Phil's Jazz Poems: and all that freedom music

Phil's Jazz And All That Freedom Music puts a presence on the days of the 1950s-1970 in vibrant neighbourhoods around Cape Town, South Africa . It brings to the fore bated breath memories between families and friends across the dreaded 'color lines' of South Africa's apartheid past. It revisits a time and place when music played and goes on to form such a crucial role in helping folks stay sane under the pressures of daily living. From a treasury of human courage, strength, and determination to overcome near insurmountable odds, such wisdoms and joys could serve the present and future generations well, we always hope. Excerpts: One For The Beach Road "Did you just hear him play Stardust on Jazzland?" As though we'd just lost touch with the show on the radio, Don Warners' mellifluous rafts sailed across the room to the phone all the way from Halifax. It drove us into blue green paroxysms. Ralph in Toronto then later in Vancouver, and me in Montreal we'd almost reached a point of screaming: "incredibly out of this world!". This was followed at night with Katie Malloch's night Jazzbeat. O, the rapture! Für Elise was the bar; that stuck on you. Vernell deftly sauntered into The Muppet's Theme, your living room became a studio of pride. Denzil's beautiful pearly teeth glittered through the set. Verna scatted with Sarah Vaughan. .................................. Basil Moses On Bass Your honey-brown fine wooden music chamber spread luminescence. Skyward visions keyed our flights to higher ground. Our beliefs became writ large in your steeling, strutting, strumming, supreme stomp for freedom, utter joy and aesthetics. Touch, tempo, tone, tethered times through tempest. Tenderness overtook tremor and troubled rivers.