Who could ever forget “Ipanema”
and the wisp, silky sounds
accompanying Astrud
on her husband’s song?
Clearly classic, like forever.
You played both sad and sweet
opening up the melancholy
aloneness of our hearts
from the inside.
Decades later,
posthumously no less,
you sprang free from death
with Barron’s rich piano
live in Copenhagen,
dancing forever
beyond your cancer.
“Night and Day”,
“People Time”–
How you guys cooked!
A wonder and miracle of two.
Later I watched you, magically
play one retro summer eve
in a California vineyard
before a huge appreciative throng,
unlike any dive you had formerly
played in your heroin free-fall daze,
fixes feeding your oh-so-eloquent pain.
Ah, the tunes and greats you knew
or had known and internalized
like no other jazzer since.
“Spring Can Really Hang You up the Most”.
“Lush Life”, “Blood Count”,
Billy Strayhorn.
Stan the Mellow Man affecting
the quality of our inner jazz lives,
your ashes asleep
off Marina del Rey.
(People Time: his last CD with Kenny Barron, was released posthumously)