Tag Archives: Jazz

Bill Evans Trio: How My Heart Sings!

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BillEvans_HowMyHeartSingsBill Evans re-emerges after the death of Scott LaFaro

Following the untimely 1961 death of his musical foil, Scott La Faro, pianist Bill Evans disappeared for several months. He re-emerged in early 1962 with a new trio that brought bassist Chuck Israels into the fold. The trio recorded two albums in mid-year sessions, a collection of ballads entitled Moon Beams, and this set of mid- and up-tempo numbers. Israels occupied a more traditional spot in the trio, fluidly marking time and taking a few introspective solos, and the change in balance pushed Evans piano forward as a lead “singing” voice. Drummer Paul Motian also falls back slightly, drumming with crisp, light strokes that add delicate accents to Evans solos. Both percussionists stoke the rhythm for hotter numbers like “Walking Up,” but it’s the trio’s more delicate moments that find the most cohesion here. The song list is stocked with well-selected standards that, while not particularly revelatory, fit the trio well. OJC’s 2013 reissue includes three bonus tracks: “In Your Own Sweet Way [Take 2],” which was included on earlier reissues, and “34 Skidoo [Take 9]” and “Ev’rything I Love [Take 2],” which are being released for the first time. Joe Tarantino remastered the disc in 24-bits, and the original liners (by Bill Evans and Orrin Keepnews) are extended with new notes by Doug Ramsey. This is a nice upgrade from earlier reissues. [©2013 Hyperbolium]

James Booker: Classified – Remixed and Expanded

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JamesBooker_ClassifiedThe last studio recordings of a New Orleans legend

Though often cited as one of three primary New Orleans piano legends, James Booker’s popular renown never grew to the size of Professor Longhair’s or Dr. John’s. Launching his career in the mid-50s, he was sidetracked by a late-60s drug bust and continuing brushes with the law. One of those brushes, apparently, was with legal counsel Harry Connick, Sr., whose son became one of Booker’s students. The mid-70s roots revival brought renewed opportunities for Booker, particularly in Europe, and upon returning to the U.S. he took up residency at the Maple Leaf Bar. At the end of this run, in 1982, he hurriedly recorded this last studio album, and the following year succumbed to the physical and mental ravages of his drug use. Rounder’s remixed and expanded 2013 reissue adds ten bonus tracks to the original dozen, including nine previously unissued performances.

Booker is heard here playing solo as well as with a quartet of Alvin “Red” Tyler, James Singleton and Johnny Vidacovich. Playing “with” the quartet may be an overstatement, as they often seem to be chasing songs that he selected on a whim. Still, his playing and singing both show a lot of verve in each setting. The material is drawn from an incredible array of sources, including R&B (Lloyd Price’s “Lawdy Miss Clawdy,” Doc Pomus’ “Lonely Avenue,” Leiber & Stoller’s “Hound Dog” and Titus Turner’s “All Around the World”), country (Roger Miller’s “King of the Road”), classical (Richard Addinsell’s “Warsaw Concerto”), jazz (“Angel Eyes”), film (Nino Rota’s “Theme from the Godfather”) and the great American songbook (“Yes Sir, That’s My Baby” and “Baby Face”). Booker also drew from the New Orleans repertoire with Allen Toussaint’s “All These Things,” Fats Domino’s “One for the Highway” and a Professor Longhair medley; but even when he was playing outside material, the Crescent City was always in his fingers.

The fluency with which Booker plays this wide range of material is breathtaking. He’s equally adept at classical fingerings, florid jazz changes, blue R&B chords and the rolling arpeggios of New Orleans. There are many highlights among the original album tracks, including a lighthearted take on “Baby Face” that shows more finesse than Little Richard’s 1958 hit, with a vocal that maintains the spark of Al Jolson. The reading of “Yes Sir, That’s My Baby” added to this reissue is even funkier, with Booker on organ, a wicked second-line drum beat from Vidacovich and some fat sax from Tyler. There’s little hint of Eddie Cantor here (and perhaps a touch of Ricky Nelson‘s sax man), but the core emotion is swing. Booker’s classical training comes forward for dramatic readings of the Rachmaninoff inspired “Warsaw Concerto” and the title theme to the 1966 Lana Turner film Madame X. Note that “Madame X” was listed by its subtitle, “Swedish Rhapsody,” on previous reissues, but it’s the same track.

