I.
it's the center of the century.
it's the city lights, those blazing torches standing for the blue-green lady liberty,
and everyone's just a little bit beat.
beat up, beaten down, egg beat, drum beat,
red red red beet.
we've all got red eyes and red hearts and
we've got our sex, drugs, guns, girls, boys, scandal,
between-the-lines-between-the-cracks behavior...
what's left from the crush of the
war.
we could be downtrodden, dark, dank, wreaking, fallen,
universe-forbid, we could be lost inside of the great big cookie cutter,
traditional plastered, set in stone and the society of wonderbread-women...
gods-and-goddesses-forbid, we could be the Lost again.
we choose not to be.
yes, we are the poor, the lonely, the judged, the criminal...
you say that makes us wrong,
i say that makes us human.
we too are the strong, the intelligent, the radical, the free...
so what keeps us there, elevated?
sure, we've got our sex, drugs, guns, girls, boys, scandal,
but we've got our words. our minds. our voices. the time. dirty hands on which we rest clean faces.
and we have music.

II.
Welcome to Birdland!
It's the definition of the new age. Come one, come all and
listen to the fabled Mister Yardbird, Mister Charlie Parker -
the Bird is here to stay, and in a big way!
Sliding, hear that saxophone rolling on and the way he
seems to play a thousand notes in one is what makes him a
free Bird.
Influential – he's gonna descend and strike with feathers, wings,
and beak alike,
making changes and giving us all some sweet, sick, splendid little jazz music.
Jazz Music.
Missouri, New York, Illinois, California, tell me this -
how many times can your Bird flap his wings in a second?
And how many ways can he make the saxophone a magic wand?
Taking our understanding of jazz music and
reinventing.
Shaping, twisting, the blending of instruments and a
huge helping of harmony,
wavering, trembling, quivering keys and jumps
to set the mood for a perfect mid-June on Broadway.
Please, hold on tight, because when this Bird flies,
he soars,
weaving through lines and stanzas, majors and minors,
loop-de-loop around the treble clef before
roosting on the coda.
Then it's right back to a series of eighth and sixteenth notes
before he glides right off the black and white of the page into the
shades of gold and silver that make up the
warm summer evening in the city in nineteen-fourty-five,
where the People listen.
Scrapple From The Apple is Just Friends with All The Things You Are,
while Bird Feathers fluff up the 21st Century Blues
and A Night In Tunisia comes Out Of Nowhere.
That makes for a Dizzy Atmosphere.
That makes for a true Summertime followed by a true Autumn In New York.
And there you have it, ladies and gents.
While you were gazing into a dark sky,
the Bird was swooping up, dragging his sweet swallowtail
everywhere behind him with the gift of music.
He rained music.
And I think we knew...
(we must have known..)
deep down in the bloody little middles of out hearts...
we were born knowing, but it was rubbed out of us by
society,
rubbed right out.
But Yardbird dragged it back into the light,
like a fat, forgotten mouse in his sharp yellow mouth,
he made us remember -
with music, there are no boundaries.
With art, there are no boundaries.
It is your own, it is infinite, and it is amazing.
And that is how the Bird dove headfirst into the collective heartbeat.