Jazz for Justice Roberts 

I like music that dares you to achieve the lifestyle it suggests.
A girl in every port,
a superwoman in every ‘hood,
a pool table in every basement.
Art that suggests that there is more to life
than sitting in the suburbs
and falling into a depression.
For there are still heroics to be had
in the jazzy timeless stratosphere
where Hugh Hefner is still enjoying
one more Ella Fitzgerald blue note.
That warm spot where such early 60’s intrepidity of the soul survives.
I think of Jimmy Smith and the derring-do he teased out of the Hammond B-3,
and of the supra-national mingling of styles, philosophies, beliefs,
and ways to please ones man or woman.
Makes me think of my time in West Philly,
learning all of the Black Arts that I did there,
the bongo sessions ‘til daybreak,
the relaxing pimps in their bars,
at three in the afternoon,
Billy Paul playing on the jukebox,
echoes of a city’s yesteryear.
But how to describe how there were really no yesterdays,
no tomorrows,
when every day was an immersion in a very immediate sort of luxury,
tastes in interior design favoring early Caligula,
and every night involved staving off a very final sort of riot.
I think very scientifically now,
but then I could feel the kind of vibe a Jehova’s Witness might send out,
talking about the End Times.
It was a flight out beyond Newton, beyond Einstein
into the world of star explosions and spoonfuls of matter heavier than the sun
with flamboyant jurisprudence discussions in Professor Severeid’s
or Professor Harzenski’s class
at Temple Law to top it off.
The last fizzle of something beautiful.