Playing the Word: Jazz Poems

by Dan Jaffe

Price 80 pages, $13.95 paper

ISBN 1-886157-34-0

Dan Jaffe's celebration of jazz is so vivid and passionate I could hear the tunes and see the smoke. It was 3 a.m. and I had no thought of going home until the last note was played. This book is a great work of love. -- James Tate, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

After reading these poems a second time, I began to feel as if I were hearing individual jazz solos--a quick turn of phrase here, a surprise riff there. They got my attention, made me want to hear more.-- Ira Sullivan

I have been associated with music most of my life. This writing reminds me of what was vital when making successful recordings. I can smell the stale liquor odor of an empty club, see musicians wake up for a chorus or two. The "nation on the bandstand" identified for me the jazz society everyone wants to belong to and identify with, but few have the strength and courage to do more than just visit.
Reading about Bird's love for Bartok brought to mind Bartok strolling through his parents' village and listening to field workers singing. He couldn't play their notes, but it dawned on him that he could create the harmonics: the dawn of a new age in classical music. But "jazz musicians" have basked in this in-between world forever!
I thoroughly enjoyed those poems because I could easily identify with each portrayal. -- Tom Dowd, Atlantic Records

In Playing the Word, Dan Jaffe takes us through a lifetime's love of jazz. From his early days in New York at the height of bebop, to his long sojourn in one of the great cradles of jazz, Kansas City, to the rich Afro-Cuban jazz scene in his new home in south Florida, these poems bear moving testimony to the power of this unique American idiom. Poets often seek methods and materials from other art forms, as Jaffe shows best in a long section of blues poems that gladly declare their allegiance to the great blues tradition of Chicago and the American South. Playing the Word is more than a tribute to the great names of jazz. It reminds us of the devotion of those who did not become household names, as well as giving us glimpses into the lives of loved ones who nurtured the great artists. Charlie Parker is most poignantly seen here in a poem spoken by his mother and another by his widow. Those interested in the complex heritage of American culture will cherish this book. -- Roger Mitchell

Dan Jaffe has written more than a dozen books. His jazz opera, All Cats Turn Gray When the Sun Goes Down (with Herb Six) has been produced in Kansas City, St. Louis, and New York. He also appears on the CD In Their Own Voices: A Century of Recorded Poetry (Rhino Records). Jaffe has performed his poetry with numerous jazz musicians, including George Salisbury, Milt Abel, Nicole Yarling, Frank Smith, Brian Murphy and Tim Whitmer. He currently lives in Miami Beach, Florida.

A recorded interview with this author is available from New Letters on the Air.