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Juggernaut (1600 A​.​D​.​) Part 1

from Evolution by Tommy Smith

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Tommy Smith – tenor saxophone
Joe Lovano – tenor saxophone
John Scofield – guitar
John Taylor – piano
John Patitucci – acoustic bass
Bill Stewart – drums

lyrics

Juggernaut (1600 A.D.) Part 1

I had had enough of stars and silence.
It was midsummer, and I made for India.
Where would I get some life but India?
I joined a boat, and was soon blistering
across the Bay of Bengal to a seaside town
of some fame, what was it called, Puri,
yes, Puri of the festivals. A test case
I was told. Test of what? Oh you’ll find out.

If I wanted people, there were plenty of them,
ten, hundreds of thousands, filling the streets
with chatter and movement and colour and slowly
making a magnet of the courtyard of a temple
where they clustered jostling in ancient expectation.
With a rumble, with shouts, with drums, with blowing of shells
an enormous cart rolled out, what, sixteen wheels,
a cart for a god, a car for the people to draw,
and draw it they did, with their god on board,
that giant tottering legless fearsome one
they dragged as if drugged, they were high on devotion,
milling, chanting, pushing, stumbling, trundling -
trundling what, on those great spokes, to the sea?
I can hear the roar even yet, mounting up
through waves of heat and dust, it could curdle blood
or it could twine your roots with the roots of the world.
‘Who is Lord of the Universe? Jagannath!
Who is Jagannath? Lord of the Universe!’

The judgement rolled on, and made its path
over so many bodies no one could say
who had been shouldered to the ground
or who had shouldered themselves to the ground,
embracing the relentless axle of the divine.
I could not say. I did not want to say.
Shining eyes, shouts of ecstasy,
stench, stampede, shattered shinbones,
sun-splashed awnings, sweat-soaked idols
wan before me like sharks, like shrieks
from an old incomprehensible abyss.

The axle squeals without redress of grease.

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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