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This space is dedicated to the proposition that we need to know the history of the struggles on the left and of earlier progressive movements here and world-wide. If we can learn from the mistakes made in the past (as well as what went right) we can move forward in the future to create a more just and equitable society. We will be reviewing books, CDs, and movies we believe everyone needs to read, hear and look at as well as making commentary from time to time. Greg Green, site manager
Friday, October 16, 2015
In Cambridge- How can we challenge the billionaires? - Open meeting
Maine Peace Walk Pot Luck Supper & Program Schedule -October 9 to 24
Maine Peace Walk Pot Luck Supper & Program Schedule -October 9 to 24
Art work by Russell Wray
- Day 1 (Ellsworth) Friday, October 9 - Ellsworth Unitarian Church (121 Bucksport Rd) Evening potluck and kick-off program at 6:00 pm. Homestays needed. Host: Starr Gilmartin 667-2421
- Day 2 (Orland) Saturday, October 10 - Potluck supper 6:00 pm and program at H.O.M.E (90 School House Rd.) Sleep at H.O.M.E. Host: Starr Gilmartin 667-2421 or Lawrence 415-565-9867
- Day 3 (Belfast) Sunday, October 11 - First Church UCC (104 Church St) Pot luck supper (unadvertised) 6:00 pm, public program 7:00 pm. Home stays needed & sleep at church: Cathy Mink 323-5160 & Bev Roxby 669-2903. Host: Joel 338-2282 or 323-0940 at the UCC Church
- Day 4 (Camden) Monday, October 12 - Our Lady of Good Hope Catholic Church (7 Union St) Pot luck supper and program at 6:00 pm. Home stays needed. Host: Maureen Kehoe-Ostensen 763-4062
- Day 5 (Rockland) Tuesday, October 13 - Potluck supper and program at Unitarian church (345 Broadway) at 6:00 pm. Homestays needed. Host: Midcoast Citizens for P & J (Steve Burke 691-0322)
- Day 6 (Damariscotta) Wednesday, October 14 - Friends Meeting House (77 Belvedere Rd) Potluck Supper and program at 6:00 pm. Sleep at Meeting House. Host: Friends Meeting (Sue Rockwood 570-854-4458)
- Day 7 (Bath) Thursday, October 15 - UCC Neighborhood Church (corner of Washington & Centre) Potluck supper and program at 6:00 pm. Homestays needed. Host: Bruce Gagnon 904-501-4494 & Karen Wainberg 371-8190
- Day 8 (Day off) in Bath Friday, October 16 - Stay at same homestays again this night. Potluck supper at Addams-Melman House (212 Centre St) at 6:00 pm. Host: Bruce Gagnon 904-501-4494 & Karen Wainberg 371-8190
- Day 9 (Brunswick) Saturday, October 17 - Pot luck supper at Sternlieb home (21 McKeen St) at 6:00 pm. Walker music program. Home stays needed in Brunswick. Host: Selma Sternlieb 725-7675
- Day 10 (Freeport) Sunday, October 18 - Pot luck supper at First Parish Congregation Church (on US 1) at 6:00 pm and program. Sleep at church. Host: Paula O’Brien 865-6022 & Sukie Rice 318-8531 & Cheryl Avery 865-0916
- Day 11 ( Portland) Monday, October 19 - State Street Church-UCC (159 State St.) Pot luck supper & program at 6:00 pm. Homestays needed. Host: Grace Braley 774-1995
- Day 12 (Saco) Tuesday, October 20 - First Parish Congregation Church on corner of Beech & Maine. Pot luck supper and program at 6:00 pm. Home stays needed. Host: Tom Kircher 282-7530
- Day 13 (Kennebunk) Wednesday, Oct 21 - New School (38 York Street). Pot luck supper and program at 6:00 pm. Sleep at school. Host: Olive Hight 207-590-9505
- Day 14 (York Beach) Thursday, October 22 - York Beach (52 Freeman St) Supper, music program & sleeping spot at 6:00 pm. Host: Pat Scanlon 978-474-9195 & Smedley Butler Brigade of Boston-area VFP
- Day 15 (Portsmouth) Friday, October 23 - Supper and program at St. John’s Episcopal Church (100 Chapel St) at 6:00 pm. Home stays needed, Host: Doug Bogen 603-617-6243
- Day 16 (Finale in Portsmouth) Saturday, October 24 - Meet at Market Square 10:00 am. Walk thru downtown and back over bridge to Kittery. Rally & speakers at shipyard gate (deliver letter). Walk back to Market Square for final closing circle around noon. Host: Doug Bogen 603-617-6243
~ The walk is being sponsored by Maine Veterans for Peace; PeaceWorks; CodePink Maine; Citizens Opposing Active Sonar Threats (COAST); Peace Action Maine; Veterans for Peace Smedley Butler Brigade (Greater Boston); Seacoast Peace Response (Portsmouth); Maine Green Independent Party; and Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space.
