Without jazz, aka, black classical music, I would be a dead deaf dumb and blind negro. Jazz saved my mind body soul. When I was deep down in the black hole of Crack, stuck on stupid in those SRO rooms of San Francisco Hindu Hilton hotels, jazz saved me a thousand foggy San Francisco nights. I was tweeking in my wretched room alone after the Crack Ho was gone. Then in the deep black hole of my psychosis I heard the sound of a sax player so beautiful I ran from my room to bless the jazz man for his most wonderful sound that brought my soul alive many San Francisco foggy nights.
It was Sonny Simmons blasting lyrical love sounds to any who passed his corner near Union Square on their way to Chinatown. In my madness, the beauty of Sonny's music had me like the Sirens of Greek myth, I bowed before Sonny with a donation for the blessing he put on my soul, snatching me from my madness in my wretched room on iniquity. Imagine I tried to deny the music rocking my soul to the core, then rushing out the room for another run in the night, but not before bowing down to Sonny Simmons and the beauty of his music he made me love more than that 747 Paramedic Crack hit we adore.
So many nights I'd hear Sonny blowing through the fog. I knew he was calling me but I tried to ignore him in the wretchedness of my room stuck on stupid in the Hindu Hilton. But the beauty of Sonny's music made me throw down the crack pipe. He blew me out my room many foggy Frisco nights. I ran out to find the corner where he stood blasting sounds from heaven, where else is beauty and truth from? I stood before him as he blew into the Frisco fog, his eyes closed just blowing the most lyrical sounds ever heard.
I rushed from bowing before him, escaping to the dreaded Tenderloin to continue my madness til the morning sun. But not before giving Sonny a donation for dragging me out of my room of wretchedness iniquity and gloom.
After all, I heard Sonny in his beauty but denied I heard anything, til the beauty of his music overwhelmed me, from my room I had to run, find the source of Sonny's fun. The beauty of his horn blowing through the fog, like it didn't matter for this god to play at all.
Yes, I miss you Sonny Simmons, all those foggy Frisco nights, smashing through the fog in Union Square like a mad dog, on that corner near Geary and Post on the way to Chinatown. Sonny nothing can make me forget those nights when you were calling me back to reality. Thank you, Sonny. What a wonderful soul you be.
So many nights Sonny I used to hear you cry wail. You were one with the fog as I searched in my madness to find your place in the night. When I found you on some corner, I could only bow down in the beauty of your sound and sight.
Wailing your soul, even in my Crack madness I stood before you because I knew your horn was pure gold. Maybe you were playing for needs like mine, maybe for the love of music, your gift to mankind. All I know is I heard your beauty through the fog many Frisco nights and ran from my SRO hotel room because I knew it was you and your sound was true as the river flows, sun rises, as lovers come and go. Thank you Sonny Simmons for your jazz in the night, black classical music if you call it right. The greatest music ever created in human history, transcending suffering to the joy of liberty. The expression of souls never submitted, only to the God of Liberty requited.
--Marvin X
8/19/21
Oh, Sonny Simmons, thank you for calling me to your horn those foggy Frisco nights
The Marvin X Jazz Test of Blackness
1. Recognize Duke's A Train
2. Recognize Monk'a 'Round Midnight
3. Recognize Mile's Kind of Blue
4. Recognize A Love Supreme, John Coltrane
5. Louis Armstrong's St. James Infirmary
6. Bessie Smith, You boiled my first cabbage
7. Billie Holiday, Strange Fruit
8. Sketch's of Spain, Miles Davis
9. Song of My Father, Horace Silver
10. Space is the Place, Sun Ra
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