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Morton Marcus: Good evening everybody, and welcome to the Poetry Show. Our guest tonight is the wonderful novelist, poet and man of Belles Lettres, Al Young. And in case you do not know the works of Al Young just very very quickly, he's the

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author of "Dancing the Song Turning Back into Itself," "Geography of the Near Past," and "The Blues Don't Change," the new and select the poems which came out several years ago. His novels include snakes, "Who is Angelina", "Sitting

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Pretty", "Ask Me Now", and next year's eagerly awaited "Seduction by Starlight". He has also edited a lot of anthologies, he is the editor first of "Yardbird" and now of "Quilt" with Ishmael Reed, and he has written a number or the

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third of his three musical memoirs, which started with "Bodies and Souls" has just come out and it is great to welcome you here tonight Al. And welcome once again, because this is sort of a turning around in a circle for me. Al Young was the very

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very first guest I had on the Poetry Show when I started two and a half years ago, and it was a madhouse in here because I didn't know what I was doing. And I just sat back and smile because he has been a disc jockey years and years ago.

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Al Young: I was born on the radio practically. I wasn't aware that I was the first guest. Morton Marcus: You were the first guest I thought you realize that my my craziness you know, people being potted up,

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not being potted up was a little odd. Al Young: I thought it was an early guest, not the very first. Morton Marcus: No, the first one. You are doing a lot of new things. You've got a lot of new things coming up. We can do and

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I would love to just do the greatest cross section of your work as we did last time. Al Young: Sure. Morton Marcus: But I would like to start with poetry because you

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are really doing some new things in poetry that not only you haven't done before, but I think a rather new, and at a time when I think American poetry is really looking for new directions, and you're one of those frown frontiersman out on

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the edge. So I'd like you to read some of this and maybe even talk about them to tell the readers what you think you're into. Al Young: Well I've reached the point where just more than ever

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don't draw hard and fast lines between poetry and prose. I'm listening to a voice that's beginning to push through as it were. It's back there in the background some somewhere and I can hear it very clearly sometimes when I'm walking

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around, or when I'm on a plane or climbing a mountain or down at the beach, and when I sit to write, I try to tap into it. Sometimes it comes out as a kind of prose poetry, sometimes it comes out as formal line unit poetry, and I don't pay any

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attention to it. It's the voice I'm trying to get because it's coming from beyond somewhere, it's almost as if I'm taking dictation. But of course, that's a mystical way of looking at something that has been developing visibly and audibly,

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I suppose, for the entire time that I've been writing poetry, which goes all the way back to my early teens. I'm now 48, folks. Just so you'll have an idea of how many years I'm talking about.

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Morton Marcus: Well, I also know that you're doing a lot of meditating. And I think that's the same thing that I do. I know that when I- when I start to write, I'm trying to tap into a voice, it's sort of like a clear place, a still place, where I'm-

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from which I'm speaking honestly, and oftentimes in very surprising ways. Al Young: Yes. Morton Marcus: Um, let's hear some of the new poems now.

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Al Young: Well, we'll start out with poetry poetry, and then maybe we'll go into something that is disguised as prose, but which is poetry all the same. This one has something of a Santa Cruz setting. I didn't realize that until I'd finished

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it. And it's from a collection that's coming out in the spring of 1988, called "Heaven", which has Collected Poems 1958 to 1988. And in that collection, I not only include all the poems from previously published volumes, but volumes that are

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unpublished as well. I have about three books of poems that will be published for the first time in that particular collection. This is from one of those collections which is called "Sea Level".

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SUMMER Evening is the fourth of July, stars the sizzling fireworks, advertising the night, the moon rose tender belly toward the sun, smoothing darkness from the beach. The ocean bellows blues

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below sea level. Giddy from the Ferris wheel, I stared down into Carnival light at dawdling hordes along the sidewalk, cooling out in their crumpled, listless casuals. Their pastel tinted hair of sushi, of shadow, glitter and pure stares. Breeze.

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What reckless celebration are you hinting at? Maybe you blown into sin just by the sparks of our own souls, Roman candles or flaring cherry bombs, or to let us see ourselves aglow in showers of hot and flaking light.

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Morton Marcus: Very nice. What's happened in these poems for me is the language has become totally metaphorical. I mean, though, the images and the metaphors are just leaping into one another and then expanding and becoming a third mutation.

