his ballad.

—Roberto Bonazzi