Saturday, 25 October 2014

FADE OUT FOR A WESTERN MOVIE: A POEM

Jack Bruce's death reminded me of an afternoon many years ago when I lived in Montreal. I was listening to 'Theme From An Imaginary Western', and I was thinking about Ride The High Country, one of the truly great westerns, and I wrote the lines which became this poem. It was published, if I remember right, in Cid Corman's Origin magazine... I dedicated it to my film teacher, Jeanine Basinger.



FADE OUT FOR A WESTERN MOVIE

two weary
horses carry

empty

saddles into sunset


2 comments:

  1. Robin Ramsay26 October 2014 at 08:47

    Very nice, Mike. It is underappreciated that 'jazz rock' began with Graham Bond's various bands, with Bruce playing a significant role. Bruce once said that Cream was the Ornette Coleman trio (presumably the one that played at Ronnie Scott's circa 1965 and did the Blue Note LP) with Eric Clapton in the role of Ornette - only he and Ginger didn't tell Eric.
    And there's the paradox of Cream: as an improviser Clapton was the weakest of the three (no jazz background) but his wonderful guitar sound made them popular. People like me, growing up with jazz and blues rock in parallel, yearned for a rock guitarist sound with jazz technique - and we eventually got John McLaughlin. The pity is that McLaughin never settled on a decent sound for his guitar and his recordings are frequently marred by the unpleasant sounds emerging from his amp.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Michael Carlson28 October 2014 at 19:10

    Listening again to some Bruce it occurs that he never again played with a guitarist who had as much taste as Clapton...Clempson, for example, in the JB&Friends, makes the Cream tunes sound simpler

    ReplyDelete