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Al Young: Something weird's going on. I'm not always sure what it is too, either, but it's fascinating. Here's one that's called "Romance Without Finance". The title some of you will beat boppers will recognize as being an old Charlie Parker

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title. ROMANCE WITHOUT FINANCE If you can't finance it undercover, you need and apply for the gig of lover. To stake this whittled down version of

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love, you don't need money so much as time, attention, and all the me the mind can see. Still, moments turn up with dulling precision. When the heads or tails of your nighttime thereness must be flipped to recall your daytime awayness. No

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win, no lose, just edgily the blues, as money needs spenders and spenders need lenders. So passionate romance seems always in need of love, backtalk, and deliberated speed. Morton Marcus: You can tell something weird is going on

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there. Al Young: Those are poems from "Sea Level". I'm going to shift very quickly into a book called "22 Moon Poems", which are exactly that. These were poems written a couple of years ago,

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between Italy and in Yugoslavia, from a stay of several months that I spent in those countries. And I kept a notebook in which the moon became my confessor, became my constant companion. And so a lot of these come out, come off as soliloquies or as-

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it's just little talks to the moon and some are, some are quite interesting. Im going to pick something out to share with you. Morton Marcus: Al was over in Yugoslavia on this trip as

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actually a writer, as a guest of the Yugoslavian government and you went around- Al Young: Yugoslav Writers Union Morton Marcus: Yugoslav Writers Union, you know, which is

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actually political, I mean, is it not? Al Young: Yes, yes it is. Morton Marcus: And then you just talked to a lot of writers over there as sort of a representative of America

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really. Al Young: Yeah, that's the way it worked, except they're real serious about poetry. Morton Marcus: Man, that's all right Al.

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Al Young: The moon, the whole moon and nothing but the moon. Glorious, nourishing, flourishing moon swollen with all the raw energy of time. And what it does, as light. I take off my hat, my coat, my tie, my shoes, and socks to you.

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Breathing you in like an oceanic breeze. How can I expect to escape the pure lure and lore of you? The you, that isn't now, and never has been, and never will be the moon, the whole moon and nothing but the moon. Love pours from every leaky look I

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take of you, and all your ceilings. You're no roof, but the sky is, and tonight's the night you beautiful bright streak of wonder particle of this particular eternity. I give you everything I've got, which isn't much, but all yours for

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the reaching, friend of light. Little by little, poco a poco I surrender. Surrender. The most reassuring word in this locked up language. Surround me with your intelligence and strength. I surrender, I surrender to the power of your love. All I want

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to be is with you every special moment of the day and night, waking or sleeping, on the move or restive, stilled in contemplation. Your powering light and the force that sanctions that is both of us together, and the dream alive

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and well and welling in the gulf stream of your eyes. I give the world right back to you, my God, my moon, sweet lover of my soul, my only life. The light that holds you up in space keeps me afloat, and shakes the limbs of trees and men alike. Outside my

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window now, and loving socialist October. An answer comes before I've even asked my question, and over and over it whispers along my sunlit autumn cheek, and the sobering sound, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Da.

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We get a little nuts. That's probably one more passionate of, of the moon poems. Some of them are, are kind of droll and have a different jocular feeling about them. Let's see if I can-

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Morton Marcus: Oh, yeah, definitely. Let us have some more of them. Al Young: If I could pull one of those up. Morton Marcus: Now, where would that be? That would be in the

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beginning. Al Young: That was late in the cycle. That was number 20 of 22 Moon poems and sort of builds up into- Maybe I'll read the very first one.

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Morton Marcus: Yeah, let's hear the first one. I was just about to say that. Al Young: How it goes. It's called HERE IN VIOLET LIGHT

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Here in violet light streaming up out of the Adriatic, like the mushroomed hairdo of some atomic facade, or locking up the tone. Cats are curled in doorways for the night, snoring or meowing in Italian, and the gardens here and Via Fratti(?), they seem

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relaxed enough to want to drink more than a little moonlight with their water, their do. The beautiful need of plants and grass and trees to soak and stare. Hey, peeping moon. I know you aren't about to sing or even whisper in the sprightly depth

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of this night. In fact, the detached look of you is far from being the jolly fat moon that lit the riverbank we slept on in August, a month ago when the whole flow and splash and feel of you was the color of the Tuolumne, you hung out over our

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sleeping bags and like the stars drifted off in a way in other directions. Or is there only one, until shooting stars took the show. That was you, wasn't it moon? This Italy I'm in clouds my mirror sometimes. I'm not always sure what it is I'm

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seeing. Sometimes, I think you're really me. Other times, I think you were the type who would follow me all the way from California to Italy. Actually just to see if I can keep passing you off as a pal. Ciao mi amore! Good night, moon. I'll

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get you in my dreams. It gets wild. Morton Marcus: I mean the impression also as you're just having a lot of fun.

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Al Young: A lot of fun. I want to read one more of these? Morton Marcus: Sure. now the I can't help thinking back to dancing so many years ago, where you were able to do variations with one one thing and then just do variations on, you know, and

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like there's a release in that and the same things happening here in the moon poems. Al Young: Well, you know, we always double back. Morton Marcus: Yeah,

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Al Young: Start from the beginning all over again. There would be times when there'd be no moon. I mean, I became so intimate with the moon that nights when it wasn't around and I was sitting to, to write and say, well, there is no

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moon. What do you write tonight? This is a poem from such a night. It's called MOONLESSNESS You. You. There you go again, disappearing on me moon, and on

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the ripest of days, right smack dab in the middle of all autumn. No sooner do I grow used to having you on around for days and nights on end, then the soothing shadow of you dissolves from the heavens. And even the taste of your light upon the wet

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shiny coat my tongue wears in this goodbye cartoon evaporates. Hey loony moon, don't you know that even I a clown for love? No savvy whatever for stately details would gladly form an elegant delegation of one to swim this darkness to you. Here

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in this particular now, here where you've ditched me. It's all these crazy bluesy, all blues moon that boy me where I hover at the streaky kitchen Belgrade window, soaking up the silvery orange and blue sky across the last Greenstreet of

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redheaded October. All of it blue, blue, a brilliantly blue. This is the now that keeps pulsing and pushing and pulling me along this snail like switchback of a trail. I travel moonless.

