Showing posts with label beat generation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beat generation. Show all posts

New double-disc from Bear Family celebrates 100 years of Jack Kerouac - preview video


Jack Kerouac - 100 Years Of Beatitude
is out March 4. You can order it now from Amazon.

Details:

Bear Family Records' tribute to Jack Kerouac on the occasion of his 100th birthday in March 2022. Jack Kerouac, who along with Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs formed the core cell of the Beat Generation.

The beatniks, as representatives of pop literature, listened to a wide range of specific styles of music; we have compiled 52 songs and historical audio documents from 1946 to 1963, from the core of the beatnik era.

Be Bop Jazz as the favorite music of the Beat Generation is featured with Chet Baker, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and others, as well as 'Word Jazz', the combination of jazz and beatnik poetry, such as by Oscar Brown, Jr., Don Morrow and of course Jack Kerouac himself with Steve Allen!

Contemporary pop music and rock 'n' roll around the beatnik subject are also represented, including satirical novelty numbers.

Featuring Big Jay McNeely, Babs Gonzales and others, rhythm 'n' blues is essential as a bridge between beatnik jazz and rock 'n' roll!

Historical sound documents, such as a Jack Kerouac reading, an interview, or the Allen Ginsberg recitation, round out the sound picture!

Two readings from the movie 'High School Confidential', which appeared on an MGM single in 1958, are here on CD for the first time!

And sounds from the 1959 film 'The Beat Generation'! 

The colorful 36-page booklet contains rare photos and memorabilia as well as the history of the Beat Generation and its music, written by a connoisseur of the Beatnik scene, Roland Heinrich Rumtreiber!

Recording of Allen Ginsberg's Beat Generation masterwork "Howl" out in April from Omnivore

A historic recording, never-before-released, with a fascinating story behind it. You can pre-order it now from Amazon.

Details from Omnivore Recordings:

Allen Ginsberg’s first public reading of his epic poem “Howl” took place at San Francisco’s famous Six Gallery in October of 1955. Along with Ginsberg, the evening included readings by Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, Philip Lamantia, and Michael McClure. Poet and anthologist Kenneth Rexroth was the emcee, and Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Neal Cassady were in attendance. Unfortunately for literary history, no one recorded the Six Gallery reading, and it was long-thought that the first recording of “Howl” was from a reading at Berkeley in March 1956. Before visiting Berkeley, however, Ginsberg had traveled to Reed College in Portland, Oregon, with Gary Snyder to give a series of readings. Snyder and Philip Whalen had been students at Reed and had studied under the legendary calligrapher Lloyd Reynolds. Other attendees of Reed have included Steve Jobs, James Beard, Barry Hansen (Dr. Demento), Barbara Ehrenreich, Ry Cooder, Mary Barnard, Lee Blessing, Del Hymes, Arlene Blum, Eric Overmyer, and Max Gordon (founder of the Village Vanguard jazz club in NYC).

On February 13 and 14, 1956, Snyder and Ginsberg read at Reed, with the Valentine’s Day performance recorded then forgotten about until author John Suiter, researching Snyder at Reed’s Hauser Memorial Library, found the tape in a box in 2007.

To reflect the distinctive culture of Reed College, Reed Professor of English and Humanities, Dr. Pancho Savery, wrote the liner notes and Gregory MacNaughton of the Calligraphy Initiative in Honor of Lloyd J. Reynolds created the cover in the style of what a poster for the event might have looked like hanging on the Reed campus in 1956. Savery’s notes trace the poem’s history and inspiration and highlight differences in this early, work-in-progress version to the final published text.

Reading “Howl” out loud in front of an audience is an exhausting and emotional experience, so Ginsberg warmed up by reading several shorter poems first. The Reed recording includes these shorter selections and most of Part I of “Howl.” The restored recording is crystal clear; you can not only hear Ginsberg turning the pages, but taking breaths after each long line. The audience is pin-drop quiet except for a few places in the reading, for instance, one moment when someone in the audience says something that can’t be heard that elicits laughter, to which Ginsberg responds, “I don’t want to corrupt the youth.” Other lines generate laughter, but the audience is attentive and respectful, allowing for a present-day fly-on-the-wall listening experience. In testimony to how emotionally draining it was to read the poem two nights in a row, as Ginsberg launches into Part II, he stops after four lines saying, “I don’t really feel like reading any more, I haven’t got any kind of steam. So I’d like to cut, do you mind?” Thus ends the first known recording of “Howl”… and now begins its 21st century access for all to hear.

Coming Up: "Let Me Hang You" by William S. Burroughs

A new LP out this Friday features the late Beat Generation William S. Burroughs reading bits of his cut-up novel "Naked Lunch" over the musical accompaniment of jazz musicians Bill Frisell, Wayne Horvitz and others.

Details:
Twenty years ago, William S. Burroughs was asked to record an audio version of his favorite parts of ''Naked Lunch.'' Hal Wilner and James Grauerholz produced several sessions and recruited a team of world class musicians to help. Famed for their Naked City involvement, Bill Frisell and Wayne Horowitz contributed their genius as well as Eyvind Kang just to name a few. The recordings were then abandoned and collecting dust on a musty shelf as forgotten as a piece of rancid ectoplasm on a peepshow floor. In 2015, Hal Willner decided to reopen this unfinished masterpiece and asked help from King Khan (a musician that he and Lou Reed admired and became fast friends with after two fiery performances by the King Khan & BBQ Show at Lou and Laurie's request in the Sydney Opera House). Hal sent Khan all of the recordings and asked him to add his gris gris to this extremely perverted gumbo...and history was made and the scum began to rise! King Khan recruited M Lamar, the creator of the ''Negrogothic'' movement who also happens to be the identical twin brother of famous transgender actress Laverne Cox (''Orange Is The New Black'') the Frowning Clouds, a band of young Australian boys who have mastered the sixties Garage punk sound and that perhaps WSB would have also enjoyed for other purposes a long time ago. King Khan's new label appropriately named ''Khannibalism'' is proud to present the first LP/CD from this imprint... William S. Burroughs ''Let Me Hang You'' - a collection of depraved genius straight from the godfather of punk's very own mouth. If chills and thrills are what you seek, then look no further, here is the bible of freakdom recited by the pope of the underground....now, pull the chair from underneath you and see what happens...



New poster for On the Road movie

Here's an overseas poster for the upcoming adaptation of Jack Kerouac's "On the Road."