Seymour Wyse

May 19, 2018Simon Pettet

[Seymour Wyse, Horace Mann School, 1940 (courtesy of Dave Moore)]  

Returning to the extraordinary trove of tapes of Allen now in the archives at Stanford University, here’s a recently-discovered gem – Allen, in 1981, at Leicester University, in England, in conversation with the figure who turned on the young  Jack Kerouac to a rich and life-long appreciation of jazz,  his old Horace Mann schoolmate – Seymour Wyse. 

Edie Parker Kerouac (remembering Seymour Wyse, in Boulder, the following year) : “Yeah and he used to scat, and he and Jack used to do this together. And the first time, … Read More

Charlie Parker’s Birthday

August 29, 2017Simon Pettet

WKCR and the irrepressible Phil Schaap are the essential custodians of the great “Yardbird” Charlie Parker.   Tune into their Charlie Parker Birthday Broadcast today (August 29) – A few of our  past birthday-postings- here , here and here.

A few scattered videos to celebrate!

From last year’s (2016): New York City Charlie Parker Jazz Festival: 

From 2015, Graveside Ceremony by Charlie Parker’s grave in Kansas City:

From the 2014 The Gravesite Salute:

And one more homage (from 2010):

& Here (once again and forever) is the man himself (improvising with / after  Coleman Hawkins ):

Charlie Parker and Coleman … Read More

Robert Creeley – 2

February 7, 2017Simon Pettet

creeley

[Robert Creeley – Photograph by Allen Ginsberg – © Estate of Allen Ginsberg  – caption: “Robert Creeley, one-eyed poet at Naropa Institute poetics commune house, summer session, July 1984, he sat patient with me across supper table before his lecture, old friend”]

AG: Where were we? Oh Creeley? So Creeley.  (Robert) Creeley. Each syllable is a thought. That’s a good way of (describing it), actually. That’s an aphorism for Creeley – “One thought per syllable” (in the sense that each syllable seems to be like a new thought) – opposite from my kind of writing, or, say, somebody else, … Read More

Charlie Parker’s Birthday

August 29, 2016admin

Charlie Parker‘s birthday today. We salute, as before, on The Allen Ginsberg Project, “the creator of the cool sound, the most modern of all horn men…”

Bird-fanciers (ornithologists) have plenty to be grateful for this year with the release this past month of Unheard Bird – The Unissued Takes, a new double-CD, featuring 58 previously-unreleased recordings made between 1949 and 1952 for Norman Granz, foumder of Verve Records, showcasing Parker in a variety of settings – in a Latin-jazz orchestra (spotlighting Afro-Cuban rhythms), leading  all-star quartets, quintets, and septets, (and we do mean all-star!), solo-ing over … Read More

Sam Charters – Jack Kerouac’s Jazz – 3 (Monk, Dizzy and Bird)

August 31, 2014admin

Dizzy Gillespie01.JPG

part 3 – Monk, Dizzy and Bird  Sam Charters: I thought I would talk about the three black performers that Jack talks about so specifically – Thelonious Monk and Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker.

Thelonious Monk, was one of the most challenging of the three and played with them. Thelonious, unlike the other two, had severe technical limitations . I remember watching him at the Five Spot and I was always afraid when he played one of those descending runs he was going to beak his wrist, because he just never seemed to be able to quite get it

… Read More

Sam Charters – Jack Kerouac’s Jazz 2 – Jack and Jazz

August 30, 2014admin

[Jack Kerouac, 1959 – Photograph by John Cohen]

Following on from yesterday’s introductory note. Here’s transcription of Sam Charters’ lively talk at the 1982 Naropa Kerouac Conference –  on Kerouac and jazz (“Jack and Jazz”) – Mr Charters, it should be noted, is not responsible for the illustrations and the various, sometime random, hyper-links,  but we hope he won’t be too disappointed in them) (And, as a complimentary experience, we  would also recommend David Brent Johnson “Jazz and Jack Kerouac” on his estimable Night Lights series) 

Sam Charters: I was talking last night to Edie Parker, wonderful, beautiful … Read More

Sam Charters – Jack Kerouac’s Jazz – 1 – (Intro)

August 29, 2014admin
SAM CHARTERS [Sam Charters]

This weekend – jazz weekend, we’ll present legendary jazz scholar, Sam Charters  (in a talk given on July 26, 1982 at The Naropa Institute, Boulder, Colorado, on the occasion of the 25th Anniversary On The Road Conference) –  “Jack’s Jazz’  Today, just a few brief moments from his opening remarks. Tomorrow, a full transcription of his lucid talk. 

[note – none of the illustrations or the hyperlinks are the responsibility of Sam Charters  –  this recording begins in media res – Charters has been just playing a series of  representative early swing band recordings] 
 
SC: …what you’ve … Read More

Jazz and the Beat Generation

August 28, 2014admin

Jazz and the Beat Generation – from On The Road –  “They ate voraciously as Dean [Neal Cassady], sandwich in hand, stood bowed and jumping before the big phonograph, listening to a wild bop record I had just bought called “The Hunt,” with Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray blowing their tops before a screaming audience that gave the record fantastic frenzied volume.” Allen Ginsberg – on “Howl” – “Lester Young, actually, is what I was thinking about. “Howl” is all “Lester Leaps In”. And I got that from Kerouac. Or paid attention to it on account … Read More