Kerouac-Cassady (Jack Kerouac Scat Singing)
June 25, 2018
We continue this week mining the treasure which is the extraordinary trove of audio at the Allen Ginsberg archives, now housed at Stanford University. Today, a remarkable discovery – Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady. The tape (there are two copies, actually, 131[…]
Lester Young
August 27, 2017
Lester Young‘s Birthday today.  We at the Allen Ginsberg Project continue to be big fans of Lester Young, “The Prez”,  the real Prez  (see previous notices here, and here). We await with eagerness and anticipation the definitive Prez movie- President of Beauty – The Life and Times of Lester Young –  coming[…]
Robert Creeley – 2
February 7, 2017
AG: Where were we? Oh Creeley? So Creeley.  (Robert) Creeley.[…]
Martin Torgoff’s Bop Apocalypse
February 2, 2017
Bop Apocalypse – Jazz, Race, The Beats, & Drugs – putting the word out on Martin Torgoff‘s new book from Da Capo. From the author’s web-site:  “Bop Apocalypse is largely the story of the evolution of jazz and its relationship to the Beats: the first time that drug use coalesced with music[…]
Charlie Parker’s Birthday
August 29, 2016
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,[…]
(Tuesday April 7) Billie Holiday Centennial
April 7, 2015
                                Today, April 7, 2015 is the Billie Holiday Centennial Billie Holiday was born, Eleanora Fagan, in Philadelphia exactly one hundred years ago today. Allen Ginsberg,[…]
Remembering Jack Kerouac – 2
March 29, 2015
The 1982 memories of (Jack) Kerouac session at Naropa continues (For the first part of this panel see yesterday) Audio of these recollections can be found here The transcript picks up at approximately twenty-seven-and-a-quarter minutes in, with a curiously subdued Peter Orlovsky AG: Next[…]
Jazz and the Beat Generation
August 28, 2014
Jazz and the Beat Generation – from On The Road –  “They ate voraciously as Dean , 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[…]
Lester Young’s Birthday
August 27, 2014
August 27 – It’s Lester Young‘s birthday today  Henry Ferrini‘s upcoming  film biography is our focus. More on that essential documentary here. Drummer Tootie Heath recalls Lester’s lingo, Wayne Shorter recalls apprenticeship with Prez, George Wein recalls sitting-in, Monica Getz recalls travelling on the bus, David[…]
Charlie Parker’s Birthday
August 29, 2011
Charlie Parker (1920-1955)  August 29, it’s Charlie Parker‘s birthday. We continue our jazz salutes. Steve Silberman: Yeah, and that poem (Kerouac’s Mexico City Blues) ) was very much influenced by Charlie Parker who you knew, or saw. Allen Ginsberg: I saw him a number of times, yeah.[…]