I walked into a little jazz dive off 125th and Lex
A cold wind blew me through the swingin' doors/
Beer, peanuts, dark smoke and the smell of times gone by laid me out like I was
a hit man in a deep freeze/
I was in the mood to get down
Not just any get down mood, but a funky jazzy get down highlife mood that would
shake me down to the bone/
Now how was that gonna happen/
On walls above the bar were pixs of Jimmy Smith, Brother Jack McDuff,
Shirley Scott and larry Young/
Had I come from nowhere to find somewhere?/
On the ceiling were old and tattered playbills of past greats: Miles, Mingus,
Monk, Train, Diz and the Bird/
They had come in the early AM over the years to jam on tiny a tiny stage that
gave birth to a new musical word/
A jazzy sophistication accented by a hipness in thought. A complex amazingly
beautiful musical abstraction of pure melody line/
Can you dig it? I had to sit down/ My head was spinnin' fast thinking about the
possibilities that Monk, Diz and the Bird had pushed into one fat chord/ Their
musically original ideas gave birth to a spontaneous explosion of hybrid scales
and hip to the bone atmospherical, improvisational, thoroughly impossible,
but not improbable jazz notes of wonderment that had a residual harmonic
effect upon our lives and souls/ Man I was in deep/ There was no turning back
now I felt a tap on my shoulder/
I turned and looked up into a wise face. A face that said are you walkin or
drinkin?. I ordered a Brave Bull light on the rocks/
You got to be cool… nine miles of blue
You got to get it right
With Miles and the gang you can see the light
You got to be hip… nine miles on a blue trip
No live music was in this joint, but Lou Donulson was lighting up the jukebox
with his funky alligator boogaloo/
My mind kept tripping back to Miles, Mingus, Monk, Train, Diz and the Bird.
Maybe it was the ghost of times gone by or just the vibe of the room/ Whatever
it was, I was in the zone of thought, the abstract thought of musical truth/
Those cats were the jazz architects of the new sound dimensions that colored
our black and white lives/
A jazzy soul drenched feel that seeped in and saturated our dull existence and
musically brought us closer to the Love Supreme/
You got to be cool… nine miles of blue
You got to get it right
With Miles and the gang you can see the light
You got to be hip… nine miles on a blue trip
So what you may say! So what! Their music changed our performance in life.
The force of their powerful presence leaves you spellbound. We all started to
take Giant Steps around Midnight. Yeh… nine miles of blue
You got to be cool… nine miles of blue
You got to get it right
With Miles and the gang you can see the light
You got to be hip… nine miles on a blue trip