Posted in Shows on Jul 28th, 2008
“Here were the children of the American bop night,” Jack Kerouac wrote in his 1957 novel On the Road, which, like many of Kerouac’s other writings, celebrated and invoked the music of Charlie Parker, Lester Young, and many other jazz greats. We’ll mark this weekend’s 50th anniversary of the publication of Kerouac’s best-known book with a program that explores his relationship with jazz, including recordings he made with saxophonists Al Cohn and Zoot Sims…
Continue Reading »
Posted in Jazz Notes on Nov 2nd, 2007
This week on Night Lights I’ll be playing jazz from a new Miles Davis concert release–MONTEREY ‘63, featuring the then-new rhythm section of Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams…along with Mosaic Records reissues of classic hardbop J.J. Johnson/Kai Winding and Art Blakey albums… the never-before-released Ella Fitzgerald LOVE LETTERS, featuring the singer in small-group settings, with big bands, and with the London Symphony Orchestra…and much, much more. And I’ll be broadcasting live, because this is the beginning of…
Continue Reading »
Posted in Books, Jazz Notes on Oct 17th, 2007
Indiana University Jacobs School of Music professor Phil Ford, heard recently on our Night Lights program Jazz and Jack Kerouac, will be giving a talk this Friday (Oct. 19) on private acetate recordings that Kerouac, John Clellon Holmes, and Allen Ginsberg made in the late 1940s and early 1950s. I’ve had occasion to hear a brief bit of one of the acetates, which featured Keroauc, Holmes, and Seymour Wise doing scat/bop vocalese accompaniment…
Continue Reading »
Posted in Jazz Notes on Sep 4th, 2007
“Jazz and Jack Kerouac” is now archived…apologies for the one-day holiday delay. For more jazz-and-Jack-Kerouac, check out our previous show, The Subterraneans, which explores the jazz score for the only film to be adapted from a Kerouac novel to date, as well as the story behind the movie and some dialogue clips from it. (The film itself…
Continue Reading »
Posted in Shows on Aug 27th, 2007
“Here were the children of the American bop night,” Jack Kerouac wrote in his 1957 novel On the Road, which, like many of Kerouac’s other writings, celebrated and invoked the music of Charlie Parker, Lester Young, and many other jazz greats. We’ll mark this weekend’s 50th anniversary of the publication of Kerouac’s best-known book with a program that explores his relationship with jazz, including recordings he made with saxophonists Al Cohn and Zoot..
Continue Reading »
Posted in Books on Aug 18th, 2007
Hot on the heels of Jack Kerouac’s entry into the Library of America comes news that the “scroll” version of his most famous book is going to be published. I actually got to see some of the scroll–which is 120 feet long–several years ago…
Continue Reading »
Posted in Books on Jul 26th, 2007
The Library of America to publish The Road Novels. First Philip K. Dick, now JK… can Burroughs be far behind? I’ve always had mixed feelings about Kerouac (though The Subterraneans held up…
Continue Reading »
Posted in Shows on May 13th, 2006
The Subterraneans, the only novel of Jack Kerouac’s to be adapted to film so far, was released in 1960, when the media fever surrounding the Beat Generation (much of it inspired by the publication of Kerouac’s On the Road in 1957) was still at a high pitch. Hollywood took great liberties with Kerouac’s story…
Continue Reading »