For full walk route schedule details see http://vfpmaine.org/walk%20for%20peace%202015.html
Thursday, October 15, 2015
Important Mumia Abu Jamal Update-Free Mumia
Important Mumia Abu Jamal Update-Free Mumia
Click below to link to the Partisan Defense Committee Web site.
http://www.partisandefense.org/
Commentary
The legendary social commentator and stand up comic Lenny Bruce, no stranger to the American ‘justice’ system himself, once reportedly said that in the Halls of Justice the only justice is in the halls. The truth of that statement came home on Thursday March 27, 2008 as a panel of the federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals voted two to one to uphold Mumia’s conviction.
The only question left is that of resentencing- the death penalty or, perhaps worst, life in prison without parole. I have not yet read the decision but we are now a long way away from the possibility of a retrial-the narrow legal basis for even appealing in the legal system in the first place. Know this- in the end it will be in the streets and factories through the efforts of the international labor movement and other progressive forces that Mumia will be freed. That is the only way, have no illusions otherwise, whatever the next legal steps might be.
*****
Some facts about the case from the PDC (2006):
An Open Letter to Mumia Abu-Jamal Supporters-A Personal Commentary (April 2008)
The Partisan Defense Committee has passed "An Open Letter to All Supporters of Mumia‘s Freedom" to this writer. Those few who might not know of the torturous legal battles to free this innocent man can find further information at the above-mentioned Partisan Defense site. I make my own comments below.
Normally I pass information about the case of political prisoner Mumia abu-Jamal on without much comment because the case speaks for itself. The case has been front and center in international labor defense struggles for over two decades. However, in light of the adverse ruling by a majority of a federal Third Circuit Court of Appeal panel in March 2008 that affirmed Mumia’s 1982 conviction for first-degree murder of a police officer and left the only issue for decision that of resentencing to either reinstate his original death sentence or keep him imprisoned for life without parole I have some things to say about this fight.
Occasionally, in the heat of political battle some fights ensue around strategy that after the smoke has cleared, upon reflection, leave one with more sorrow than anger. Not so today. Today I am mad. Am I mad about the irrational decision by the majority of the Third Circuit panel in Mumia’s case? Yes, but when one has seen enough of these cases over a lifetime then one realizes that, as the late sardonic comic and social commentator Lenny Bruce was fond of saying, in the Hall of Justice the only justice is in the halls.
What has got me steamed is the obvious bankruptcy of the strategy, if one can use this term, of centering Mumia’s case on the question of a new trial in order to get the ‘masses’- meaning basically parliamentary liberal types interested in supporting the case. This by people who allegedly KNOW better. The bankruptcy of this strategy, its effects on Mumia’s case and the bewildered response of those who pedaled it as good coin is detailed in the above-mentioned Open Letter. Read it.
Today, in reaction to the Third Circuit court’s decision, everyone and their brother and sister are now calling for Mumia’s freedom. At a point where he is between a rock and a hard place. However, it did not have to be that way. Mumia was innocent in 1982 and he did not stop being innocent at any point along this long road. Freedom for Mumia was (and is) the correct slogan in the case. A long line of political criminal cases, starting in this country with that of the Haymarket Martyrs if not before, confirms that simple wisdom. Those who consciously pedaled this weak ‘new trial’ strategy as a get rich quick scheme now have seen the chickens come home to roost. And Mumia pays the price.
I would point out two factors that made a ‘retrial’ strategy in the case of an innocent man particularly Pollyanna-ish for those honest militants who really believed that Mumia’s case was merely a matter of the American justice system being abused and therefore some court would rectify this situation if enough legal resources were in place. First, it is illusory that somehow, as exemplified in this case, a higher court system would remedy this egregious wrong. Long ago I remember a lawyer, I believe that it might have been the late radical lawyer Conrad Lynn no stranger to political defense work, telling a group of us doing defense work for the Black Panthers, that all these judges belong to the same union. They do not upset each other’s work except under extreme duress.
