Earth Wind Fire + Source Of All: Music and Poetry Collaboration

"Look back at the old things and see them in new light" —John Coltrane

Our new "Earth Wind Fire" EP is now available on Amazon, Apple Music, and Spotify.

Following the release of "Lost Works," this new suite of music is Part Two of our upcoming "Triptych" LP/CD. The compositions take inspiration from the music that first inspired me: Miles Davis, Ahmad Jamal, the Terrence Blanchard & Donald Harrison Quintet, and Earth Wind & Fire.

This EP also marks our first collaboration with poet Marc Jampole. I met Marc in attendance at the Captain Black Big Band's Smoke residency and have gotten to know him and his wife Kathy Stackhouse over the past few years. They are both staunch supporters of the music.

The following poem comes from Marc's book "Music from Words" (the cover features two paintings by Vasily Kandinsky) and can be read while listening to our new recording.

You can also hear Marc read the poem live with the band at Small's Jazz Club in New York on July 10, 2019.

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SOURCE OF ALL

“…but Thales says it is water.”

Aristotle, Metaphysics

I.

Water is as water does

flows falls splashes freezes

blesses drips and droplets

swells sinuous see-through gray

Water flows blesses swells

is fallen drips sinuous

as splashes and see-through

water freezes droplets gray.

Fog over fields and ponds

but clear on tire warmed

highway red dawn tinges

avens yellow bedstraw agrimony

Fog but highway avens

over clear red yellow

fields on dawning bedstraw

ponds warm tinged agrimony.

Anemone soldiers tendriled under

water battle caste of pawn

fringes no man’s land

deadlocked pallid benthic imprints

Anemone water fringes deadlocked

soldiers battle no pallid

tendriled cast of man’s benthic

under pawning landed imprints.

Water is as water does

Water flows blesses swells

Fog over fields and ponds

Fog but highway avens

Anemone soldiers tendriled under

Anemone water border deadlocked.

II.

Once believed water

became earth became fire

became air became water

tried to mutate gold from lead

thought life sprang from dung on impulse

watched the sun and stars revolve around the earth.

Where do we go from here?

Under water under welkin under tendriled tent

of falling blossoms wearing fog at once believed

a sign a sign of something

transcendence or the law of condensation

connections to connections to connections

another form of water

sometimes river sometimes puddle

sometimes crystal cleaving to a golden shard of leaf

sometimes sadness weeding healthy plants

sadness falling blossoms sadness melting snow field

sadness arms around the dead in photos

sadness wears their songs and movies

sadness all was and will be.

III.

Water is as water does.

Porous sheen of light in amber

raveled contrail tinting sky

tendriled bedstraw yellow

lifting fog blue water

border clear red highway.

In the beginning of the beginning

is the beginning of the beginning.

At the end of the end is the end of the end.

Sadness fogging stand in water

confuses faith in is and is

discolored blurring disembodied as

was or will be water does.

Sad confused discolor was

fogging faith blurring will

standing is in disembodied being

water is as water does.

IV.

Another form of water

sharing clear field vision

downpour sweeping towards us

marching pallid water soldiers

skimming over crumbled stumps

towards us flowing falling

splashes porous sheen

towards us earth sink ponding

and beating avens yellow bedstraw

above us tendriled contrail welkin

descending blossoms mutate impulse

together seeing it together

at the beginning and at the end

for once the same sinuous something

another form of water was and will be

another form of water is and is.

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from Music from Words, 2007, Bellday Books, Inc.

Marc Jampole

5889 Aylesboro Avenue

Pittsburgh, PA 15217

412-422-9280; mjampole@nyc.rr.com

Photography by Ola Baldych