TED JOANS ~ 1928-2003
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Visit the section on Ted at my site:
mywebpage.netscape.com/twhpro...e8.html
and a nice pic of me 'n Ted with some words from the EMPTY MIRRORS site's "TED JOANS LIVES TRIBUTE PAGES"
www.emptymirrorbooks.com/tedjo...3.html

The anniversary of the passing of my friend Ted Joans came and went on April 25 2003, and I was too busy to remember it, but it's never too late to sing his praises.

For those not familiar with the man, he was a jazz/surrealist poet and trumpet player who spent his last days in Vancouver, BC with his partner, artist and photographer Laura Corsiglia. Ted was "the other black beat" as he called himself, reffering to Amiri Baraka being the one who most new. Ted says that it was a far enough stretch for America to recognize any black man as being important in the Beat Generation movement, and that they could only crown one of them.

He was the author of over 30 books of poetry, prose, and collage, including Black Pow-Wow, Beat Funky Jazz Poems, Afrodisia, Jazz is Our Religion, Double Trouble, Wow, and Teducation. Joans was the granddaddy of bringing jazz and "spoken word" together on the bandstand. When his former roommate, the great saxophonist Charlie Parker, passed away in 1955, it was Joans who began scrawling "Bird Lives!" all over Lower Manhattan.

Joans initially bypassed Europe and went straight to the Motherland in the early 1960s. Timbuktu became his home base, but he traveled around much of the world—a boho hobo and proud of it—doing poetry readings, writing jazz criticism, creating "happenings" as such events came to be called. He exchanged ideas with the leading figures of surrealism, hung out with Jack Kerouac, met an admiring Malcolm X, broke bread with Afro-Cuban painter Wifredo Lam and African American painter Bob Thompson, swapped bread tales with singer and hustler "Babs" Gonzalez.

Joans’s mantra was "Jazz is my religion and surrealism is my point of view." While Andre Breton acknowledged Joans as the only African-American surrealist he ever met, Joans’ main man was Langston Hughes.

When Ted was found dead in his apartment, I was the one o contact his daughter in the US and to speak with his partner Laura. I asked Laura what I could do to help, and she asked that I get people to write "TED LIVES!" on sidewalks all over the world in the same way Ted had done when his friend Charlie "Bird" Parker had passed. I passed it on and was surprised to find the request posted in every obituary from here to Timbuktu (literally). What made me even happier was to see the sentiment written on sidewalks around my city. I also hosted a tribute to Ted's life which brought poets, artists, musicians, and family members from around the globe to Vancouver.

Ted ~ you're are missed, man...TED LIVES!
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Ted's Obit:
mywebpage.netscape.com/twhpro...ions/page8.html

for some of Ted's poetry, check out:

A SAX THANG
www.spress.de/beatland/re...ns/poem1.htm

MY ACE OF SPADES
www.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/~moritz...pade.txt

OUR THANG ~ Ted & Laura's beautifully illustrated book of poetry
www.raintaxi.com/online/20...oans.shtml

TEDUCATION
www.coffeehousepress.org/teducation.asp

and the VILLAGE VOICE article on his passing
www.villagevoice.com/news/03...2,5.html
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When is hip, hep and hep is hip?

T.Paul a.k.a.
SwankHipster
www.t-paul.com/index2.html