Second, and this is where the ‘wisdom’ of the reformists about reaching the ‘masses’ by a stagest theory of defense work (fight for retrial first, then freedom) turns in on them. As witness the list of names of those who have signed the Partisan Defense Committee’s call for Mumia’s freedom, excepting professional liberals and their hangers –on, those interested in Mumia’s case (or any leftwing political defense case) will sign on just as easily for freedom as retrial. Thus, opportunism does not pay, even in the short haul. That said, Free Mumia- say it loud, say it proud.
Click below to link to the Partisan Defense Committee Web site.
http://www.partisandefense.org/
13 April 2015
Medical Crisis
Mumia’s Life in Danger—Free Him Now!
Mumia’s Life in Danger—Free Him Now!
On March 30, class-war prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal was rushed from the SCI-Mahanoy, Pennsylvania state prison to the Schuylkill Medical Center Intensive Care Unit, verging on a diabetic coma. With consummate cruelty, prison authorities initially not only prevented his wife, Wadiya, and other family members from seeing Mumia but also refused to divulge information about his condition. Pam Africa, Mumia’s designated emergency contact, was denied visitation as well. When prison officials relented after numerous protests, Wadiya, Mumia’s son Jamal Hart and his older brother Keith were granted just 30 minutes with Mumia. They found him with an insulin drip in one arm and handcuffs on the other, barely able to sit up, shaking and in pain, his breathing labored. Wadiya described being “shocked at his condition.” On April 1, a frail Mumia was sent back to the same Mahanoy prison where the contempt and medical neglect of his jailers had brought him to the threshold of death.
It is no secret that leading government officials, not just in Pennsylvania but across the country, want Mumia dead. This latest emergency highlights that Mumia’s life is in danger every day he remains in the clutches of the state authorities that for 30 years sought his legal lynching. With the overturning of his frame-up death sentence in 2011, they are determined that Mumia’s prison cot be his deathbed.
Three months ago, Mumia reported a full-body outbreak of eczema with bloody sores and blisters. Mumia’s skin erupted in reaction to treatment by prison doctors. Since then, Mumia has lost over 50 pounds. Results of three blood tests performed in February were reportedly withheld from him. Even the most incompetent medical personnel would have recognized something was awry—but Mumia was left to waste away while his blood sugar hit the roof. Not passing up any opportunity, prison authorities disciplined Mumia for missing roll call in early January because he had fallen into a trance-like sleep induced by his condition.
The shroud that prison authorities placed over Mumia’s condition recalls the mysterious death of his comrade Phil Africa at the State Correctional Institution in Dallas, Pennsylvania, on January 10. Phil was held in total isolation in the hospital for five days, during which time his wife of 44 years, Janine, was denied the right to speak to him until two days before he died. To this day, prison officials have never revealed the cause of Phil’s death.
We have long championed freedom for Mumia, an innocent man. Now the elementary demand for adequate medical treatment requires his immediate release. Free Mumia now!
Mumia has been in the crosshairs of the capitalist state since his days as a teenage Black Panther Party spokesman in the 1960s. That enmity toward him grew in the 1970s when, as a journalist known as the “voice of the voiceless,” Mumia exposed the racist Philly police vendetta against MOVE, the largely black back-to-nature group he came to support. Mumia was framed up for the 1981 killing of a Philadelphia police officer, Daniel Faulkner. Police and prosecutors manufactured evidence to convict him, including by terrorizing witnesses and concocting a fake confession two months after his arrest. Following a 1982 trial in which Mumia was denied the right to represent himself and was repeatedly ejected from the courtroom, he was sentenced to death explicitly for his political views, primarily his Black Panther membership. Federal and state courts have time and again refused to consider evidence proving Mumia’s innocence, especially the sworn confession of Arnold Beverly that he, not Mumia, shot and killed Faulkner.
Mumia’s unwavering dedication to the cause of the oppressed can be seen in his delivering, despite his debilitated condition, a radio commentary on April 10 about the cold-blooded racist cop killing of 50-year-old black man Walter Scott by a white cop in South Carolina six days earlier. In their vendetta against Mumia, the forces of racist “law and order,” led by the Fraternal Order of Police, have fought to silence Mumia and vilify just about anyone—from union and student activists to liberal celebrities and an occasional politician—who in any way expresses support for Mumia’s rights. The same day Mumia was rushed to the hospital, hearings opened in a Pennsylvania court on his lawsuit challenging the “Revictimization Relief Act” enacted last October with the express aim of shutting down Mumia’s prison commentaries and suppressing his books.
