***Poet’s Corner- Langston Hughes- The Weary Blues

 

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

 

February is Black History Month

 

The Weary Blues

 

Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway ....
He did a lazy sway ....
To the tune o' those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
Sweet Blues!
Coming from a black man's soul.
O Blues!
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan--
"Ain't got nobody in all this world,
Ain't got nobody but ma self.
I's gwine to quit ma frownin'
And put ma troubles on the shelf."

Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more--
"I got the Weary Blues
And I can't be satisfied.
Got the Weary Blues
And can't be satisfied--
I ain't happy no mo'
And I wish that I had died."
And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.

Langston Hughes

 

…he, black as night, black as forbear Mother Africa could make him come to the slave ship new world all shackled but left alone by master and the overseer still hearing in some womb moment the siren call of some Africa left beat some ancient young prince putting metal to metal or string to string, big, big lungs, born of a thousand crying generations, crying since the fall the banishment of the high white note east of Eden, but only banishment for the fallen sin. He, some young son, hell, maybe grandson, of the president, no not that president, guys like him never mixed the search for the fallen high white note with politics, loose rhetoric, all manic, so much mechanic, the Prez, sainted Lester Young who howled behind the Duke, made Billie all smooth and sentimental without being sappy, yeah, so the lines were there, the bloodlines and the search for the fallen high white note that he heard the prez blow from some mother’s womb. He, showing some schooling like all the new guys do, do so they know what grandpas blew when they blew after hours when the real jam began after the staid white-breads took to their sullen beds thinking they heard the real thing before midnight cabs took them home .

He showed his stuff and stuff school stuff style maybe from Berkeley up in Boston where all the new cats learned to blow, learned to take those big lungs and riff them, learned about the high white note, learned about that sound going back to Mother Africa before the chains. He home now sat on a dead-ass bench on a lonely wind-blown winter corner of 125^th Street in high Harlem, Harlem with the ghosts of the Prez, Billie, the Duke, all the royalty just like he never spent day one in school, and blew, blew playful, put some passer-by money in the brother’s basket playful, stop and listen to that brother blast, sweet white notes this way and that on a big sexy sax, tenor sax for the aficionados, against the moving traffic blowing those notes back in his face. And he back to the honking noise, the hustle and the bustle started drawing a foot-sore crowd, a crowd hurrying by but stopped by the play between those big-lunged riffs and the cab cadence. Nice. 

 

He, on 125^th Street although truth be told he had never before worked those corners, Grandma said to stay away from the riff-raff reefer rats (her term, he, hell Berkeley-bound, knew those sweet smokes from about fifteen) even though he only lived over in the Bronx, evoking some big joyous immense faded tale remembrance when Duke, yes, that Duke, and all the jazz age cats, big and small, held forth nightly at the old Cotton Club where the Mayfair swells got their high-hats flattened, got their expensive illegal liquor chilled, and their high yella dream nights sated, were chasing that faded high white note, chasing it far into the street.

There on that street-wise corner he, the princeling anointed now paying his dues, his street-wise dues once some professor told him he needed to see if he could out-blow those Harlem cabs, remembered what his father, or maybe it was old grandfather told him about the night Johnny H., yes again, that Johnny blew the high white note, blew it to hell and back, and it never came back in his face, never. Yes, Johnny blew that big sexy sax, all dope high, sister, legal in those days, legal when Mister didn’t know he could make a dollar off of it, rather than let some iffy druggist sell it over the counter, maybe a little reefer to flatten the effect and then he blew, blew that big note on A Train, a high white note that trailed out the club door, headed down to the river, make that the East River for those not familiar with New Jack City, or high Harlem, and hit this guy, this lonely black guy, maybe just up from Mississippi goddam or red tide ‘Bama from his ragged attire and head down demeanor learned, hard-headed learned from Mister James Crow , who started grooving (maybe not using that word, maybe not even knowing that word, proving how raw he was, how new city) on that note, started to patter on that note-be-bop, be-bop, be-bop, be-bop (and this before Dizzy crowned boppy be-bop and Charlie swaggered that big sexy horn).

But that brother, that ebony night brother, just couldn’t quite get the hang of the thing, was wrapped up in some old time no electricity juke joint “blues ain’t nothing but a good woman on your mind,”  or “old Mister take your hand off me” delta fade-out.

So that Johnny deflated note floated down to the sea, out to some homeland Africa fate. And that down south brother never did get another chance to grab the high white note, and probably would have just faded away except he had a son, or was it a grandson, who knew how to be-bop beat that drowsy old delta gimme, knew how to curl it around his big lung sexy sax and blow that thing from the East River haunts all the way up to 125^thStreet, all the way up to faded Cotton Club Johnny dreams and endless Mayfair swells reeling out the door (with or without their high yellas) early in the harsh Harlem morning. He…