Nr. 1 (10) anul IV / ianuarie-martie 2006 - ROMDIDAC

EX PONTO NR.1, 2006
196
worthy of the right emotion to listen to it properly: „Je ne l’écouterais pas ce
soir, ni sans doute même demain, mais à tel moment où j’aurais du moins
l’illusion d’avoir droit à ce pathetique, ou j’en aurai besoin pour me rappeler
à quel point l’homme peut être innocent, démoli (je songe à It Never Entered
My Mind de Bud) ∂...∑ Et sauvant jusque dans ce malheur l’espoir incapable
de comprendre. Mais je n’en dirai pas plus.” 5
This „je n’en dirai pas plus” is significant in the sense that for him, not
speaking or writing is just as important as coming up with the right word or
note. This is what he so appreciates in Sweets Edison whom he compares
to a „grammarian” rather than a poet, and whom he admires for his exactitude,
balance and grace. As much as he admires the unbridled impatience
and unruly exuberance that he sees in Roy Eldridge, Edison is emblematic
of what Réda considers to be the highest form of craftsmanship: the art of
almost Zen-like precision which, like an arrow, always hits his mark: „Ses mots
justes prennent place dans les phrases sobres et parfaitement équilibrées,
où l’on n’a jamais à chercher quel verbe appelle quel complément.” 6 Indeed,
Réda uses grammatical imagery to underline the similarity between Edison’s
musical art and that of the poet for whom each word must be the exact one,
with no margin for error: „Ce que joue Edison ne laisse pas de marge à l’interpretation.
Car au contraire des musiciens qui ont souvent l’air de broder autour
d’une idée ou de commenter leurs sentiments, il se borne à l’énoncé exact
et suffise de phrases qui ne veulent rien dire d’autre que ce qu’elles disent
et disent leur perfection” (p. 114). Yet, while Réda’s description of Edison’s
concision, borders on the clinical at times he ends his commentary with a
purely emotional and imaginative image: „Cette préeminence de la épure où
l’air circule, discrètement teinté de bleu” (p. 114). With the etherial „air” imagery
that Réda uses so frequently to describe his own floating through Paris
„comme un nuage,” he ends on an ethereal note, as if to corroborate the fact
that, for the poet as for the jazz musician, the lyrical and the disciplined must
go hand in hand.
It is in his writings on Dodo Marmarosa, however, that Réda’s poetic descriptive
skills truly takes off as in Marmorosa, he sees the perfect mixture:
the intensity of the virtuoso and the elliptical qualities of the dreamer. Even
Marmarosa’s nickname, „Dodo,” is replete in metaphorical associations of
flight and whimsy that Réda uses so well to analyse his own activities as a
flâneur: „Il est certain que le virtuose à part aux réussites du poète, qu’il a
pourvu de moyens, et que leur opposition n’apparaîtra pas souvent aussi
touchée. Mais elle explique les flottements typiques d’une manière qui, de
l’indécision même, tire un surcroît de liberté.” 7 Indeed, Marmarosa is a „rare
bird,” as Réda is fond of calling him, perhaps even a sort of jazz soul mate,
as he often describes him in flâneur terms: „De son pas qui sonne clair, il arpente
déjà un paysage qu’on ne distinguera jamais que par échappées et qui
doit tout à la fantaisie du promeneur” (p.257). Pacing, wandering, escaping:
the flâneur’s footsteps are transposed onto Marmarosa’s piano keys, just as
Réda, the poet, seeks out the suburbs in such Jazz inspired works as Beauté
surburbaine (1985). Marmarosa is one who is drawn to the surprise moments
of beauty interspersed within the quotidian. Réda recounts rare anecdotes of
Marmarosa’s contemplating rays of sunlight at the bottom of his emerald green
bathtub, or stopping in the middle of the street in order to listen to a church
bell ring, or to wait for birds to wake up at daybreak. Onomastically, Réda
is taken with Marmarosa’s aviary imagery because he sees in him an artist