Following an outcry in the bourgeois press, Marilyn Zuniga, a third-grade teacher in Orange, New Jersey, was suspended on April 10 without pay for the honorable act of encouraging students to send “get well” messages to Mumia. The PDC has sent a protest letter demanding Zuniga’s immediate reinstatement with no loss in pay.
Medical neglect of those incarcerated in America’s dungeons is epidemic. While the absence of care for those suffering from severe psychiatric problems has drawn some attention, most recently thanks to the torture chambers of New York City’s Rikers Island detention center, the denial of necessary medical attention to those, largely black and Latino, behind bars has been overwhelmingly ignored.
The medical neglect of those in prison hell has been exacerbated by the privatization of prison health care to penny-pinching concerns such as Corizon Health Inc., which alone covers nearly 350,000 inmates in 27 states. Corizon is the subject of numerous lawsuits, including one filed by the family of Javon Frazier, who was an inmate in a county jail in Florida. After four months of complaints of left shoulder pain, which were answered only with Tylenol, Frazier was ultimately hospitalized and diagnosed with bone cancer and his arm amputated. Frazier died just months after his release, at the age of 21.
The grotesque treatment of prisoners is exacerbated many times over for those, like Mumia, locked away for fighting against this racist capitalist order. The PDC has contributed to Mumia’s medical care, and urges union militants, fighters for black freedom and student activists to demand freedom now for Mumia Abu-Jamal. Readers who want to help defray Mumia’s expenses can make contributions at www.indiegogo.com/projects/mumia-abu-jamal-needs-medical-care-now. To correspond with Mumia, write to: Mumia Abu-Jamal, AM 8335, SCI Mahanoy, 301 Morea Road, Frackville, PA 17932.
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Commentary
The legendary social commentator and stand up comic Lenny Bruce, no stranger to the American ‘justice’ system himself, once reportedly said that in the Halls of Justice the only justice is in the halls. The truth of that statement came home on Thursday March 27, 2008 as a panel of the federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals voted two to one to uphold Mumia’s conviction.
The only question left is that of resentencing- the death penalty or, perhaps worst, life in prison without parole. I have not yet read the decision but we are now a long way away from the possibility of a retrial-the narrow legal basis for even appealing in the legal system in the first place. Know this- in the end it will be in the streets and factories through the efforts of the international labor movement and other progressive forces that Mumia will be freed. That is the only way, have no illusions otherwise, whatever the next legal steps might be.
*****
Some facts about the case from the PDC (2006):
| ||
|
An Open Letter to Mumia Abu-Jamal Supporters-A Personal Commentary (April 2008)
The Partisan Defense Committee has passed "An Open Letter to All Supporters of Mumia‘s Freedom" to this writer. Those few who might not know of the torturous legal battles to free this innocent man can find further information at the above-mentioned Partisan Defense site. I make my own comments below.
Normally I pass information about the case of political prisoner Mumia abu-Jamal on without much comment because the case speaks for itself. The case has been front and center in international labor defense struggles for over two decades. However, in light of the adverse ruling by a majority of a federal Third Circuit Court of Appeal panel in March 2008 that affirmed Mumia’s 1982 conviction for first-degree murder of a police officer and left the only issue for decision that of resentencing to either reinstate his original death sentence or keep him imprisoned for life without parole I have some things to say about this fight.
Occasionally, in the heat of political battle some fights ensue around strategy that after the smoke has cleared, upon reflection, leave one with more sorrow than anger. Not so today. Today I am mad. Am I mad about the irrational decision by the majority of the Third Circuit panel in Mumia’s case? Yes, but when one has seen enough of these cases over a lifetime then one realizes that, as the late sardonic comic and social commentator Lenny Bruce was fond of saying, in the Hall of Justice the only justice is in the halls.
What has got me steamed is the obvious bankruptcy of the strategy, if one can use this term, of centering Mumia’s case on the question of a new trial in order to get the ‘masses’- meaning basically parliamentary liberal types interested in supporting the case. This by people who allegedly KNOW better. The bankruptcy of this strategy, its effects on Mumia’s case and the bewildered response of those who pedaled it as good coin is detailed in the above-mentioned Open Letter. Read it.
