Bird, strings, Big Chief: 100: Harlem (For Charlie Parker/Donald Harrison/Harlem Symphony Orchestra) | Black Agenda Report

Bird, strings, Big Chief: 100: Harlem (For Charlie Parker/Donald Harrison/Harlem Symphony Orchestra)

Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence

08 Sep 2021

🖨️ Print Article

Photo: Janine Robinson

Bird, strings, Big Chief: 100: Harlem

(For Charlie Parker/Donald Harrison/Harlem Symphony Orchestra)

Gathering witnesses bearing beautiful collisions—

Kansas City, New Orleans, Harlem—in Harlem. Only

Harlem fetes YardBird in Marcus Garvey Park. Only

Harlem has Big Easy Chief of Congo Nation do the

honors. It’s still a COVID 19 scene and Black masking’s

an act of communal resistance…

It’s still a COVID 19 scene and the virus’s variations

are playing “Giant Steps” within Monk’s complicated

compositions. It’s still a COVID 19 scene and greed

driven confederate governors are playing with lives;

Playing simple songs sounding like “Mississippi Hot-

dog”/“Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars and Bars…”

Spy Boys check Jazz Tribe temps and statuses.

They buy Big Chief time to procure and secure

Suspenders; adjust his invisible headdress and

prepare sacred songs for meeting The Peoples’ Tribe.

Charlie Parker’s music’s magic—Blues magnet gathering

grassroots, salt of the earth—Harlem’s finest—like

shavings of steel hardened by white heat and hammer

A drizzle decrescendos and morphs into the perfect

prelude, into micro climate mist—handing humidity a

rare defeat. The weather’s a bittersweet reminder of

Impermanence. Change—spiraling lower to higher—birth

to death; reminding us who are “Just Friends,” “Now’s

The Time” to connect—this evening’s the only time we own…

Older gentlemen—second wave Jitterbugs—with

muscle memory of Lindy Hop to Bebop honor the

Moment. They select skilled younger partners to

Swing, spin, twirl; showing off middle year bodies

more beautiful than perfect: cleavage, calves and

sculpted thighs revealed as colorful knee-high skirts rise

Maybe they couldn’t keep Malcolm alive or hold on to

Houses grandparents paid off. But tonight they hold

on to one another—hold on to Charlie Parker—Bird

with strings attached…

Former forklift driver/warehouse worker/janitor, Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet; BAR's Poet-in-Residence; and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC. You can Vote for his work at:

GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-town-criers-big-tooth-fund

PayPal: paypal.me/towncrierRNT

© 2021. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

Music

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.

More Stories

Elias Isquith
White supremacy and slavery: Gerald Horne on the real story of American independence
01 Jul 2026
It's time to revisit America's heroic creation myth and what really happened in 1776, author-historian tells Salon.
Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor , Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Slaveholders Who Signed the Declaration of Independence: Washington, Jefferson, and the People they Owned
01 Jul 2026
Black Agenda Report editors Margaret Kimberley and Ann Garrison discuss the personal and institutional hypocrisy that allowed those who said, "All men are created equal," to be slaveholders.
Carlos Martinez
Cuba’s economic reforms and the prospects for socialist renewal
01 Jul 2026
The following article by Carlos Martinez, co-editor of Friends of Socialist China and author of The East Is Still Red, examines the most far-reaching changes to Cuba’s economic model in more than 60…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Black Agenda Report June 26, 2026
26 Jun 2026
In this week’s segment, we discuss the status of talks between Iran and the U.S.
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Colombia, FIFA, the World Cup and the Materiality of White Supremacy in the Age of Globalization
26 Jun 2026
Ajamu Baraka is a Black Agenda Report contributing editor and Director of the North-South Project for People(s)-Centered Human Right