captain
of death
coughed
his way
into life

dad
coughing
to death

in cold
storage

claimed
him consuming
own breath

laying
down for decades

spittle
saliva
mucus
blood

breath
battering
breath

breath
after battering
breath

relapse
after
relapse

rats
eating out
on organs

being
betrayed
by blood
& breath

chasing
cure
sickness
chasing

you
faster
& faster

bending down
to bed
& pillow
absorbing blood

hacking
in home
put me
to sleep

death's
rain
decisive

gasp

lungs death
lilies

poverty
that did not
permit you
to breathe

gasping
for public
good

locked
in
sanitarium
staring
out
at us
your blood

for years
i thought
you were death
or its shadow

you were
too poor
to possess
silhouette

trees
in belair
barked back
when we walked
wayay
from wire window

your body
was your wilderness
father

i sensed
in stories
told to tape
reel to reel
real to real

phlegm
splashing sheets

sharing bed
with bacillus

no
surprise you
sought suicide's
submission

death rested
beside you
death
fresh
you
wasted

in wins
trees took up
to tell you
truth

you carved letters
on page

as i still

do dealing
with same
master

moving about body

an
anatomy
altered

but you remained
beautiful
as i do
even death couldn't
take this
that

whatever

it is
called now

when swimming
in soil

swimming
in
soil

will
you

wash me

wash
me

yes you will
wash me
in you

will you
weep

wash me in me
me into me

stars
not infinite

rusted
hospital window
covered
in
clay

come with
me baby
wash

wash
all this
wash me

witness
window's
reflections
of reptiles
tying
themselves
around our
bloodied
bodies

baby
i cried

baby i cried
all
night

languor
for last

languorous
for last train

train
to come

ô hear
whistle wail

here
in
hospital

they
hose
you
down

until
you can go
no further

no

no
further

burn
off this
blood

darling

dying
so long ago

some street sydney

crime
squad hurling me
in harbor

if i remember
exactly 1977
month

i'm barely living
now

no
now no

wash me

wash me
with your white
scarf

wash me white

black as lumumba
in blood's
rainbow

settling
over skin

night
enters
night

so
early

wash me
darling

i'm dead
wash
me

clean as cabral

after they
shot sage

behind bushes
bleeding

prefer that
to drowning

wooloomooloo 1977
exactly october date

great revolution
turning

over
& over again
in water

i couldn't swim
sweetheart

detective sergeant
standing
there with them

uniformed
keepers

of peace
i have
never known
in this life

or one
coming

they leaving

me battered
doll on shore's
edge then

i knew
i was so
beautiful

condemned to
carnage

this
or that
country

until
i got married
in 18th arrondiement

for few hours
with rapunzel's beautiful
& understanding
sister

belarusiian
pole parisian
from her feet
to her chausson
pomme (h)anna(h)

caught
cord
between

fingers typing
in nine languages
& silence

her master
in everyone

& in refinery
explaining to normaliens
what
water
is

what
water
is

wash me
wash

watched
me
wash

wash me
wash
me

until
i
am
black

as i
was born
darling

darling
i died
long ago
with ancients
working our numbers
in prague perhaps
with rebbe loew

who

who

who

who
taught me
so tactfully
numbers
& numbers

no

how
he helped
who

who

who

who
i
was
doll
on shore
of harbor
battered by blue
monsters

wet
their
pants
panting

panting

panting
i was dying
so

so
long ago
long time
time

tell nothing
except
it burns
so brightly
in syringe

i freeze

i freeze

wash me

wash me
into man

that i am

that i am

over
& over
again

so
again

so
again

so
beautiful

who can tell

wash me
all way

through
other side

to whomever
i was

wash me

wash me
in my blood

introducing
shadow to night
now
night knows
silhouettes
shiver

shake
shriek
form
from

bowels
of beast

bellowing
ten thousand
broken bells
smashed
against skulls
& skin

pebbles
perish
infallible
shadow inclines

bird’s wing
what of wing

regard
waters widen
sister beloved sister

night
color of night
fractures
fortification
fear
kiss fissure
fission
fears
weight of wing
what of wing
beat
skull
balls fall
bloodied

bellow
below
below

vigil
vipers
take
on body
earth so
cold
so cold
rock so
secret
divisions
horses howl
out to beloved
sister
listen
to
trampling
feet
flatten
flesh
subtractions
squalid
after

after
apparitions arrive
recall
contour of cave
draw
dead
on panel perhaps

genesis
grotesque
pathetic

pity
pity

souvenance

crows come
to collect
substance
of
souls

eyes
blood
water

come crow
carry water
to valley
down below

surrounded
starve
men
last

first
running
savage
sea

final

figure
on fingers
before

face
worn
down
to bone
divined
here in hell
horizon

turn back
to sea
illumination
immolates

crowds
chasing
one another
& animals

blades
spades
crashing
crushing

cutting
noise
not nature
noise
nausea
know
premeditated
pandemonium
discord
degraded
into
din