Today, in reaction to the Third Circuit court’s decision, everyone and their brother and sister are now calling for Mumia’s freedom. At a point where he is between a rock and a hard place. However, it did not have to be that way. Mumia was innocent in 1982 and he did not stop being innocent at any point along this long road. Freedom for Mumia was (and is) the correct slogan in the case. A long line of political criminal cases, starting in this country with that of the Haymarket Martyrs if not before, confirms that simple wisdom. Those who consciously pedaled this weak ‘new trial’ strategy as a get rich quick scheme now have seen the chickens come home to roost. And Mumia pays the price.
I would point out two factors that made a ‘retrial’ strategy in the case of an innocent man particularly Pollyanna-ish for those honest militants who really believed that Mumia’s case was merely a matter of the American justice system being abused and therefore some court would rectify this situation if enough legal resources were in place. First, it is illusory that somehow, as exemplified in this case, a higher court system would remedy this egregious wrong. Long ago I remember a lawyer, I believe that it might have been the late radical lawyer Conrad Lynn no stranger to political defense work, telling a group of us doing defense work for the Black Panthers, that all these judges belong to the same union. They do not upset each other’s work except under extreme duress.
Second, and this is where the ‘wisdom’ of the reformists about reaching the ‘masses’ by a stagest theory of defense work (fight for retrial first, then freedom) turns in on them. As witness the list of names of those who have signed the Partisan Defense Committee’s call for Mumia’s freedom, excepting professional liberals and their hangers –on, those interested in Mumia’s case (or any leftwing political defense case) will sign on just as easily for freedom as retrial. Thus, opportunism does not pay, even in the short haul. That said, Free Mumia- say it loud, say it proud.
Down At Duke’s Place-With Duke Ellington In Mind
Down At Duke’s Place-With Duke Ellington In Mind
From The Pen Of Bart Webber
One night Sam Eaton was talking on his cellphone to his old friend from high school (Carver High, Class of 1967), Jack Callahan about how his grandson, Brandon, his oldest grandson from his daughter Janice from his first marriage (first of three all ending in divorce but that is merely a figure for the Census Bureau and not germane to what following so enough) had beguiled him recently with his arcane knowledge of classical jazz (the jazz from the age of King Oliver say until the death of the big bad swings bands which died in the late 1940s for the most part giving way to cool ass be-bop and what followed). Jack braced himself for the deluge, got very quiet and did say word one, since lately the music Sam mentioned, maybe even thought about mentioning the slightest thing connected with jazz he knew he was in for it, in for a harangue of unknown duration on the subject. Sam, recently more conscious that Jack, who hated jazz, hated it worse when as a child of rock and roll as Sam was, his father would endlessly play Count this, King that, Duke the other thing and not allow the family record player centered in the family living room to be sullied (his father’s word) by heathen stuff like Roll Over Beethoven or One Night With You, would go silent at the word “jazz” said not to worry he would only say a few words from his conversation with Brandon:
No, Jack, my man, this will not be a screed about how back in the day, back in the 1950s the time of our complete absorption into rock and roll, when be-bop jazz was the cat’s meow, when cool was listening to the Monk trip up a note, consciously trip up a note to see if anybody caught it and then took that note to heaven and back, and worked it out from there or Dizzy burping then hitting the high white note all those guys were struggling against the limits of the instruments, high as hell on tea, you know what we called ganja, herb, stuff like that, to get to. Frankly I was too young, you too but I knew how you felt since I couldn’t listen to rock in my house either since the 1940s Andrews Sisters/Perry Como/Frank Sinatra/Peggy lee cabal were front and center in our living room and I was reduced to listening on my transistor radio, way too young to appreciate such work then and I only got the tail end, you know when Hollywood or the popular prints messed the whole be-bop jazz “beat” thing up and we got spoon-fed Maynard G. Krebs faux black and white television beatnik selling hair cream oil or something like that, and ten thousand guys hanging around the Village on Saturday night in full beret and whatever they could put together for a beard from the outreaches of Tenafly, New Jersey (sorry but Fort Lee was out) and another ten thousand gals, all in black from head to toe, maybe black underwear too so something to imagine at least from Norwalk, Connecticut milling around as well. Square, square cubed. No, this will not be some screed going back further in the hard times of the Great Depression and the slogging through World War II when “it did not mean a thing, if you ain’t got that swing” when our parents, the parents of the kids who caught the end of be-bop “swang,” did dips and twirls to counts, dukes, earls, princes, marquises even leading big band splashes to wash that generation clean. Come on now that was our parents and I wasn’t even born so no way I can “screed” about that. And, no, no, big time no, this will not be about some solitary figure in some dank, dusty, smoke-filled café, the booze flowing, the dope in the back alleys inflaming the night while some guy, probably a sexy sax player, blows some eternal high white note out against some bay, maybe Frisco Bay, and I was hooked, hooked for life on the be-bop jazz scene.