From the pop songbook, Booker tears into Leiber & Stoller’s “Hound Dog” and Roger Miller’s “King of the Road.” The former is played with great percussiveness, the latter as a haggard ballad. Booker’s singing never really matched the easiness of his piano, but it serves both of these songs well, the former coy and sassy, the latter a bit shopworn. The bonus solo take of “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” is speedier than the band version included on the original album, but each approach has its own merits. Booker’s originals include the album’s title song, the bonus track “I’m Not Sayin’,” and the original closer, “Three Keys.” The first two have edgy rhythms and unusual fingerings that bring to mind Thelonious Monk, the third weaves “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” into a rolling New Orleans’ piano solo.

Rounder’s reissue was remastered from the 24-track analog tapes, and includes Bunny Matthews’ 1983 liner notes alongside new notes by producer Scott Billington. The latter’s stories of Booker’s fragile and agitated state belies the remaining solidity of his musical mentality and ability to perform. The song list is all over the map, but Booker’s intellect and talent are enough to hold the album together. He pays homage to New Orleans in both song and style, giving traditional R&B tunes their due and pulling everything else into his Crescent City orbit. There are few who could so naturally give the “Theme from the Godfather” a helping of rhythmic soul and then add romantic flourishes to the jazz standard “Angel Eyes.” The album’s original lineup can be heard by programming 6, 20, 10, 9, 17, 19, 1, 12, 7, 14, 2, 21, but the expanded, rearranged track list plays as beautifully as Booker’s piano. This set makes a nice companion to Lily Keber’s documentary Bayou Maharajah: The Tragic Genius of James Booker, and a good introduction to the breadth of Booker’s genius. [©2013 Hyperbolium]

Sly & The Family Stone: Higher!

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SlyAndTheFamilyStone_HigherCareer-spanning box with mono singles, rarities and unreleased tracks

Sly and the Family Stone’s catalog has never been difficult to find. In addition to dozens of compilations (one of which, 1970’s Greatest Hits, was their first album to top the charts), the band’s original albums have been remastered and reissued with expanded track listings. The remastered albums have themselves also been anthologized as The Collection. But there’s more to Sylvester Stewart than the Family Stone and there’s more to the Family Stone’s catalog than the albums. Pulling together pre-Family obscurities, hit singles (many in their punchy mono single mixes), album cuts, live performances and previously unissued material creates an arc of musical discovery that paints a wholly (or holy) different picture than hearing the material in separate installments.

This box set opens with five sides Stewart (not yet Stone) recorded for San Francisco’s Autumn label in 1964 and 1965. Stewart served as a staff producer for Autumn, helming sessions for the Beau Brummels, Mojo Men, Great Society and others (see Precious Stone, Listen to the Voices, The Autumn Records Story and Dance With Me for more of his production work), and his first sides riff on the hit single, “C’mon and Swim,” he’d written and produced for Bobby Freeman. The B-side, “Scat Swim,” cut a deeper groove than the plug side, and his next single, “Buttermilk (Part 1),” was a catchy blue-soul instrumental, with Stewart playing all the instruments, including organ and harmonica leads. The unreleased “Dance All Night” and his last single for Autumn, “Temptation Walk,” show how early (and easily) Stewart began mixing pop, soul, blues, R&B and jazz into his original stew.

After leaving Autumn, Stewart quickly assembled what was to become Sly and the Family Stone, and waxed the 1967 demos that would land them a contract with Epic. In the wake of the group’s later success, two of the tracks, the original “I Ain’t Got Nobody (For Real)” and a cover of Otis Redding’s “I Can’t Turn You Lose,” were released on the Loadstone label. The former is powered by Larry Graham’s insistent bass line and topped by the Family Stone’s trademark trumpet-sax combination of Cynthia Robinson and Jerry Martini. The group began recording for Epic (at the same Golden State Recorders at which Stewart had produced for Autumn Records) in mid-1967, and the fruits of these initial sessions fill out disc one, starting with their first A-side, “Underdog,” and its two B-sides, “Higher” (from early promo singles) and “Bad Risk.”