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Morton Marcus: You know these are a lot of fun and a lot of the ways you're moving through them is by rhyme. You're hitting the same rhyme sound the next- in the next word, let's say like surrender, surrender, surround me, you know, and things like

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that. But at the same time, what's coming through is enormous loneliness. The real loneliness of the traveler alone just you know, going from each of these countries and has a real therefore cutting through the mask of that that merriment,

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sees what's really going on, and it's a really works well. Al Young: Try one more here. Morton Marcus: Yes, definitely. Al Young: It's called "Pigeon Moon". You got so used to

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talking in pigeon that became your natural language. I mean, you got a taxi and I was reading some of these poems and on radio in Yugoslavia and on television and got to be sort of well known during my stay there. I'd get a taxi sometimes in Belgrade,

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Belgrade and you'd get a taxi driver who would say something like "you are Al Young?" I say, "Da." "Ah, so tell me how it is going this long poem you're writing about moon, you know? So I wrote this thing called "Pigeon Moon", it's in two

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parts. PIGEON MOON, SIDE ONE: Moon, moon, me go now but me no got no place to go now, so where you be, little moon fly out a big moon day tonight. He's cloud

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is white. His cloud is gray is blue, no go blue, black sun whisper in your face, the hot in speak like don't speak no English, is light, but light, no bright. Drink strong sun make moon bump foot go boom boom at night. No bomb but bump is bomb

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make people eat them light. Some say bump make moon moon. More moon, more me, moon, me too go now. SIDE TWO: Is blue the sea, is blue the eye of moon to shine, is blue to the

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way you feel inside like sky.The top of you under the skin and red the you give me big scare, is red the blood is red, the root is black the hair me feel she no look good. Got one bad eye and see moon bloom is flop in flower. She bad eye is red,

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he talk is blue, the heart is nowhere to see but I tell all and sky go over moon in dark, use blue. The sea is blue, the eye of moon to shine. Nutty stuff.

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Right? That also lets the listening audience out there hear the many voices of Al Young and he has a great mimic. He picks up the sounds of language just amazingly. And I've heard the the Yugoslav before, but I was really, you know,

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overwhelmed that you just had picked up that wonderful- I mean, it is different than Greek it is different from Italian and it's, you know, very individual. Let's go over to something else.

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Okay. Now, Al you have got in your hand a very new looking book. Why don't you tell us a little about that. All right. This is hot off the press. It should be in your local bookstores a week from now. It's called "Things Ain't

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What They Used To Be". Morton Marcus: Which is the name of the show that follows this one by the way. Al Young: Is that right?

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Morton Marcus: Yeah, just Tim you just met before. Yep. Al Young: Well this is Mercer Ellington's tune. And I've even got Mercer Ellington explaining in here how he came to write it way back in 1941 and, or 1943. And it's a series of sometimes

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stories, sometimes memoirs, sometimes prose poems, sometimes tone poems. And it's the third volume of the series that commenced with bodies and soul, back in the early 80s, interluded with a book called "Kinds of Blue", and this is the

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final volume in that- in that series, and I'd like to read a couple things from it. One to show you, to give you an idea of the playfulness that's, that's involved in me lately. That is when I say that I don't make these distinctions between

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poetry and prose always, I really mean it. And the way that it manifests itself in a book like this, I think can be heard readily by attentive listeners, or even inattentive listeners. I'm looking for a piece in here that's called "Last Tango in

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Paris". I should have brought that in from the record library out there, but I wasn't quite sure that I'd be doing this. But I did bring in Gato Barbieri. Maybe later, later on, we can play one of those pieces. Most of you know this movie, either

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from when it came out, or you've seen it on television. Now, probably hasn't played television. Maybe you've seen it in video cassette form. And Tango has always fascinated me because, like the blues, it has very unrespectable origins. It's

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one of those, those dances and one of those forms, folk forms that had to really endure for a long time before it got official recognition, especially in Argentina, the country of its of its birth, and now everybody is in Tango, you know, they're

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making big shows that are touring and everybody's taking Tango lessons and they have Tango contests and all of that. But I decided to pay tribute to the tango and to the compositional genius of Gato Barbieri, and a lot of things in

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this and so I'll read the read part of it. Forget about Marlon Brando. This is LAST TANGO IN PARIS: Forget about Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider and the buttered

