Sunny Yass With Bass

Joel Banner Baird on bass, jhaffur khan azad darakth on bansuri and tymponics photo by Taka Yamanouchi Poem by John Copley Alter "Sunny Yass with Bass: an Easter morning song --for Jeff Campbell celebrate with awe Distillate of bird song (a native tongue for you) your Easter cantata reaches to the last the least strand of the great web to the shamyana where your parents hand in hand are dancing. Consolation it brings, nostalgia, drum & drone & flute—fragrance of the five rivers. Easter then, a sunny yass, a hallelujah… my tongue rejoiced Your song is the sangam of many tongues, rejoicing. Cuckoo, Himalayan thrush Gurmukhi. And your father’s voice is there, the story teller. And such longing is there, your sunny yass echoing in mountain pastures, along the Beas, rejoicing again and again, in breath, in breathing. It is springtime in the Panjab, holi day, and among the hills of Ta’ang, cherry blossoms. The muscle memory, music, the sound of a boat coming to rescue… fullness of joy Joy in your music overflows, it will not be still. Your song is brimming over. On Easter morning such abundance makes the stairway to heaven the Shalimar gardens let’s say, a charpai beneath the banyan tree. And the last the least strand of the great web quivers. All the bright- ankled small streams, the ecstatic company, are dancing down the dream mountain. Do you not hear the five rivers raising glad voices— Greetings! Hallelujah! -John Copley Alter