Talkin Basie

Laurence Steven is Chairman of the English Department at Laurentian
University and author of Dissociation and Wholeness in Patrick White’s
Fiction.

Kerr, a jazz enthusiast, offers descriptive and narrative glimpses into
the world of jazz through his poetry. Many of his descriptive poems
portray the intensity and power of the music. He successfully uses
double entendres to compare the spontaneous feelings that evolve through
jazz music, with many common subjects such as baseball, politics, and
the human body: “hey man it’s backbone music / guitar man plucks yr
spinal chord / when he does the spinal chord blues / and he’s way down
inside / ya.” This technique is useful because even the less-informed
reader may relate more easily to the feelings being portrayed. Through
powerful auditory imagery Kerr depicts the synthesis of jazz. In lines
such as “the glass-clad-new-and-cool-town,” readers are forced to
read quickly, feeling the rhythm of the words as if they were listening
to a live jazz orchestra. Visual imagery and jazz slang also contribute
to the setting, as in “Kansas City”: “Start at eight at the Reno
and play till four / you want something you just get up and walk back /
band keep on playin’.” Through these images the reader is able to
experience the atmosphere of the jazz clubs from the band’s
perspective.

Other poems are largely narrative and describe the feelings and
experiences of Count Basie and members of his orchestra. What gives
these poems their power is that they are written as first-person
monologues, as if each person is soloing on his individual instrument:
“when it comes to musical wealth / I’m the richest drummer that ever
lived,” says Jones in “Drum Solo by Jo Jones.”

Each of these poems, whatever its style, contains profound visual and
auditory images, which emit a deeply moving feeling reminiscent of jazz
music. The stories and musical images combine to form an insightful
collection that is worthwhile reading for anyone.