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Easter Island (1722 A​.​D​.​) Part 1

from Evolution by Tommy Smith

supported by
Graham Smyth
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lyrics

I write it, I read it, I revere that sea
which blues the heaving earthly hemisphere.
I was swooping low over those waves one day
when my eye caught a tiny triangle of island
some instinct told me to investigate:
volcanic, a mere scrub of greenery,
but interesting in its defiant aloneness
thousand of miles from the nearest land.
I spoke to the inhabitants. They were curious.
They were mighty voyagers, or their ancestors were,
not now though; there was some great past,
fragments only, drifting through memory.
I found them quite merry people.
They preferred tattoos to clothes.
They shot their legs out in shameless dances.
What use is shame in mid-Pacific?

Whoever they were, they were not the ones
whose gaunt and awesome faces stared at - not me
but space and clouds and things unknown
unless to those who carved them.
Hundreds of statues, six-men-high and more,
standing, leaning, lying, trying
to break from the earth like Polynesian Adams -
but not Polynesian, they forbade identity:
pointed nose, thin lip, jutting chin
said nothing but Power! Mystery! Vision!
What force moved them from their quarries,
those many tons, across the rough of the island?
They were not moved, they moved, I was told.
Step by step, rocking from side to side,
they reached their appointed places.
Everyone knows that, I was told.

It was evening now, evening of what some would call
Easter Sunday. I climbed a hill near the coast,
gazing across those vast waters not vaster
than tracts of mind new-visited and glittering.
On the horizon, the first ship from Europe:
trinkets, missionaries, trousers, smallpox, guns.

Edwin Morgan

credits

from Evolution, released February 25, 2021
Tommy Smith - Tenor Saxophone
Joe Lovano - Tenor Saxophone
John Scofield - Guitar
John Taylor - Piano
John Patitucci - Acoustic Bass
Bill Stewart - Drums

Music by Tommy Smith published by Smythe Music, PRS
Poetry by Edwin Morgan commissioned by Tommy Smith
Recorded April 2003 Avatar Studios, New York City
Engineer: James Farber
Mastering from Analogue Tape: Ben Turner, Fine Splice
Photography: Paul Thorburn
Cover photo of Smith: Robert Burns

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Tommy Smith Edinburgh, UK

Born in 1967, Edinburgh. In 1983 Chick Corea recommended Tommy Smith to Gary Burton; he joined his group. Recording over 30 solo albums for Blue Note, Linn, ECM, Spartacus Records, touring 50+ countries, performing with Arild Andersen, Edwin Morgan, John Scofield, Jaco Pastorius, Trilok Gurtu, Dizzy Gillespie. In 2019, he was awarded an OBE for services to jazz from HRH Queen Elizabeth II. ... more

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