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up sex and mooning. Forget the title shot and also the sadly erotic tawdriness of tit and ass pavilions. What you really want to concentrate upon is how it must feel to be rushing around the streets of Saint-Germain-des-Prés with a

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fluttering at the back of your skull that's opting for joyful frontline hits. Add all this up and hear how Gato Barbieri scored. Listen to the lush but simple accordion statements of melody he's penciled into the arrangement. People are driving

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around America with bumper stickers that read, "Play an accordion, go to jail, that's the law," but they don't know how beautiful, how beautifully particular players can squeeze those boxes. This accordion is from those gritty streets of

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Gato's childhood, where time was tapped to shoe measure. Remember, if you can, those warm throated pre-Peronista nights, an evening barely begun, violet light is flooding the eye,s heart, overcome with desire that light is neither sure nor

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understands why it is being set daffy with longing. So where does this Tango lead, where do all Tangos lead, no place, but up to Gato's place that space just in the back of his heart yellowed with taxis, and if an August rains begun to fall in

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April or in May, this could make it an even juicier visit. This could send the Tango wandering into some smokey shadow of a corner to find its partner to do what it takes two to do. Ah the tangles and entanglements of love let loose like light let

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in, whisking and snatching you gently and crazily, every broken legged wave but loose. Imagine all of this for background while you've listened to Last Tango in Paris. Put yourself in the picture, expand to the duende of this intoxicant. The movement of

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the music itself. At long last, you've got your damp palms wrapped around each other's waist. The feet are working, doing whatever they should, the mustachioed musicians are all but winking at the both of you from between the wheezy cracks

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and the squeeze and shutter of keys and buttons, the sound, that breeze the accordion makes. The wind is so slow moving in the flowered room that you can take your time breathing in the smells of smoke, and drink perfume and sweaty euphoria. You

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make that little ethnic pass around the floor. What's that they call it? Tangos is good a name for it as any. The crowds such as it is of a weak night looks on, the light even glistens in the elongated sliver of a scalp your partner's parted

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hair reveals. For sure it's a perfect match for her now lowered, now undulating cleavage. All do and shine and the heave of her smart yet simple blouse. These are not champagne and chauffeur people. These are the descendants of

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cowboys, gauchos, laboring people, and scufflers. Both your busy foreheads are lathered in salt. The moon is nowhere to be seen. But the tide of the tablecloths you keep brushing from your laps, and the glide of the Tango are the only things

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spilling in this art and moment now, like fruits and vegetables from an old time horn of plenty. The Tango is everything. All this moment is made of. It's almost as if there's never been anything else in any season of your sweet and bitter passages,

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along the giddy edges of your stomach and the nape of your neck. You sense this moment isn't going to be your last, but you aren't certain about how you mean that: last as in last night, last as in there ain't no more, the sting of demon time is

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poisoning your blood. What will become of this casual passion about to wane and reseed like practically everything you've ever tried to clutch, or make last. Morton Marcus: We have been talking to and will continue to

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talk to Al Young on the Poetry Show tonight. And he has just read a piece from his new book, which is just out and will be in the bookstores this week. Again, I keep forgetting the name. And not only the whole thing.

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Al Young: Things Ain't What They Used To Be. Morton Marcus: Things Ain't What They Used To Be. It's one of those phrases that just won't go. We're going to hear some Gato Barbieri as we take our half

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hour break. So stay with us and we'll talk to how young and here's some more poetry and prose. And I think we'll keep that going in the background here while I read some public service announcements. Listen to the

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voices of Guatemala. Francisco Cali and exiled Chuck- Cachico(?) I guess Indian from Guatemala will be speaking in Santa Cruz at the Merrill Lounge on the UCSC campus on Wednesday, November the 11th. And at the Veterans Memorial building on

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Thursday, November the 12th. So do keep that in mind. That will begin at 1:30pm at Merrill Lounge on Thursday and on Thursday at the Veterans Memorial Hall. It will be at 7pm. So that is for Francisco Cali from Guatemala, 1:30pm at

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Merrill Lounge at UCSC on Wednesday, November the 11th. That's this Wednesday, and then a Thursday at 7pm at the Veterans Memorial building, Mr. Cali will also be speaking. Let me also start to prime you for a very important event. The first

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anthology of Santa Cruz writing is about to hit the newsstands. It is called "Lighthouse Point, An Anthology of Santa Cruz Writing," and at the Veterans Hall again at 717 at 717 Front street from December 11 to 12th both nights from seven to 11pm.