wind
wounded by breath

seconds
centuries
congregate with creatures
coming

for
beast
time
into time

trembling
trepidation

foreboding
frightening figures
come
to comprehend completely
terrified
trembling

shrill speaking
regard
shriek seismic
flinch

fight

regard
shudder
thrust
through silhouette
in sleep
dreams detonate
mine
within mound

carrion
carry away
with wing
upon wing
representation
of rats
& reptiles

devour morsel
by morsel
listening
to blood’s
memory

immerse
in intestines

from first
sound

sense
last of first
slither
through fissures
time triggered

fall

fable
concoction
stars
& suns
held

hostage
horizon
hears
howl

night
into
night

Earlier this year, IFZ introduced the phenomenally gifted, young guitarist Eric Wesling. The occasion was his initiation into the exploding San Diego jazz scene. It took place at Croce's, a long-standing music temple to Jim Croce, established by his widow. At that time, the just-16-year-old Eric appeared as one of the aspiring Young Lions.

Since then, Eric Wesling has been on a fast track, all over town, in other appearances with the Young Lions or other youth groups, which sometimes are a patchwork of mix-and-match-em', astonishingly talented, musical young folk.

This has been a fast-track Year of Eric; however, last Saturday night marked an especially significant milestone in Eric Wesling's accelerated career: the stage of the San Diego Copley Symphony Hall, with a sell-out crowd of avid jazz fans (including two generations of family) cheering him on! It is a first for San Diego, this hallowed hall has served as venue for the San Diego Symphony Orchestra; the San Diego Master Chorale (of which this writer is a founding member); the San Diego Pops Orchestra (once directed by the late, great Marvin Hamlisch); and other entities of the classical music milieu. Eric, this time under the banner of the International Academy of Jazz-San Diego, was part of the opening act for this first-time intrusion of jazz music upon the pristine boards reserved for the pre-blues strains of Beethoven, Bach and Brahms. (What kept you San Diego? George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue was performed in New York's Aeolian Hall 90 years ago!)

The other young musicians that were part of the evening's opening act were:

Wesley Etienne - trombone

Sean Lambert - tenor sax

Alvin Paige - tenor sax

Camerahn Alforque - trumpet

Zion Dyson - vocals

Ethan Wang - alto sax

Jarien Jamanila - alto sax

Elizabeth Hull - piano

Edward Gabrielyan - piano

Julian Esparza - bass

Johnny Steele – drums

With of course Eric Wesling on guitar

A few of the soon-to-be- jazz greats with Gilbert at the After Party

The main feature this night was a group, including jazz greats Charles McPherson - Alto Saxophone, Gilbert Castellanos- Trumpet, Holly Hofmann – Flute, Tom Scott- Tenor Saxophone / Alto Saxophone, Mike Wofford- Piano, Henry "The Skipper" Franklin – Bass, Marshall Hawkins – Bass, Roy McCurdy – Drums, Barbara Morrison – Vocals) from the old school, who had shared the stage with the likes of Sarah Vaughn (whom this writer has reviewed personally) and Ella Fitzgerald, etc.

The event was MC'd by Jazz88's Chris Springer. 

It was jazz trumpeter Gilbert Castellanos who created the Young Lions, and has been instrumental in seeding Eric Wesling's path toward greater jazz enlightenment. A regular at the Croce jazz temple, Castellanos was the guiding light in arranging the precedent-setting jazz night at Copley Symphony Hall. He himself was quite jazzed over that great accomplishment. His enthusiasm was reflected in the excited audience, who seemed to be sensitively aware that they were present at the inauguration of a new, cultural phenomenon in San Diego. Despite all the surrounding brouhaha, taciturn Eric just shrugged.

Although this was a full year for Eric, oddly, the big night at Copley Symphony Hall was not the artistic culmination of the year for him. Just after Christmas, Eric will begin a 3-week run with a staging of the musical, Rent, at San Diego's downtown Repertory Theater. He will be a member of the onstage band, quite un-jazz--like plucking his guitar to the strains of that strange Broadway musical. (Strange to the likes of this writer's 40s and 50s Broadway ears.)

Even as his last gig of the year blends into the next, among Eric Wesling's next-year's activities he will be looking forward to a visit to the birth place of jazz with The Preservationists a special passion of the Mission Bay High School's Music department head Jean-Paul Bamat (Mr B to his students). He may be sitting in with a hot jazz ensemble on Bourbon Street, smack in the middle of the French Quarter – New Orleans, Louisiana!

As 2015 makes way for 2016, so too will those skillful musicians who populate the world of jazz gradually be sharing and making way for one who certainly will be a treasured and worthy exponent of this truly original American artistic expression.

Good going, Eric Wesling!