Wednesday, December 08, 2004
Yap: Satchmo
By Januar Yap
Meanwhile
I thought the world was square. So thought South African trumpet legend Hugh Masekala, too, until jazz king Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong descended upon the earth. “I see trees of green, red roses too/I see them bloom for me and you/And I think to myself what a wonderful world…”
A late first, I now own a comb. I believe you use it to give your hair some kind of order. So like a real grown-up, I slicked up this confused vegetation on my head. Neat, and the guttural Satchmo still rings in the room, as I face the mirror. “I see skies of blue and clouds of white/The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night/And I think to myself…” My face looks like where the grip is as age and youth engage in an arm wrestling. Then there’s a straying strand of white hair. “…what a wonderful world.” Solitude, says Einstein, is delicious in the years of maturity.
Too quickly, it’s Christmas again. Across the table, a shadow wolfs over eight large oysters. Such a stunning configuration on the roof of this edifice while the December zephyr waltzes hysterically over the sea of city lights. “The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky/Are also faces of people going by…” I look around, tapping Satchmo’s beat on the table. The world up here is not square.
Unaided by an orchestra, some unimaginable things do happen, even though sometimes, they come rather late. This one, whose hair the wind wants to steal, at the other end of the table, is happening.
Had it not been for Satchmo, said Masekala, we’d all be wearing powdered wigs. He loosened the world, set it free. I tuck my soul in the thickets of Satchmo’s singing, “I hear babies cry, I watch them grow/They’ll learn much more than I’ll never know…”
When I wasn’t looking, she offers a handshake. “I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do/They’re really saying I love you…” The image retreats darkly into the car window. Then it leaves, to where I don’t know.
Oh world, scat me please an upbeat tune. And Satchmo, says Masekala, had taught the world to say, “Yeah.”
(December 8, 2004 issue)
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