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That's a Friday and Saturday 30 readers will read each night, each reader reading for five minutes. Among the people who are included in this anthology are Billy Everson, Jimmy and Jim and Jean Houston, David Swanger Maude Meehan, Anita Wilkins,

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Gary Young, Gail Rosae(?), Victor Pereira, your own Joe Stroud, and yours truly, Morton Marcus and on and on. This is not only the first Santa Cruz anthology, it is an amazingly extensive anthology which has been brought out by Empress and

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that is coming up a month from now and we will continue to announce that so if you're looking for a Christmas gift that really shows what Santa Cruz is all about the whole literary community is in this anthology. Okay, also I would

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like to announce that the Sunday night special week is "Ode to Gravity Number Three." The Sunday night special comes on from 9 to 11pm and this week will feature avant-garde heavyweight John Cage as he squares off with KPFA

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interviewer Charles Amirkhanian for an evening of talk about the composer's innovative and controversial musical experiments. Some of Cage's most exemplary works will also be included, Lou Jetson hosts the show. So that's the Sunday night

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special, which is that odd program that comes up every Sunday from nine to 11, a grab bag, it can be literature one night, jazz the next hour as is this week, a talk with John Cage, the great avant-garde composer. I- also this Thursday,

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that is two days from now, there is going to be a reading of the Qua- of the new issue of Quarry West and though I have been told that that announcement is here, I have looked all over the PSA box I cannot find it. So if the editor is listening and would

00:31:02.880 - 00:31:17.310

like to call me up, I will try by the end of the show to get the location. But that will be at eight o'clock this Thursday, but I do not know where. It may well be at the Art Theater where they have had readings before, at the Santa Cruz Art Center.

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Anyway, we have been talking and are continuing to talk now with Al Young, and Al what are you going to read from now? We've had some poetry and we've had this new book of blues memoirs, the last, the third of the trilogy, and I think you've got

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something special from it for us. Al Young: Yes, this is, this is something special from "Things Ain't What They Used to Be". In previous volumes, the voice that you heard was was mine for the most part in those books. And in

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this volume, not only does a gentleman named Larry Cart, who writes for the Chicago Sun Times, reviews jazz and poetry for them and renowned poet Michael Harper, shared in the last section of the book with me in a discussion we did on jazz

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and letters, but I invited my old sidekick, brother O.O. Gabugah to come in and to write some things about some of the Motown recordings that have become classics in our times. And for those of you who don't know about all O.O. Gabugah, I

00:32:27.550 - 00:32:44.710

talked about him in the prelude, that is the introduction to the book, and it says, My man, O.O. Gabugah, that's O period, O period, Gabugah, g-a-b-u-g-a-h, has been around it seems for as long as black pepper. Our association is heavily sprinkled

00:32:44.710 - 00:32:59.320

across the years, and there are those who have commended sorry, commented that brother Gabugah sometimes appears to be pepper to my salt, as it were, mean cop to my nice cop. Many old timers will remember him as the author of "What You Sees is What You

00:32:59.320 - 00:33:13.750

Get." From his revolutionary days, when he was writing books like "Off the Pig and Get Yourself some Chitlins," and "Love is a White Man Snot Rag," but like other firebrands from the 60s and 70s, like Archie Shepp, and Bob Dylan, and the

00:33:13.750 - 00:33:31.300

People's Republic of China, O.O. Gabugah has mellowed. His comments and memories as they relate to some of the hardier, meatier Motown classics and to trumpeter singer Hugh Masekela. This is where he gets his name from an album that Hugh Masekela

00:33:31.300 - 00:33:43.210

put out called the "Americanization of Ooga Booga" will be sure to hold your attention. So this is me trying, the brother Gabugah isn't here in person tonight, so I'll try to approximate the way he would deliver this very short little

00:33:43.210 - 00:33:57.670

thing, which is called "The Way You do the Things You Do". Some of you might remember that 1964 Temptations tune. [Sings] You got a smile so bright, you know you could have been a candle.

00:33:58.560 - 00:34:13.470

I'm holding you so tight, you know you could have been a handle. It goes on like that. I never was good and poetry at school. The best ever pool was a

00:34:13.470 - 00:34:30.780

C plus once and Mr. Riley's class at PS 147 I don't know what they had two white kids downtown reading, but update in Harlem they had us read and stuff like, "the curfew tolls the knell of parting day, the lowing herd wind slowly o'er the

00:34:30.780 - 00:34:48.990

lea. The plowman homeward plods his weary way and leaves the world to darkness and to me." Now who said that? Don't worry, I ain't about to hit you with no quiz anything. But that's the kind of poetry Mr. Reilly had us memorize. Sir Thomas Gray's

00:34:49.350 - 00:35:05.640

"Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard." And Robert Frost, and Edna St. Vincent Millay. And Robert Brown and Wordsworth. I kind of liked the Wordsworth, a little bit, because whatever else you say about him, the sucker wasn't dull, he was

00:35:05.640 - 00:35:21.000

always coming up with some jab you wouldn't expect it, like, "water water everywhere and not a drop to drink." Now that's got a little grit and zip to it. I can always relate to that. And that's the way it still is, too, at least round here in New York.

00:35:21.180 - 00:35:33.480

With all this pollution. You go out and look at the East River and I guarantee you sure wouldn't want to be caught drinking none of that old nasty looking water. So what's all this got to do with the Temptations and the way you do

00:35:33.480 - 00:35:53.520

the things you do? Just this, the first time I heard them going [sings] "good looks by the minute, you know, you could have been an hour." I just about fell out. Here at last, I thought to myself, was some poetry I could get right into and stay there.

