Up Jumped Spring
Honolulu Spring Jazz Concert 3/14/23
Poem by Kathryn Takara
for Rich Crandall and his trio (Bruce Hamada (bass), Stacy Tangonan (drums)
Musicians’ Union
Up Jumped Spring
Spring Is Here.
The Piano Player Professor Rich Crandall
Slides into the room quietly, greets a few friends
Before taking his throne at the big black Steinway piano.
Uncustomarily he sports a black knit ski cap,
Or is it a yamuka and
He wears and discards a dark jacket
Throughout the evening
and flashes his customary warm smile.
The audience quiets, delights in his presence, his trio
To entertain and inspire us once again.
I missed his last concert on Valentine’s Day,
selected love themes and a program of subtle songs.
This time Rich will celebrate Spring
Play familiar piano songs of jazz masters –
Ramsey Lewis and Freddie Hubbard
Clifford Brown and Peggy Lee
“The Girls from Roquefort”… and more.
It Might as Well Be Spring
Look at his hands, his casually conservative costume,
He brings to us his gift of music,
His hands, using
Long fingers, strong thumbs
Reliable wrists,
All in movement
Trilling and twirling up and down
The scale of (cosmic) spheres
Whirling the music to life.
The audience shouts its pleasure and claps!
You Must Believe in Spring
See Rich Crandall, the music man par excellence
No arthritis, few wrinkles, an amazing music brain
and a very very
Limber, nimble body, strong for his age that bends, jumps, lifts.
His body curves over the sacred notes of the piano
Shoulders loose like jelly, encouraged by the drum beat,
Torso sinking and rising,
Close to kissing the piano.
A sexy sensual energy flows in the playing
A spirit gift, blending, interconnecting
With the melody, the talking drums, the bass
And yes, the harmonies
Visible and not, extravagant, magical, creative.
It’s Still Spring
Showers and clouds portend varietal seeds
Sprouting growth of music life, stem and stalk, colorful flowers
and succulent fruits.
Crandall loving the still water source
Giving birth to new jazz music from old
Conceiving his symphonies of notes, melodies
Resounding to the mostly wordless corner and back,
We listen and wonder, to the trail of program
Who were we in past lives
Together meeting again here? now.
Did I sense, fear, or feel weeping
Spontaneously and unwillingly rising in my throat?
His? ours? melting, blending?
Meandering memories surge up in familiar tunes
Discordant and familiar
The wrist responds, goes limp, the notes languish
A sadness lingering? Loss and change.
Where is the psychology in that?
Spring High
Changes surprise.
The Piano player puts music in my shoulders
Rockin in my head, samba in my feet
His fingers, close together then splayed flat
Curved and lithe, stiff and loose
Sprint up and down the keyboard
Jump from high notes to low chords
Riding the piano like a horse, a stud in heat
Passionate lurching
Then quiets the piano like a pet cat!
Up Jumped Spring!
The trio’s music crescendos
Love rises from each musician
Bending, holding, caressing, cozying
Making love with the instruments
Their torsos humping, feet jumping, totally engaged, entranced
Causing the listeners to sit up erect, remember riffs sequential and not
Happy with improvisations of jazz.
The drummer Tangonan, solos, shifts the tempo
Changes the mood, beats the drums, cymbals, percussion accents
Now loud, then soft, hard then sensitive
The drums whisper then shout
To each and all.
Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most
With his whole body totally engaged
The piano man lifts up and down, sways side to side, front to back
Dipping and swinging, tapping and stomping his feet on the pedals
Synchronising with the dancing movements of fingers
Shaking his head like a race horse
Pushing, moving across the horizontal ivory notes,
Rich hums, undertones like Bruce Hamada’s bass.
I’ll Remember April
Perennial emotions: hope, regeneration, possibilities
Hamada, shoulders his manly bass
Listens intently to the piano and drums
Responds with a demeanor calm like a Buddha.
Almost meditative in stillness
Except for his arms and hands
At times Bruce, seeming sleeping, surprises with rising and falling magically with the piano
Curves his back, then straightening tall, collapses down to the frets
Pulls his bass partner close like a woman
Then out – like a jitterbug
Throws up his hand in a rhythmic backslash
Sometimes twirling it around a bit
Dancing with it in a slow jitterbug.
He slides his sturdy hands up and down
Strong fingers picking the long thick strings
Using four fingers on top, two on the bottom,
Up and down the frets he goes
Up and down, up and down.
He gives the pulse to the slow and lively songs.
His simple seeming clear music, the heartbeat of the tones
Mostly created around the soul center hole of his bass,
Wholly magic his touch, tender and firm
With an occasional flat hand slap
Soft or hard depending on the tune
His body straightens, curves, collapses
Around the neck of his lover,
His big and beautiful mahogany bass.
Hamada is a classic trio musician,
an archetype of an attentive man.
