Black Ducks Quacked First
Dreamed 1990/9/13 by Wayan
My sister Miriel and I explore a new jazz club--so new, it's only half-built. Full of balconies and odd corners. She drops a paper, I pick it up--it's a song one of us wrote, that we've been practicing as a duet. Try singing it. Wonder what people will think.
We find out. I turn a corner and meet a tall black guy & his short plump friend; know the tall guy's a major singer from the sixties, though I'm embarrassed that I go blank on his name. He sings one note--in exactly the style I did. Not imitating me; it's his signature style, been doing it since childhood! I may have unconsciously picked it up from him, heard on the radio. Or were they practicing too, in the back?
But I want my voice to be unique not derivative, so I try the song with a different vocal approach...
And round the corner come another two black guys, one tall one short, and again the tall guy's a famous singer whose name I block on, and HE TOO opens his mouth and sings just one note... and I realize I first heard THIS sound from HIM.
Desperate, I sing a strange gravelly noise only I can do, at least among the singers I know.
Two more guys appear, and the tall one matches my sound. Is that Leadbelly? Louis Armstrong? And I got it from him.
I try falsetto. Two guys. Derivative!
I quack like a duck. No matter! Two giant ducks appear. The taller one quacks... in my voice. Done already. Decades ago.
Originality is hopeless. Black ducks quacked first.
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