c. 2025 Rod Ice
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(4-25)
On a recent morning at the Icehouse, I sat with a mug of coffee and lazily perused posts via my cell phone. A familiar activity that seems to occur at the beginning of every day, despite best efforts made to wean myself from being mentally hitched to that wireless device. I scrolled quickly past generic reissues of memes and such that looked too similar to be interesting. The sort of fodder that arouses a desire to be rid of social media platforms, in general. One after another, they passed my eyes with uninteresting images and taglines. But then, a video popped up from my friend and local hero, Dennis Chandler. A musician noteworthy for his prowess on guitar and piano, but also because of his long history working with some of our most celebrated music icons and heroes.
He was on the right in a makeshift studio of some kind. Surrounded by Lionel trains, tapping skillfully at a keyboard array. A willing partner was on the left, at a drumkit. Together, they produced the sort of happy tones that immediately had me rocking in my vintage, waiting-room chair. The fact that I wasn’t yet fully awake did not seem to matter. I had been metaphorically and musically shot out of a cannon.
While watching and listening, I began to imagine participating in this jam session, with a stream-of-consciousness improvisation of my own. The sort of late-night, off-the-cuff escapade that used to transpire when I had the privilege of hanging with friends in the Empire State, long ago.
Jamming with Dee Cee
A Blues-based melody
Tripping on syllables
Plucked out, invisible
I haven’t run like this in years
Mystic smoke, thick in the atmosphere
Jamming with Dee Cee
He’s tickling the ivory keys
A reminder of a footstomp
And a-ronk a-ronk a-ronk
That progression might be nothing new
But it puts a thousand volts in my dancing shoes
Jamming with Dee Cee
The Edutainer, don’t you see?
A mastermind of strings and boards
Shaking up the dance floor
Like the best of olden days, now revived
Link Wray and Jerry Lee, kicking out the vibes
Jamming with Dee Cee
A Les Paul or a Flying Vee
Plugged in and power sent
Knobs cranked around to ten
A clockwise twist of the supple wrist
Soul food for the mind, if you get the gist
Jamming with Dee Cee
Like a time-trip through history
Count off and play your part
Hot licks and shooting stars
Better than going to see the Rock Hall
Jump and jive, bump, boogie, and ball
Jamming with Dee Cee
Microphone at the vocal peak
Words come from the ether
Like an epiphany to a seeker
Some might not believe in miracles of the modern day
But it’s a certainty that the spirit came our way
Jamming with Dee Cee
A lineage from antiquity
Gold rings and narrow ties
Wing-tips and Naugahyde
Like a bright bank of vacuum tubes
A speaker cone pulsing with the groove
Jamming with Dee Cee
Verses written in a dream
The poet prancing on a pin
While the saints come marching in
Somewhere there must be sunbeam, shining bright
That’ll keep us lit, long into the night
Jamming with Dee Cee
Wading through the sound stream
Tell me imagination rests
On the crest of made-up success
I’ll be glad to call it a detour from reality
So long as he keeps hitting those keys
After the clip had finished, I sat pondering this unexpected visitation from across the cultural spectrum. It took a moment of quiet reflection to comprehend what gift I had received. In a sense, it felt like a witnessing of faith. In Rock & Roll, kinship, and love. A touch of sweetness that I needed to awaken, and feel truly alive, while in the midst of everyday cares.
The yield of what transpired was, of course, a writing project at my desk.
Jamming with Dee Cee
Oh boy, mercy me!
Gonna visit the golden gate
Remembering all those yesterdays
B.B. and Bo, with Buddy and his Strat
Hot dogging heroes, down with the cool cats
Jamming with Dee Cee
Amplified, electrically
Buzzing walls and windows
Tingling my tongue and nose
When I jump and shout, it’ll be a sign
That we’re on a mission to mountain-climb
Jamming with Dee Cee
Art at its rhythmic peak
Anyone unaffected
Must be somehow redirected
When Little Richard is the Holy Ghost
Alan Freed echoing, from coast-to-coast
Jamming with Dee Cee
A bold believer in the beat
It’s a timeline, still unbroken
Where wild wisdom is spoken
Keeping up with the pace of rotation
Turning globes throughout the constellation
Jamming with Dee Cee
A mentor for modernity
A teacher at the chalkboard
Dispensing truth, in three chords
A cable connected to the sound
Of an everlasting, hometown get-down
Upon finishing my page of poetry-slam indulgence, I felt emotionally uplifted. It was similar to the byproduct of writing about trips to visit the Finger Lakes Region of New York, after moving home to Ohio. A reflective moment that occurred while writing a book about my 1981 Chevette, the humble vehicle that carried me across that distance, on so many occasions.
I first met Dennis via a telephone conversation, while doing homework for a special section at Gazette Newspapers, in Ashtabula County. We bonded immediately, through our shared love for music. His knowledge and experience were truly staggering. But perhaps even more, was his pure humility. A quality that has made him treasured by students and fans, for generations.
I have known very few individuals on his level with that sort of unpretentious perspective.
My distaste for the rapid-fire, connectivity of social platforms has often been a subject of discourse, here at the Geauga Independent. Yet today, with thoughts of Dennis and his pal rendering a spiritual jam for those of us in cyberspace, I have to quiet those contrarian impulses. Listening with a mug of coffee, this morning, made a difference in my day. One that I will not soon forget.
Thank you, Mr. Edutainer!