00:35:53.820 - 00:36:08.400

It was on time, it rhymed, and you knew the woman whose lover was laying down sweet talking lies like that wouldn't go hesitate when it came down to taking care of business in the love and physical affection department. I mean to say that's

00:36:08.400 - 00:36:24.180

one pretty song, Jim. It's really too bad me and Julie had busted up by the time this one came out. Her dad had got this white man he was working for mad at him. And the man had called up immigration, so the whole family, except for her, got

00:36:24.180 - 00:36:38.550

shipped back to Barbados. By Jolla being a US citizen, her family wanted her to finish out school here. So they sent her to live with her aunt end up in Queens. I was real sorry, we broke it up because that girl really did have a smile so

00:36:38.550 - 00:36:52.470

bright, you just knew she could have been a candle. That's the jam started me to writing poetry myself. That's all Ooga Booga And it's great. Again, we're getting we're getting those

00:36:52.470 - 00:37:06.890

voices of Al Young's which are real rare treat. How about another one? One more? Okay, now, here's one rocks, really walks the line. What I'm doing in this is talking about a piece of music

00:37:06.960 - 00:38:15.910

that meant a lot to me. When I was younger it was Lionel Hampton's "Flying Home." I don't know if you know that. So it's one of those endless variations. Yeah, I got real [sings] don a FLYING HOME, Lionel Hampton 1942

00:37:20.890 - 00:37:39.720

ba, ba da ba da, ba ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba ba. Well people used to really just go crazy over that. I mean, as I explained in the- as comes out as I read this, this little piece here, Lionel just ruled. He'd take people out

00:37:39.790 - 00:37:57.410

of a crowded auditorium, march them up the aisles Pied Piper style, around the block, and bring them back into the theater, you know, not miss a beat. So this is this is a tribute to that and to me, this is the best kind of thing that

00:37:57.490 - 00:38:22.740

can happen when you combine a sort of slowly uncoiling prose narrative with- with elements of poetry. In fact that that's all it really is is poetry. Somehow are we not forever flying home somewhere, speeding

00:38:22.740 - 00:38:40.890

there in our automobiles, tooting our own horns the way we do cocaine or smacking our way home on a spoon of heroin coming or arriving soon, decisions, decisions. To be or not to be. To be a kid and listen to the sound of Lionel Hampton's

00:38:40.890 - 00:38:58.770

"Flying Home" wants to be grounded firmly in the 20th century of arrivals and departures by way of rhythm and being, and rhythm was a matter of being with him, if you'll excuse my Afro Boa constricting lore, this spirit that rides and

00:38:58.770 - 00:39:15.000

rides, it's lordly horse. Tell my horse about the time when you were growing up in Detroit, Michigan, and Lionel Hampton would come to Detroit. I'd be riding that crowd so hard when Hamp's band struck up "Flying Home" that even after he'd

00:39:15.000 - 00:39:29.580

walked down off the stage and led them all out into the streets and around the block for a musical walk in under the stars, they'd still be so charged and ready. It was all I could do to try and restrain them so they wouldn't tear up

00:39:29.580 - 00:39:47.040

the theaters the way managers reported they did after Hamp's band had trouble getting booked back in at the Fox, and the Greystone, in the Paradise Club, and those other theaters the following year. What was it about "Flying Home?" What was it

00:39:47.040 - 00:40:04.200

that made them want to boogie in the aisles and all out on top of parked cars, at the curbs and in the parking lots, and all on top of each other so hard? They forgot it was only a tune, highly charged admittedly, and took it perhaps to somehow mean

00:40:04.440 - 00:40:23.130

more than Hamp admitted to mean. Wasn't because of the yay saying life affirming ring of Hamp's vibes, and Illinois Jacquet's, and Arnett Cobb's church like voices reaching towards some kind of heaven. We even memorized and would sing

00:40:23.130 - 00:40:40.830

Jacquet's solo, note per note. And as recently as 1980 when Jimmy Carter invited Hampton to play at the White House Jazz Festival, Zoot Sims got up and swung that classic solo Jacqet's. Even if it was smoky, and boozy and jazzy and coarse,

00:40:41.370 - 00:40:59.910

even if it did hover above the band's brass and saxophone choirs, and all those palpitations out there in the pulpit, this heaven at hand that Hampton evoked was rapidly reachable. To get there, he didn't have to crawl, limp walk,

00:41:00.000 - 00:41:17.970

swim, or row. You didn't have to hitch up no wagon to no mule, or sit up all night on some train with a boxed chicken lunch, or doze while you drove there on some bumpy highway where when you got hungry, you had to go around to the back of some

00:41:17.970 - 00:41:35.730

godforsaken greasy spoon to get a bite to eat. And don't talk about the times the only thing that kept you driving into that night, where the dark spots along the road where you could hide behind a tree to pee and let well enough be. No, you

