Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
Le poète et écrivain Langston Hughes, né dans le Missouri en 1902, figure majeure de la Harlem Renaissance, voyagea en Europe dans les années 20.
Il séjourna notamment à Paris et fut accueilli par l’ancien pilote devenu jazzman Eugène Bullard qui le fit engager en février 1923 comme aide-cuisinier et aide-serveur dans son cabaret de Pigalle Le Grand Duc.
Il fait allusion à ce séjour dans son ouvrage The Big Sea (1940)
vidéo : Langston Hughes lit un de ses plus célèbrtes poèmes, The Weary Blues (1925) pour une chaîne de télévision de Vancouver (CBUT) accompagné par des musiciens de jazz (1958)
Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway . . .
He did a lazy sway . . .
To the tune o’ those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
Sweet Blues!
Coming from a black man’s soul.
O Blues!
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan—
« Ain’t got nobody in all this world,
Ain’t got nobody but ma self.
I’s gwine to quit ma frownin’
And put ma troubles on the shelf. »
Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more—
« I got the Weary Blues
And I can’t be satisfied.
Got the Weary Blues
And can’t be satisfied—
I ain’t happy no mo’
And I wish that I had died. »
And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that’s dead.
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