Jazz Haiku

Money's everything
Playing any gig that comes
Whores, we are all whores

Squeaking and squawking
All eyes roll to the heavens
The clarinet speaks

One beat to change from
Harmon to cup to bucket
“Hey, who wrote this sh*t?”

The jam session starts
Somebody calls “Giant Steps”
Cold fear grips my brain

Here comes the high note
The lead trumpeter puckers
Clam, clam. “Crap!” Clam. “Sh*t!”

Here's the girl singer
Stepping to the microphone
Pitch, time, all gone now

Gig is going well
A**hole requests “In the Mood”
I look at my watch

I once had a dream
Big house, new car, big money
Now I play the bass

Gorgeous chick tells me
“You sound just like Kenny G”
My ego shatters

Three-eight, eleven-eight
F*ck you Andrew Lloyd Webber
Five-eight, seven-eight

The accordion
“Squeeze box,” yes, but more often
“The Stomach Steinway”

The woodwind doubler
Practicing the piccolo
Frustration defined

Trane, Prez, Bird, Brecker
Giants of the saxophone
Eat sh*t, Kenny G

Pit orchestra gig
Days and nights become as one
I have no damned life

Bad intonation
Strings are sharp and reeds are fiat
Brass too loud again

Great changes, good groove
A one-in-a-million gig
No singer. Yippee!

An oxymoron:
“He played the accordion
With delicacy”

Bassoons forever
Try in vain not to sound like
A falling bedpost

The strings slowly tune
When they're done, the unisons
Are anything but

“I can't find my note”
Bemoans the confused singer
“Quit now,” we all pray

The contractor calls
Months of Andrew Lloyd Webber
“Bird Lives” no longer

Solo tenor sits
Under drummer's crash cymbal
“Where are my ear plugs?”