The reward that is the accordion
After a fitful decade of accordion exploits, I matured into the natural progression for all players: Jazz.
I discovered my first jazz accordion club in Austin around 1997, while in a haze of musical styles that no longer interested me, clubs that were running thin and an audience that just didn’t jive the way they used to. I blame the death of Lawrence Welk.
On SkyTowers Pt I
we were perched on stacked logs
reaching high heavenward
trying to reach the clouds
or heaven
and hear the birdsongs of infinity
in the welk
did you dance on your log totem?
did your sempiternal spins wrap
winds to each direction
like ancient gods huffing and puffing
to send the ships sailing and to give
shakespeare another obscure reference
your skirttails must of been weightless
your chin nobly upward
and half of the world tumbling from beneath
your maypole
and you spun until you were still
still you are wonder
crosslegged now on your log tower
reaching higher than my expectations
will you fall if you jump off?
will your belief keep you sailing?
and you never saw me because my tower
was lower to the ground
so i could tentatively toe the terraform
i think you started walking on the sky
your hair falling in flower petals
and i’ve
always admired your
courage
