Nora McCarthy: News

Hi Friends, please check out my interview in the Spring issue of Jazz Improv Magazine, Vol. 7, pg. 123 - It's really informative and contains almost everything you always wanted to know about Missy Mac!
www.jazzimprov.com

The June issue of HotHouse will also be featuring an interview with me for the Women in Jazz Column - waiting on that and I'm proud to have been included.

JEANNE LEE’S SONG

By: Nora McCarthy © 2006
(please see photo section)

Jeanne Lee’s song
was one of truth.
She came from the heart
and her soul was deeply free and uninhibited.
Hip Heart Art at its word
revealed in a whisper's blinding reflection.
Her music played a lifelong story spun of golden threads.

An ancient voice,
proclaiming the blues as a sign of her timelessness.
Fresh – New
Like an echo from the past -
A quote from the future -
she passed through here on a breeze.
Her spirit of life’s energies touching memories,
Eyes! how familiar they seemed.
Jeanne Lee was beauty.

Kissing every word
her voice’s meaning softly screaming
drumming - beating - heart
believing in the higher self's ability to comfort every motherless child
reassuring a peaceful resolution
to the problems of the day…..
“after a-bombs, nerves and taxes”
she was there to relax us
with a Season in the Sun –
Revolution was her way of saying
Peace everyone! With righteous indignation
measured by the dues that were paid.

Throwing boldly back into the faces of a socially unconscious hypocrisy
the nation went insane long before the freedom train came, Enough! no more she sang,
and the turbulent times carried her away
across the sea to plant more seeds.
A voice above the roar of the crowd Jeanne Lee Was Heard,
but more importantly - she was an Awakening.
Smitten with her own honesty
she was One.
Tuned into the truth,
she baptized the earth
in the pure sound of her soulful cries.
From the depth of her being and into her mothering womb
she called
offering
an escape route,
a respite,
from a troubled world.
In a note sung she spoke volumes
with limitlessness expression that is forever present
in the moment,
forever reaching for the sun or someplace far away
and heavenly.

While others were buying into the agenda
Jeanne Lee was pioneering a new formula
of words and sound,
and songs composed of profound personal strength
and creative intelligence.
She healed us with her LOVE,
and
The Whole
Universe
Embraced her.
She bathed us,
in harmolodious gospel voices
drawn straight from the spiritual source while
painting murals of sound orchestral
around the world standing among the horns and griots
she travelled to the outer limits of tone.
Returning home,
her melody continues on its journey.
Like a prayer repeating,
Remembering,
Jeanne Lee’s song.

BIRD LIVES, BIRD LIVED, BIRD IS

By Nora McCarthy ©2003

Bird “lived”
so that those who followed
would have something to reach for.
Bird “lived”
in disrespect of his musical
endowment,
taking his gift for granted,
indulging in its abundance
with reckless abandonment
his life became
more than a confirmation
or commitment to a musical statement.
More than a concept
it was an experience,
a lesson,
in the human condition.
His legacy,
much more than an entitlement,
was a creation,
and an addiction.

Bird “lives”
in every beholder’s ear -
in clones and disciples ad infinitum
who repeat
his words
verbatim ad nauseam.
But Bird did more than pass it on
--He broke ground--
for future generations of jazz musicians
to stand upon the foundation BeBop was built on.



Bird “lived”
his life to the limits,
the outer and beyond,
laying it down
till the moment it was done,
spelling it out,
never once recycling the sound,
that was drenched in the sweat of his torment.

To carry on in the tradition of the spirit
is the message he passed on.
One more misbegotten quote
is one too many,
phonies.

Bebop Ripoffs, Rebop Hip Hops, Cop Cops
mentality
- you have no originality -
you can steal the language
but not the genius.

Bird “lives”
as we gather to celebrate
his life and memory
with our limited “imitations”
and our avian idolatry.
Bird “lives”
,truthfully,
in every inventor’s mind and in every new discovery.
That Is,
the essence
of the Bird’s
Immortality.

BIRD LIVES!! BIRD LIVED!! BIRD IS!!
IN THE SONG, IN THE WORDS, IN WHAT YOU THOUGHT YOU HEARD WENT BY SO QUICKLY IN THE MOMENT YOU WEREN’T SURE IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN A COMET
FAST THINKING ANOTHER HABIT
CREATING LIKE A FLOWING TUNNEL
INTO OTHER DIMENSIONS
A PORTHOLE
POURING DOWN
A COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS OF SOUND AND RHYTHMS
DIVINE
AND INSANE
ACADEMIC
BRAIN
CHILD
A SYSTEM
OF MUSICAL THOUGHT
BE BOP
BIRD IS!!