Despite a fresh sound that crackled with the energy of its multiple roots, neither the single nor the album A Whole New Thing made a commercial impression at the time; it wasn’t until “Dance to the Music” was recorded in September that the Family Stone had their first hit in the can. Launched in January 1968, “Dance to the Music” quickly established the group’s revolutionary combination of pop, rock, soul, funk and gospel, and shifted the course of pop music. Other acts quickly latched onto elements of the sound, but none could match Stewart’s output as a songwriter or the band’s approach as a unit. The group was sufficiently prolific as to leave fully-finished masters in the vault, including the four that end disc one. Here you’ll find the band trying out previously unheard original songs, experimental vocal arrangements, and repurposed lyrics and melodies.

The July-August 1967 session tracks continue on disc two, showing the wealth of great material produced before the band finally hit with “Dance to the Music.” Two of session tracks (“What Would I Do” and “Only One Way Out of This Mess”) were previously issued on the expanded edition of A Whole New Thing, but three more are included here for the first time: an inventive cover of the pop-folk song “What’s it Got to Do With Me,” an early take on the autobiographical “Future and Fame” and the Freddie Stone-sung deep soul ballad “I Know What You Came to Say.” All five session tracks are as good as the material that made the original album, but the lack of early commercial success doomed this extra material to a long stay in the vault.

The band’s commercial breakthrough is finally heard six tracks into disc two, with the ecstatic three-minute mono single mix of “Dance to the Music.” The song is, quite literally, a brilliantly catchy tutorial on the sound being created before the listener’s very ears. As memorable as are the mono singles, stereo album sides like “Ride the Rhythm” more expansively show off the band’s inventive arrangements and tight musicianship as they explode across the soundstage. Disc two finishes out with album tracks from Dance to the Music, the previously unreleased “We Love All,” the obscure mostly-instrumental French-language single “Danse a la Musique” (and it’s even stranger Chipmunk-voiced B-side, “Small Fries”), the unreleased B-side “Chicken,” and exuberant sides from Life, including mono single masters for “Life” (with a different lead vocal track than the album cut) and “M’Lady.”

Disc three opens with the band’s second smash single, the #1 “Everyday People” and its charting flipside, “Sing a Simple Song.” These tracks, along with “Stand!” (offered here in a live recording) and “I Want to Take You Higher,” powered the commercial success of the band’s third album. As with their debut, the band recorded a lot more material during the album sessions than they could issue, and disc three includes another helping of previously unreleased bonuses, including unused instrumental backings. The group became a hot live act, essayed here with performances from the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival, and scored in 1969 as singles artists with “Hot Fun in the Summertime,” “Everybody is a Star” and “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin),” all heard here as mono singles.

The final disc open with the band’s next album, There’s a Riot Goin’ On, including album tracks and all three of its singles. Ironically, though the album yielded the hit “Family Affair,” it was recorded in large part by Stone alone, with overdubs by Family members and other hired-hands (including keyboard player Billy Preston). The album hasn’t the organic sound or joyous mood of the band’s earlier material, and the sonics of 1971 overdubbing and the use of a drum machine on several tracks subdues the group’s underlying funk. By 1973 the group’s membership was beginning to change, including new drummers, a replacement for the departed Larry Graham, and the addition of a third horn player. The group’s singles (including “If You Want Me to Stay” and “Time for Livin'”) continued to chart in the Top 40, as did their final two albums Fresh and Small Talk.

By 1975 Sly had disbanded the Family Stone and begun to record as a solo artist backed by hired musicians. His album High on You, expands beyond the musical boundaries of the Family Stone, adding steel guitar and other touches that hadn’t been heard on the band’s releases. Disc four closes out with selections from Stone’s solo work, from the then-newly formulated Family Stone’s Heard Ya Missed Me, Well I’m Back, and a pair of previously unreleased tracks, “Hoboken” and “High.” The box set lingers a bit more over the first-half of the group’s career, rushing through the latter half in a single disc, but that’s in balance with the band’s rise to fame, the peaking of their invention, and the view most listeners will have of their career.

This is a well thought out anthology, touching on Stewart’s pre-Family solo work, the Family’s rise to fame, their chart domination and fire as a live act, their eventual end and Sly Stone’s return to solo work. Along the way there are iconic hit singles, B-sides and album tracks, seventeen previously unreleased tracks and a large helping of original mono single mixes. The only real omission from this set are the studio versions of “Stand” and “I Want to Take You Higher!,” each of which are included among the live tracks. The mono mixes will be greatly appreciated by fans who have already completed their collection of the expanded stereo album reissues. For those without any of the group’s catalog on-hand, your surround sound-trained ears may find the stereo hits more immediately satisfying; check out the album reissues, or the anthologies Greatest Hits or Essential.