His patriarchal body language
His unpretentious presence attracts notice
Engaged, yet with eyes often closed he emits an air of cool indifference
Till he opens his eyes and cracks a smile
Reveals his understated engagement in the rousing concert
Feels the power and joy of his own synchopated essence.
There’ll Be Another Spring
Rich sings, the jazz piano boogie woogies
The fans go wild with the pace and intense solos of bass and drums
The concert room is full of private memory and nostalgia
Now and then, here and not here, gone and maybe
Another time, another me, another you,
We have grown older through Covid and back again
More experienced, more masterful in our creativity
Lovers each in our separate crafts, still sharing our gifts.
Joy Spring
The last song is moderate, a bit of the blues
Sits next to joy, in chords and tones and rhythms
We are more subdued
As we quietly prepare for the anticipated ending.
Inspiration bulges, overflow of happy breaths
Slipping and sliding in the songs, melodies, in Grace tunes
Significance flashes.
We, our mostly ageing Honolulu jazz community
Sit together and experience well-being in our listening
Surrendering to the collective pleasure and mystery of music.
The jazz concert is a social and personal experience
In practice and reward
Of artistic service to educate the community on culture.
We enter the magic room of melodies
Together we are transported and transformed
Safe in the harbor of music that unites and heals.
We forget for a while the faults and errors
Of everyday human living.
Like the shadow of your crooked smile, that I will always remember.
Thank you, Rich Crandall and friends.
For the gift of music.
Trees
TREES
By: Kathryn Waddell Takara, Ph.D.
I am also a tree
A sifter of light and shadows remember
I am a tree, inner and outer
I change with the weather and seasons remember
I am a tree diverse
Of myriad parts and sizes remember
I am a tree transforming
Witness is my name remember
I carry many names and varieties
Across and around the planet remember
I am a loving, giving tree
Available for comfort and shelter remember
We are like trees
Flexible, rooted, bearers of beauty and scars remember
We house underground communities of roots
We talk together and weep of human threats remember
We are ghosts at night
We rest and are magic, visible and invisible remember
Transformative
Look beyond the stormy obstacles we birth, are born, give fruit
We are regenerative, remember
I feel gratitude to the great Hafiz and Rumi
Bearers of torches for perennial correspondences remember
Trees. Life. Love them. Remember
Vulnerability
VULNERABILITY
By: Kathryn Waddell Takara, Ph.D.
Where fly the sun rays?
Undoubtedly too hot
Too early in the season
Of frying climate and changing conditions
Where dances
The Jester Truth?
Edge walking on cliffs
Seeing sleeping people and zombies
Remiss.
What is the beat? Feel it.
Watch the sleep walkers
Lacking sight and relativity
Falling down down down
To violent depravity and darkness.
Fears and fantasy glittering paths of illusions
Storms of imbalance and blame.
Is there a melody to joy?
Healing harmonies
Sunlight and songs?
Kisses, hugs, and risks?
Vulnerability can
Vanish in a bird’s moment.
Regenerative, joy, giving service
In a lake of attention
Joy flies in a bubble of rainbow – see it
Reminds of the body’s journey,
When do people laugh? Is it joyful?
What buffer? What is the narration?
How often do we repeat the cloudy conditions
And suffer the conclusions?
Vulnerability. See it.
Attend to it
Choose joy.
Red Dreams Volcano, Visions
By: Kathryn Waddell Takara, Ph.D.
An exciting pocketbook of poetry that offers Takara’s firsthand observations and reflections of the 2018 Kīlauea eruption, including the following poem.
PELE AND FISSURE 8
It’s a spectacular show, lava fireworks
ominous, eerie, fiery-painted skies.
There are variable, color-filled clouds
corals, magentas, rubies
irregular shades of gray and black.
Surprising impermanent weather
patterns appear
while molten rock gushes torrential
reveals the heartbeat of Fissure 8.
Kanaka maoli understand
the powerful process.
Let go of illusions of control.
Allow for the robust untamed cycle
of evolution.
Recognize the signs.
It’s still too smoky
to fathom the future
in an unpredictable present.
Copyright 2019 Pacific Raven Press, LLC
Zimbabwe Spin : Politics & Poetics
By: Kathryn Waddell Takara, Ph.D.
This poem, originally published in Zimbabwe Spin: Politics and Poetics by Kathryn Waddell Takara, refers in part to the then-President of Zimbabwe, the late Robert Mugabe (Feb. 21, 1924 – Sept. 6, 2019).
MELTDOWN
Under the rule of a zealot
Opponents beaten and discouraged
Thwarted elections
Forgotten revolution
The meaning of democracy.
Wild animals near extinction
Illegal hunters
Heedless, greedy poachers
Elephants and rhinos at high risk
Rare tusks for ancient Chinese remedies
Jewelry, decorative art, piano keys
Endangered even on animal preserves
Where empty nests dot the abandoned trees in leafless intricacy
All Nature a sunset witness.
