There’s no washing off the jazz sticking to my skin floating down like feathers beaten from a pillow. Around corners from under cars through windows or down the up stairway the jazz trips me up to listen long. Under half or full moons I wander and stumble finding my way to the soul of music, … More LONG PAST MIDNIGHT
A first breath builds within; a crying life births a soul into notes for the living. Music pulled from years of hard blues sets firmness into a laboring of sounds darkly moaning lost names. Jazz stirred from the pain of absent arms and lips without smiles scratches wounds into bleeding; paths of scars have no … More LISTENING EYES
She steps into the music. Her fingers, thin brown pencils sign the beauty of her voice into the microphone; a signature pressing through metal. Red singing lips. The voice of voices within. Waters of her storms gush to the surface. Her rough sound blows the crowd into smooth. Her feathered hat; stiff proud wings, like … More SHE CRIES OF VOICE
Air notes of glass slip sharp through smoke, cutting a path to a crowd lazy with music sitting under willow trees holding hard the jazz like warm black roads of summer. Fat clapping hands, long days of beer and evenings short of gin, cool his hands into the drain of … More FIRE WITHIN
A willing sax throws out notes like hungry fishermen with long lines of baited hooks into deep swirling waters where souls swim as the wiggling masses tread close with thirsty ears and anxious hands breaking hard the surface calling them that want as eyes go wide and feet twist under shouldered sways while … More WHERE SOULS SWIM
In his fingers a burning pressed hard to the surface. His thoughts smoldered heavy in thick smoke circling about him, then burst like spattering grease into dangerous thirsty flames. His sharp cut pork pie hat danced in circles like planets spinning out of control. Blue dark sunglasses reflected the crowd while hiding … More FAT IN THE JAZZ
The music of her is a ribbon untied and streams of silk break free like summer stars on the foreheads of angels as I feel the thick of myself, as if running under water becoming trapped in the listening of the jazz like the first time it blanketed me with a rocking upside down … More THE UPSIDE OF RELEASE
There is a thirst in my fire. A cloud heavy with wet, ready to release a river. In my head a muscle pushes rocks, forcing rivers to overflow, changing the course of brown gravel into the sounds of me. I am a prisoner of music. The maker of jazz and the roll of … More THAT JAZZ THING
That black 33 1/3 circled the life of song spinning it out in round of rounds dark shiny onyx like Alabama nights pushed a sound of scratch and horns and bass with drums forming a jumpy beat as the man on ivories jams the air choking out a new sound … More CLEOPATRA’S OIL
Walk to me the songs crawling silently like cats at night stalking the dark with eyes piercing deep into me. Tie my thoughts with the strings of a righteous bass preaching sternly to my ears the message of jazz. Help me snap my fingers free like running legs of children against the wind, never … More TEACH ME THE JAZZ
Roger Singer 