WE HEAR YOU LOUD AND CLEAR, JAYNE
When Blind Lemon Jefferson sings « Long Distance Moan » and « Blind Lemon’s
Penitentiary Blues »,
When Blind Leroy Garnett or Dobby Bragg boogie with James « Boodle-it » Wiggins
When the Alabama Jug Band plays « I wish I could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate ».
When Scott Joplin does his « Fig Leaf Rag »
When King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band plays« Mabel’s Dream »
When Rosetta Crawford declares « I’m Tired of Fattening Frogs for Snakes » and « My
Man Jumped Salty on Me »
When Ida Cox sings « Mean Papa, Turn in Your Key »
When Ma Rainey sings « Sleep Talkin Blues » and « Chain Gang Blues »
When Bird blows « Out of Nowhere » and « Schnourphology »
When Prez plays « You’re Driving Me Crazy » or « After you’ve gone »
When Thelonious plays « Mysterioso »
When Bud plays « Bud’s Bubble »
When Dizzy plays « Ool YaKoo » and « Au Pays d’Oobladee »
When Max and Clifford play « Parisian Thoroughfare »
There can be no doubt whatsoever
That the underlying Surrealist strain
Which nurtures the entire history of Jazz
Leads directly to
The visionary insurgent Fire Spitting Jazz Poetry
Of Jayne Cortez whose perfectly focussed groans, wails, stomps and glides
bring back to the fore the living spirit of
Toussaint L’ouverture
Magloire Saint Aude
Billie Holiday
Césaire
Fanon
Glissant
As she takes over to the Giant Perennial cross-cultural psychic bridge forever being
rebuilt and extended by the radical existential upheavals re-occuring again and
again and again, together with our rebellious colleagues the world over.
Oh ! How Jayne’s dreamt-up Syncopated Creole Surrealist Jazz Poetry Ensemble never
stops playing her songs of revolution and wisdom throughout the thick mushy
geopolitical night in our hearts and minds !
Jean-Jacques Lebel
(Paris, January 2013)