Stratford Shakespearean Festival, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, 1956

Minor chords ring across Stratford farmland. We jazz
wherever we’re called. Local ears lift to see jazz.

Their hearts hear in places their minds roam.
Oh, if the bard could be Black! She’d be jazz.

If the hogs across the way, just for a moment, were swans
released in a lake, they’d think, this is the sea: jazz!

Tell me, if Cleo walked in here right now,
would her stride, royal to her jeweled toes, be jazz?

Britt Woodman’s Hank Cinq and all them
octave jumps! Slide your trombone, man! Free Jazz!

Now, wipe the sleep from your eyes. The time has come:
Your ideas must speak the language that be jazz.

Who said no Blacks allowed in orchestra seats?
Leave the balcony empty tonight; let that be jazz.

Emmett Till’s body found floating in the Tallahatchie River.
Emmett Till’s name still rises, and, believe me, that be jazz.

Schools in Topeka, Kansas, threw open their doors.
Integration? Call it what you want, but, shit, man—that be jazz.

Tamora’s baby came out Black, you say? Damn. The more
I hear of Aaron the Moor, the more I think: don’t that be jazz?

A note above ~ A note below ~ The note between ~
The tonic ~ Enclosed ~ Pivoted up ~ Octave ~ That be jazz.

Oh, if the bard could be Black! Her stride would be royal, jeweled toes ... 
your ideas must speak. Aaron and more. Till’s name still rises! That be jazz.

The circle of fourths comes full circle now. You bards,
Duke, Billy, the children are dancing! Enough: Let that be jazz.