Have a Drink & Listen to a Fine Playwright
Get a good dose of playwriting goodness from reader Tyler Rivenbark at the second Oh, Bernice! reading at 7:30pm, Saturday Feb. 18 at Cafe Marlene in Sunnyside.
Tyler Rivenbark is a playwright, singer/songwriter, musician (myspace.com/mygoodname), and less than moderate swimmer. Born in the better of the two Carolinas (North, of course!), he received his MFA in playwriting in 2010 from Queens College where he is now a professor. In 2009 he was a writer-in-residence at the Louis Armstrong House and Museum, the residency which he now happily oversees. It's possible he's done other things, maybe. And as always, he is delighted to participate in anything with his fellow Bernicians.
The breath I breathe in this horn to make it sing is what gives me life. And that’s what I play…life. All this other shit’s just make believe till I can press my lips to the brass and make some damn sense of the mess. These sounds I blow are my words – improvisin’s how I talk. That’s how all us cats talk in jazz. It’s the only way to understand what’s goin’ on. But music’s more than just tappin’ your toes and slow draggin’. It’s love. Wailin’. Addiction. It’s God and the angels singin’ harmony to that high C I hit, fillin’ the ears of Gabriel with such sweetness, ya dig.
All those cats up there behind those gates are there ‘cause they stopped blowin’. They stopped breathin’.
What you hear comin’ from a man’s horn…that’s what he is. The notes he play is the music of his life. It’s everything he ever done good or bad in years past. It’s everything he ever thought of doin’. Hell, it’s even the shit he ain’t even known ‘bout. When a cat’s blowin’ and he close his eyes he see all the things that make him who he is. Like movin’ pictures that give him an image of a tune.
But mostly though, he try not to think at all. Try to put everything out his head. Hide somewhere in the music, inside the ringin’ in his ears. And in that secret place with the sound that comes out that horn you’ll find the purest form of that man they will ever be.
(A beat. TRUMPETER begins to struggle.)
Every night I blow these notes out my horn for all them smilin’ faces, all those strangers, just for myself, I’m tellin’ people the truth ‘bout who ol’ Satchmo is, tellin’ ‘em I’m alive - I’m still here breathin’.
