PARTISAN REVIEW
Ah!
You guys would like to know how well they fuck!
No!
Gentlemen, they do not have a funny smell!
Yes!
They screw like hell! And beautiful bodies! Skin smooth like
the skin of a baby lamb! And teats juicy like grapefruits,
and asses (ah! the succulent asses of my cute little black
chicks!) round solid well balanced on magnificent thighs!
Yes!
Gentlemen ... but I skip all that . .. or else ...
No!
There's not a single bright light who can blow (or fuck)
like them not a single one not even a guy like Stan Getz
and he's not bad on tenor not even Mulligan not even Bill
Evans and yet that one knows his stuff . . . not one who
can keep up with my buddies. These cats these white cats
it's all cute stuff cool stuff that doesn't swing like my bud–
dies. OK it's full of ideas sweet ideas but ideas come from
the brains not from the guts and it's from the stomach–
FROM THE GUTS .. . MAN! and not from the brains
that the real stuff real jazz comes out! Just listen to Lester
Young to Miles to Trane yes listen to Monk then you hear
the guts squeaking crying bursting!
I'm not saying that you have to be an expert. That you have to know
every thing. That you have to have studied music or even discogra–
phy.
All I am saying is that you have to have that in your belly. You
see, even me, and yet I lived with them, for years and years (IN
THE
DARK ) , I couldn't stand up to them, couldn't make it!
67
But you guys, have you ever spent a night, yes
an entire night with Charlie Parker, with Bird
loaded like a donkey, doped up like a camel or a
dromedary whichever you prefer, exhausted like a
bull who just screwed a whole herd a pack of
cows but still BLOWING HIS BRAINS OUT!
Yes an entire night, in a little filthy garage, in
Detroit, towards the end of the 40s, 'in 1949,
to be exact, when Parker was the king of jazz!
I
remember
it
was
after a concert –
JAZZ AT THE PHILHARMONIC!
There was
Fats
Nava~o