00:41:35.730 - 00:41:48.690

didn't have to go through all that to get to heaven with Lionel Hampton's band. You plunked down your ticket, you've got yourself either an aisle or a window seat. And depending on your needs, you either clicked your seat belt into place, or

00:41:48.690 - 00:42:09.750

took your own sweet chances, but doggone it, you took the trip direct, the same way you posted your letters airmail special. You closed your eyes and patted your feet and let the music pilot you, your body to heaven. And before you knew it, you were

00:42:09.750 - 00:42:25.490

flying home. Morton Marcus: That's great Al, and that really does move. I mean, if someone just tuned in, they would not know that that was not a poem. And you know, this was going on when you read

00:42:25.490 - 00:42:43.760

last time from "Bodies and Souls" and "The Kinds of Blue" that it- you just really tapped in on this. It's like a universal voice. And it's interesting how many times you have the word wind in there, and darkness. Not in that piece

00:42:43.760 - 00:42:52.640

necessarily, but in so many of these, it seems like you've got a wind coming in from the universe somewhere and it's just, you know, sweeping by the planet and you're just sort of singing with it. You know.

00:42:52.850 - 00:43:00.860

Al Young: It's so it's fascinating. I want to read a poem poem. Morton Marcus: Great. Al Young: Maybe we'll talk a little bit. It's a poem about

00:43:00.860 - 00:43:23.600

Big Sur from sea level, from driving the coast. I've gotten really fascinated with everything that happens on that coastal ride between say, Big Sur up to Mendocino, and had some really beautiful times doing that. And this is a poem,

00:43:24.470 - 00:43:33.450

as we go through it here. Thank goodness for independent radio. Morton Marcus: Oh, are we over here? Yes. Al Young: Okay, we're on mic again.

00:43:41.640 - 00:44:02.790

Sometimes it's the look of love along the coast like Big Sur's that galvanizes even the wash and splash of blueness foaming into green, upon the rock and circumstance of cliffs and promontory. The blush of blue sea plant, the bloom of abalone

00:44:02.790 - 00:44:22.500

blows even the minds of old time naturalists when the tide pours in, and Indian souls rush out to fill the night. But always, it's that look that luscious, lingering look rolling in and out of cloud and wave alike. That spills on to the leaves of

00:44:22.500 - 00:44:44.940

fog journals that changes in its sameness century on top of century, glimpsed in a watchful, wakeful moment, along such breathable stretches of majesty and heartbeat, and the rush of oceanic sureness on the big coast, trafficked by foot and by

00:44:44.940 - 00:44:58.410

motorcade with no miss to ground love down. I don't know what all that means, but it's pretty when I was reading it. Morton Marcus: Well, yeah, and I all of these poems which deal

00:44:58.410 - 00:45:10.680

with the sea I mean, this is another one you read from sea level, a very, very similar sounding. They are very lush and they seem to be crowded with his exotic life and you find in tide pools and that's the sound you're trying to get in. You

00:45:10.680 - 00:45:21.820

know. Al Young: I was listening the other night to an interview on National Public Radio with Coke? Morton Marcus: Kenneth?

00:45:21.900 - 00:45:32.970

Al Young: Kenneth, and he was saying that he grew up his generation of New York poets grew up with the admonition from their elders never to get involved with the sea. [cross talk]

00:45:34.100 - 00:45:46.790

Because it would weaken your poetry. Well, let me say that the one thing Robert Bly said, gosh, how many years ago was it when he came out here one time? And he said to all of them, the young poets that Joe and I were teaching at that time, he said,

00:45:46.790 - 00:45:54.530

why don't any new people ever write poems about the sea? I don't have anyone here writing poems about the sea and you live in right in the sea. I'm waiting for the Santa Cruz poem on the sea.

00:45:54.600 - 00:46:08.190

I decided to just get down with the sea. I've got two title poems that are called "Sea Level" and I don't know which one is going to end up being the real "Sea Level." Morton Marcus: Why don't you read them both?

00:46:08.580 - 00:46:25.050

Al Young: Okay, okay. This is an unruly manuscript dear listeners, so- You hear real radio here. Right. Can you uh- do you hear those papers? There you go. Here's the one I thought would be the title poem. It's called

00:46:25.050 - 00:46:45.160

SEA LEVEL Even a hair when you bend closely to look at it on the beach, beams red and yellow and blue and green, the very way prisms in imprison light and break it up into colors. It all

00:46:45.160 - 00:47:07.180

seems to be a matter of getting down close enough to look and see what is and what isn't. Sea level is where we mostly don't live, yet under the cloud bright sky next to the endless sea, next to the endless ocean, we see on the level and blending

00:47:07.180 - 00:47:28.240

vision, oceanic with the shy horizon, the distances shorten, and the moments lengthen rather after the manner of sand that doesn't know it's sand all by itself, but only when a billion grains gathered together in its name. Let white light flame into