Ignorant collaborators
Hungry, envious of Western wealth
Commit unspeakable acts of cruelty to feed their families and greed.
Awesome independence corrupts
Distorted collective vision of progress
Ignores economic meltdown
As policy supports political intimidation
Social unrest dominated by bully tactics.
Discontent rumbles under the drought of inequality
Like magma inflates before an eruption.
Copyright 2015 Pacific Raven Press, LLCRead more
This poem, originally published in Zimbabwe Spin: Politics and Poetics by Kathryn Waddell Takara, refers in part to the then-President of Zimbabwe, the late Robert Mugabe (Feb. 21, 1924 – Sept. 6, 2019).
Review of Zimbabwe Spin: Politics and Poetics:
“Poets forge and foster hope. Is present-day Zimbabwe worth a song? Well, Kathryn Takara forces us to believe so: ‘Creative melodies of possibility flash across the darkening horizon lit by evening fires.’ She predicts that the Great House will rise again from its current political mess. Listen to this great American poet, and you will realize Charles Baudelaire lives on. Takara’s dexterity in offering us Zimbabwe on a sweet and sour plate tells us that poetry is sister to photography.”
–George Gnapka, PhD, author and professor in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire
Copyright 2015 Pacific Raven Press, LLC
Brown
By: Kathryn Waddell Takara, Ph.D.
Brown. I imagined it was such an ordinary color the color of my skin. Brown, the color of Mother Earth, rivers rain-swelled, a variety of tones, sharps and flats, like people: Africans, Indians, Asians, Pacific Islanders. Don’t mind. Apple Brown Betty, pie crusts, brown gravy, coffee, caramel, chocolates, walnuts, pecans, peanuts, cashews, brown wrapping paper for Xmas packages. Brown, the color of my skin. Don’t mind. Kaleidoscope of kids brown-nose the teacher, preppies scuff their brown penny loafers. Brownstone elegance fights decay creeping blight in New York City, reminding of another time—resurrecting. Browns of tapa cloth, batik, wood carvings carved brown doors to places and events memorable, the brown doors, usually forgotten. Brown owls, chipmunks, squirrels, dogs, horses, elks, bears, giraffes, gazelles, lions, and other creatures around the globe. The color of me, brown. Don’t mind. Browns are as natural as breath, as varied as grains of sand. To think, I imagined it was such an ordinary color, the color of my skin.
Late Spring
East Coast in May
50th reunion at Tufts
Old friends and festivities
Intensity multiplies
Un huh
Mint greens, emerald leaves
Dogwood and pink buds
Crystal streams flow freely
Un huh
Robins and blue birds
Turkeys and gnats
Add to the sumptuous sounds
Un huh
Petunia and geraniums
Violets and yellows
Punctuate colorfully
Patches of now
Un huh
Camellias coming
Azaleas strumming colors
Wisteria wafting lazily
Anticipation of unknown global warming
Un huh, un huh
Lost reclamations
Confused assumptions
Shared fears and sentiments
Un huh
Essence in bloom
Patience in trying
Aching joints, weakening body
Still moments of splendid
Un huh, un huh
Visitor in the garden
Eyes face west then south
See stirs of wind in date tree
Fronds reflecting, fluffing the air
Psychedelic pinks and orange
Change quick as a breath
A passing posse of clouds
Catch the colors on the French doors
Fading to evening.
Spring should be gentle
Full of promise
Meanwhile
Thousands of Rohini Muslim boat refugees
Float for weeks off Indonesia
Lost homelands in Myanmar, Bangladesh, Thailand
Dying for lack of water, food, docking,
friendly governments and welcome.
St Patricks Day, 2015
By: Kathryn Waddell Takara, Ph.D.
Pause
Notice the butterfly gone orange
Like Abidjan matches
See
Mother’s plumeria tree from Manoa
Grown from a hearty branch
Witness
Spring coming
In multiple colorful
Masterful madness and fanciful designs
Feel
Air thaws to green
Nature vaunts grace in growth
Experience joy in awareness
Marvel
Moments of pinks and yellows
Lavenders and oranges
Bold daring contrasts
Together serendipitous
Beauty in multiple melodies of birds
Look
Whales frolic off the coast
Splashing presence with new calves
Attention
A blue day changes
Wind shifts south
Vog from volcano drifts up the island chain
Reminding of toxic nearby
Wars, terror, nuclear threats
Corruption, elections, polarization
Troubles parallel to hope.
Summer
By: Kathryn Waddell Takara, Ph.D.
Spirit of sun
Generous, expansive
Hot hot hot
Water melon
Water sports
Water hole
Water hose
Watering plants
Summer’s lost thread
Faded dream tapestry
Veiled vision
Dreamy afternoons
Time to make a plan for autumn.