Raymond FILIP

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"The Guitar Speaks Poetry"



Django Reinhardt
(A Jarred God Ninth)


Born into the open air of a song, a gypsy mother married to the wind, talent as trackless
as the breezes known only by ear and feel that dance across North Africa to Liverchies,
Toulon to Porte de Choisy. The Manouche touch: rhythms, runs, chtarna in the blood,
two fingers like forked lightning, sleight-of-left-hand magic appearing as music. Djangomancy. Mon dieu! Presence in absence! What's a little paralysis?
More improvisation for a painter with arpeggio strokes in the smokey key of jazz.




Wes Montgomery
(Higher-Evolved Thumb)


It came natural. That octave thing. Nobody told me it was impossible. So I did it.
I just copied that cat Charlie Christian. Then more cats came along and copied me.
It's a natural thing. I had seven children to support. Boy! That food chain kept me awake
stuck to a welding job, or unloading boxcars, or lugging ice, then playing gigs all night. People dug my warm tone. So the bucks got bigger, and the blisters got smaller.
Yeah, my hands will take thumbing tunes for a living any time. It's a natural thing.




Jimi Hendrix
(Alternate Take)


Mild thing. Inside. Hiding behind feedback. Electric tears. See. The Seattle chile. The strummer of a pretend guitar: a broom, a straw friend. Hear. The soft chile. The stutterer of words. The scribbler of poems. To replace the hurt. Pretend. The ponchos of a Cherokee grandmother. Substitutes. For a dead. Unfit. Mother. Pretend. Find. The child who didn't want to die. Johnny Allen. James Marshall. Jimmy James. "Jimi" for the masses. Rape a guitar for them. More great balls of fire. A puberty rite. Find. The lost self. The end of anger. Peace. Pretend.





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