00:47:28.300 - 00:47:47.530

every color it wishes. Just give me the power to see. Well, that's one that I thought was going to be the title poem "Sea Level". Then I turn around and did another one. And it came out being this:

00:47:49.940 - 00:48:11.000

Sometimes with the waves smacking at my feet, and the sky with its tender clouds and almost tame blueness looking as if it wants to get into the act, I sense the true you awash all around me. Splendid in your perfect invisibility, disguised

00:48:11.000 - 00:48:34.580

as nothing less than everything and hints unnoticeable, undetected. Surely that's how an ocean works. each particle is at once a wave, yes or part of one and every splash goodbye is really a hello. No? I go crazy just thinking about how you keep

00:48:34.580 - 00:48:45.200

me on my toes and head over heels in awe. Morton Marcus: Oh, I'll tell you what I would I go for. I'd go for that one being the last one. Al Young: Okay

00:48:45.230 - 00:48:52.460

Morton Marcus: And the first one definitely being the first poem. Al Young: Oh, yeah, I'll remember that. Morton Marcus: Yeah. That's beautiful, beautiful writing in that first one too.

00:48:52.460 - 00:49:05.150

Al Young: And it was really written right down there at the sea. I mean on location. You go right out there in the sand by the ocean and do it. It is getting on 10 o'clock. I'm going to ask how to maybe you

00:49:05.150 - 00:49:10.300

want to end with that or you want to read one- one more short one. I'll read one more short one, Morton Marcus: Okay. And in case you wonder what's going on here

00:49:10.330 - 00:49:18.240

we are talking with Al Young tonight. The wonderful poet, novelist, man of Belles Lettres, short story writer, commentator on jazz, blues, and the American scene, who has given us another wonderful evening and I hope that you've been with us for

00:49:18.270 - 00:49:25.930

this entire hour. Now, he is reading from, and has been reading from a book that has just come out and will be at the bookstores within the next three, four or five days called "Things Ain't What They Use To Be", which, friends, is also

00:49:25.960 - 00:49:33.710

the name of the next show with Tim Folger that is coming your way on KUSP. I would also like to thank Plaza Books and Stuff for their donation which has made this program possible in part, I didn't say it at the first part of the show, so I

00:49:33.740 - 00:49:41.710

will repeat it again. Thank you Plaza Books on Pacific Avenue and Santa Cruz for making this program possible in part with your very generous donation and sponsorship of the show for going on two years now. Al, why don't you take us on out of here

00:49:41.740 - 00:50:23.630

and we're going to listen to as we leave after you read this Johnny Hodges playing, "Things Ain't What They Used To Be". Al Young: Okay. If you're gonna listen to that, then I'm gonna change my- it's gonna read something about Albert King, but

00:50:23.630 - 00:50:34.820

I got Johnny Hodges to order. Okay, and I've got it. I've got to say this for Tim because his segues are the greatest musical segues on planet Earth. So now I've set- I've set the challenge for him.

00:50:34.650 - 00:50:46.480

Listening to Duke Ellington's band deliver this Billy Okay. Well, I'm going to read a thing called "Passion Flower", Strayhorn beauty, how can you not be taken back to the very which is based on a piece of music by Billy Strayhorn, and it

00:50:44.970 - 00:50:56.100

childhood of spirit by Johnny Hodges sound? You know exactly features the great Johnny Hodges as a soloist and it's- it's intended to be an out and out prose poem. But it goes very where you are. You don't need no map, no compass, no geography

00:50:53.650 - 00:51:07.240

well with the segue. PASSION FLOWER. Billy Strayhorn, composer. lesson. The men moving around you now are, every last one of them, you. They're all dressed the way you thought in the 40s

00:51:07.330 - 00:51:29.140

you were going to have to look when you grew up with one of those big little detective hats on your pomaded head to top it all off. And the women are all you, too, lovely, slightly perfumed and fanning themselves. Their hair piled high, Lena

00:51:29.230 - 00:51:51.050

Horne high and slow eyed. You know exactly where you are. You are in heaven. And the moon of your return to Earth is as full as it'll ever be. Something sails past, a thought, a notion, the peace of mind that's coloring in the spaces on this

00:51:51.140 - 00:52:13.500

blissful map of yours is so all assuring that you can barely make out what it is. Surely it might be there in the breeze by itself in the magnetic wind of roses that keeps pulling and drawing the soreness from your lopsided sorrow, like a kiss, or

00:52:13.590 - 00:52:35.220

a lyric, or a lark. You can talk about your skylarks and your nightingales, and doves, but when it comes to sonic ecstasy, Johnny Hodges will beat a jolly doleful songbird wings down every time. Listen to the way Hodges plays with the time

00:52:35.310 - 00:52:56.220

needing the years like cookie dough and making us laugh and weep that they'd be brought back. But only in the Johnny Hodges, Billy Strayhorn, Edward Ellington fashion, flowering, yet never flowered and always fragrant with passion.