Chasing The Ghost Of Kerouac (Chapter Two)

Last week I waxed poetic, offering an extremely brief overview of the players in the American Beat movement, as well as the circumstances, events and literature that so intrigued my once tender mind. Together they circuitously led me to became an aficionado of Beat poetry, literature and ethos, possessing a penchant for the writing of one particular iconoclastic author. I now pick up where I left off, chasing the ghost of Jack Kerouac.

Finding The Beat Within The Rock

Within a few years, now a little older and a bit wiser, I graduated from comic books to serious literature and slowly began devouring the works of Kerouac, Ginsberg and their contemporaries, while those around me were grooving to Iron Butterfly and the Vanilla Fudge. Although I did listen to psychedelic sounds, I was simultaneously beginning my first flirtations with jazz via Wes Montgomery and Thelonious Monk.

I had come to Monk in an equally innocent and roundabout way, as had been my introduction to the Beats. T was featured on the cover of Time magazine about the same time as the events I recalled last week. I remember returning to that issue repeatedly, staring intensely at the photo of this most mysterious looking man with the blackest of skin and a wispy goatee, wearing some goofy hat and the banner reading, 'Thelonious Sphere Monk, The High Priest of Bop.' "Wow! What universe was this!?," I thought to myself. "Look at this guy! A priest of some sort and that name! This is crazy! Even Maynard idolized him! This guy is definitely Beat!" My fragile ten-year-old mind was forever ruptured.

Meanwhile back in late teenville, it was the writing of Jack Kerouac that resonated most deeply within me. I was fortunate enough to have heard the jazz within his prose and recognize his breaking of conventional norms. Not that I was alone. His tales of freedom and travel had inspired an entire generation of youth before me who were galvanized by his words in much the same way that The Beatles and Dylan would a decade later. In fact (and you know this), the Beats directly influenced the following and equally significant cultural sea change --- the dreadful Hippies. A bit out of sync, my friends were perplexed by the allure of my Beat preoccupation, but tolerant nonetheless (as any good aspiring Hippie should have been). Having become a connoisseur of Beat literature, I still felt drawn to the world of cool jazz and kicks that epitomized the elder hipsters of past. But in another cosmic goof of life, now that I was ready to explore the world that had sparked my imagination, it was no longer to be found or perhaps more accurately, had become something more. The subterranean world had risen overground with the volcanic eruption and enormity of the 'Love Generation,' the kicks were now elevated to a new 'high' so to speak, and the jazz joints for which I craved had become the dance halls and ballrooms of the rock age. A fair trade perhaps, but not the one I was looking for. It was not that I was so naive as to think that the world had frozen with the infamous Six Gallery readings of 1955. I had seen the 'Twilight Zone,' but knew better than to believe that world I had hoped to experience was some interactive museum exhibit through which I could vicariously participate. I was merely disappointed by the speed with which the Beats heritage became consumed and compromised. Although I readily found my own niche within the promise of the new day, I still felt as though I were a man out of time; in my generation, but not of it.

Looking to experience the wellspring of Kerouac's 'spontaneous prose,' I began hitchhiking across the country during school breaks, traveling the blue highways and back roads of the no name towns of an America that I was eager to embrace. Rather than the more worldly adventures of my contemporaries who hatched plans to travel Mexico, Thailand, Morocco and India for the obvious reasons, my route led me through Memphis, Nashville, New Orleans and St. Louis. From there, I pressed westward covering San Antone, Santa Fe, Nevada and California. In between, I met the salt of the earth in any number of small towns, drowsy communities and wide spots on the road that dot our vast continent. Hitching was easy in those days and so was making money, probably the last of the simpler times. Knocking on the door of a farmhouse and offering to perform some menial labor in exchange for a dry place to sleep and a warm meal to fortify me, often saw me through a coast-to-coast journey. And if I happened to receive a few dollar bills in the process, it was all the better. Sadly, encounters with the mythical 'farmer's daughter' never materialized to my dismay. I did find however that the America I was eager to embrace was not quite as eager to embrace me. Occasionally finding trouble, I quickly learned that by trimming my hair to resemble that of a Beatniks length, ironically portrayed me as less threatening than the newer cultural menace they had spawned --- again, the dreadful Hippies!

...to be continued next week

A Few More Words About The Music

Chet Baker was always a favorite of Kerouac and the Beats by way of his own cool, as were the West Coast sounds of Stan Levey and Dexter Gordon. 'Hūm Bom!' may not be the best work by Allen Ginsberg, but Steve Swallow's laid-back disco-ized arrangement beneath it makes for some powerful propaganda. Fictional hipster, Geets Romo returns to explain the meaning of cool and uncool, as does Tom Waits with his musical dissertation on the nocturnal activities of everyman 'Putnam County.' The sensational, Mark Murphy recorded two entire records dedicated to the spirit of Kerouac and contributes several selections with excepts of Jack's written word. Yours Truly also returns with two pieces, one like Murphy with a bit of Kerouac's verbiage set to music, the other, an original. Enjoy.

1) Solar/Chet Baker

2) Ballad Of The Sad Young Men/Mark Murphy
3) Hūm Bom!/Allen Ginsberg
4) Poems (Fragments)/Jack Kerouac
with It Could Happen To You/Sonny Clark
5) Medley: Jack & Neil/California, Here I Come/Tom Waits
6) Body And Fender (Body And Soul)/Miles Mellough
7) Cool/Del Close & John Brent
8) Tune Up/Stan Levey Sextet
9) Vision Of Rotterdam/Gregory Corso
10) San Francisco/Mark Murphy
11) November In The Snow/Mark Murphy
12) Uncool/Del Close & John Brent
13) Jack's History Of Jazz/Miles Mellough
14) Visions Of Cody & On The Road/Jack Kerouac w/Steve Allen
15) Orient/Ernie Henry
16) Putnam County/Tom Waits
17) Kerouac/Morphine
18) American Haikus (Excerpts)/Jack Kerouac w/Zoot Sims & Al Cohn

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