Lester Young

August 27, 2017Simon Pettet

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 to us soon from filmmaker Henry Ferrini –

Here’s a video-pitch for last-minute necessary funding.

and plenty more about this essential movie – here

and a shout-out to Shelton “Shakespear” Alexander for his extraordinary, evocative poem.

Lester Young (1909-1959) – Photograph by Dennis Stock… Read More

Robert Creeley – 2

February 7, 2017Simon Pettet

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[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

Martin Torgoff’s Bop Apocalypse

February 2, 2017Simon Pettet

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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 and literature, becoming a central element in the creation of an avant-garde American voice and underground cultural sensibility.”.

The book, (an  outgrowth of a chapter in an earlier book of Torgoff’s, and very much its compliment, Can’t Find My Way Home), “features vivid portraits of … 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