No, it never even came close to starting out like that, never even dreamed such scenes. Unlike rock and roll, the classic kind that was produced in our 1950s growing up time and which we have had a life-long devotion to or folk music which I came of age, political and social age to later in the early 1960s, jazz was a late, a very late acquisition to my understanding of the American songbook. Oh sure I would hear a phrase, a few bing, bang, bong notes blowing out the window, out the door, sitting in some bar over drinks with some hot date, maybe hear it as backdrop in some Harvard Square bookstore when I went looking for books (and, once somebody hipped me to the scene, looking for bright young women who also were in the bookstore looking for books, and bright young men but that scene is best left for another time), or at some party when the host tired of playing old-time folk music and decided to kick out the jams and let the jazz boys wreak their havoc. But jazz was, and to a great extent still is, a side bar of my musical tastes.
About a decade ago, a little more, I got seriously into jazz for a while. The reason: the centennial of the birth of Duke Ellington being celebrated when I was listening to some radio show which was commemorating that fact and I heard a few faint bars which required me to both turn up the volume and to listen to the rest of the one hour tribute. The show played a lot of Duke’s stuff from the early 1940s when he had Ben Webster, Harry Carney, and Johnny Hodges on board. The stuff blew me away and as is my wont when I get my enthusiasms up, when something blows me away, I grabbed everything by the Duke and his various groupings and marveled at how very good his work was, how his tonal poems reached deep, deep down and caught something in me that responded in kind. Especially when those sexy saxs, when Johnny or Cootie blew me away when they let it all hang out.
Funny though I thought at the time that I hadn’t picked up on this sound before, this reaching for the soul, for the essence of the matter, before since there are very definitely elements of the blues in Brother Duke’s work. And I have been nothing but a stone blown blues freak since the early 1960s when I first heard Howlin’ Wolf hold forth practically eating that harmonica of his on Little Red Rooster and Smokestack Lightnin’. Moreover I had always been a Billie Holiday fan although I never drew the connection to the jazz in the background since it usually was muted to let her rip with that throaty sultry voice, the voice that chased the blues, my blues, away.
So, yes, count me among the guys who are searching for the guys who are searching for the great big cloud puff high white note, guys who have been searching for a long time as the notes waft out into the deep blue sea night. Out into the surly Japan deep blue seas foaming out the bay the one time I was sitting in fog-bound Frisco town, sitting around a North Beach bar, the High Hat maybe, when on Monday nights that was the place where young talent took to the boards and played, played for the “basket” just like the folkies used to do, and probably get as few dollars from the mostly regular heavy drinker crowd that populate any gin mill on Monday. Most of the stuff early on was so-so some riffs stolen from more famous guys nothing that would keep a steady drinker, me, from steady drinking in those days when I lifted low-shelf whiskeys with abandon. Then this young guy, young black guy, barely out of his teens if that, hell, he could have been sixteen for all I know and snuck out of the house to play, to play to reach the stars if that is what he wanted, slim a reed, maybe a little from hunger at hunger, with the just forming yellow eyes of high king hell dope-dom blew a sax as big as he was, certainly fatter, blew the hell out of one note after another, then paused, paused to suck up the universe of air in the place, and went over to Jordan for a minute, rested, came back with a big blow that would get at least to Hawaii, rested again, maybe just a little uncertain where to go like kids always are, blew up a big cloud puff riff alternating with pauses hard to do, went at it again this time to the corner of paradise. Stopped, I thought he was done, he looked to hell like he was done, done in eyes almost closed, and then onward, a big beautiful dah, dee, dah, dee, dah, dee, blow, a “max daddy” blow then even this old chattering wino in a booth stopped to wonder at, and that big high white note went ripping down Bay Street, I swear I could see it, on into the bay and on its way, not stopping until Edo. He had it, that it means only it and if he never blew again he had that it moment. So yeah count me too among Duke’s boys, down at Duke’s place where he eternally searched for that elusive high white note. See I didn’t take too long, right.
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