Armstrong's Trumpet

By Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Great Satchmo plays all bathed in sweat,

A salty Niagara pours from his brow,

But when the trumpet rises to the clouds,

It growls and roars.

To the whole world he plays the way he loves,

He is stolen from us by the grave,

he was stolen first before his birth

From his sweet Africa.

In hidden reprise for the chains of his fathers

His music enslaves us all like helpless babes.

The whites of his great eyes flicker in sorrow

As he howls and horns about the globe--

This kid from a children's home

In the town of New Orleans.

Great Satchmo plays all bathed in sweat,

His nostrils smoke like two great muzzles.

Thirty-two white projectors in his mouth,

But the sweat is as natural

As a beautiful mighty hippo

Rising snorting from an African river.

Stamping on fan notes with his heel,

And wiping the downpour from his brow,

he throws handkerchief after handkerchief

Into the piano's open womb.

Again back to the microphone

pressing down on the stage till it cracks,

Each wet handkerchief is as heavy

As the crown of art.

And art is very far from pose,

When it labors it's not ashamed of sweat.

It's not the charm of prattlers

But full of movement of heavy things,

The tragic labor of a trumpet player

Whose music is tatters of lung.

Though art is bartered and sold,

That's not what it's all about.

The poet and the great jazzmen equally

Like brothers cut their gifts to others from soul.

Great Satchmo, will you make it to heaven"?

Who knows!

But if it happens--Play!

let the good times roll once more!

Shake up that boring state of little angels.

But so there'll be no remorse in hell,

So death will cheer us sinners up,

Archangel Gabriel,

Pass your horn to the better player

To Louis!

Translated by Albert C. Todd