This poem caught my attention from a very first glance. Beautiful Jazz metaphors and references that urged me to search out the recordings of the songs and performers mentioned in it; and the mastery of Cortez‘s word play.
As I understood Jayne Cortez remembers reminisces of the days she had attended Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts. Jazz at the Philharmonic was a series of concerts that took place between 1944 – 1983(Wikipedia.org, 2010); they included some of the biggest Jazz legends of the time. Cortez eloquently words her metaphors and portrays a sense of motion and dance throughout the poem. “my feet rebellious metronomes” suddenly spark an image of two feet moving by themselves yet keeping beat the beat; “Shuffled in Dexter's Deck” probably relating to getting lost in the songs and music of Dexter Gordon and much more.
Cortez uses repetition in the Beginning and the end of the poem to highlight Ella Fitzgerald’s songs “& scatted "How High the Moon"(”Lady Be Good”) with Ella Fitzgerald/as she blew roof off the Shrine Auditorium/Jazz at the Philharmonic” in my opinion, this is a way of paying homage to her favorite of all the Jazz performers.
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