In addition to the mono mixes and unreleased tracks, the set’s 104-page book is its own star. The book includes finely written liner notes, an informative timeline, rare photographs, reproductions of labels, sleeves and posters, and revelatory track-by-track comments from the Greg Errico, Larry Graham,  Jerry Martini, Cynthia Robinson, Sly Stone and many others. In addition to the standard 4-CD set, there are several variations: an Amazon exclusive that adds a fifth disc (and parallel MP3 downloads), a vinyl LP edition (with its own Amazon exclusive variation) and a single disc highlights. [©2013 Hyperbolium]

Sly Stone’s Home Page

Various Artists: The Big E – A Salute to the Steel Guitarist Buddy Emmons

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Various_TheBigEAll-star tribute to a steel guitar giant

Steel guitarists are often remembered for their spotlight instrumentals and flashy solos, but the lines they weave around verses and choruses more often define a song’s emotional texture. Players like David Keli’i, Leon McAuliffe, Don Helms, Ralph Mooney and others were (quite literally) instrumental in defining the sound of the bands they played in, the singers they backed and the sessions in which they recorded. Among the long list of hall-of-fame steel players, Buddy Emmons stands especially tall. His credentials include the founding of both the Sho-Bud and Emmons lines of steel guitars, innovative designs (including the invention of the revolutionary split-pedal setup), new tunings, instrumentals that quickly became standards, and a lengthy catalog of breathtaking performances that chartered new territory as they stretched from country to jazz to pop and beyond.

Emmons was a pillar of bands fronted by Little Jimmy Dickens, Ernest Tubb, Ray Price and Roger Miller, and the first-call studio player in both Nashville and Los Angeles. His creativity and technical virtuosity sparked innumerable recording sessions and influenced both his peers and subsequent generations of steel players. Thirteen of those players (including legends Norm Hamlet, JayDee Maness and others) have gathered with a stellar list of vocalists to pay tribute through songs from the guitarist’s career. The material is drawn from Emmons performances with Ernest Tubb (“Half a Mind”), Little Jimmy Dickens (“When Your House is  Not a Home”), Floyd Tillman (“This Cold War With You”), Ray Price (“Night Life”), Gram Parsons (“That’s All it Took”), John Sebastian (“Rainbow All Over Your Blues”), Ray Charles (“Feel So Bad”), Judy Collins (“Someday Soon”), Roger Miller (“Invitation to the Blues”), as well as his solo albums (“Wild Mountain Thyme”) and live repertoire.

Also featured are two of Emmons’ compositions: “Buddy’s Boogie,” originally cut with Little Jimmy Dickens in 1955, and recreated with the hot-picked steel and six-string of Doug Jernigan and Guthrie Trapp, respectively. “Blue Jade,” a western-tinged instrumental originally recorded in 1967, is given an extra helping of twang from Duane Eddy’s guitar and Dan Dugmore’s steel, with Spooner Oldham’s piano providing graceful backing. Each player on the album adds their own twists, but Emmons’ original ideas anchor each extrapolation. Greg Leisz states Emmons’ contemplative solo reading of “Wild Mountain Thyme” before expanding on the theme with guitar, mandocello and lap slide, and JayDee Maness adds new turns to the famous solo on John Sebastian’s “Rainbow All Over Your Blues.” As intentional as this celebration may be, it’s the germination of Emmons inventions in each player’s style that’s the biggest tribute of all. [©2013 Hyperbolium]

A sampling of Buddy Emmons’ albums:

A sampling of Buddy Emmons’ performances:

Various Artists: Moonage Timequake

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Various_MoonageTimequakeSpace pop, early electronica, rockabilly and outside jazz

Cherry Red’s Righteous label offers up this stellar collection of twenty-seven kitschy, space-themed tunes. Space age bachelor pad collectors may be familiar with the selections drawn from Jimmie Haskell’s 1959 space-twang orchestral-pop classic Count Down!, as well as the orchestra, oscillator and Theremin “Out of This World” from Frank Comstock’s Project: Comstock – Music from Outer Space, but this set stretches much more broadly. In celebration of the moon landing’s fortieth anniversary, the collection reaches back to the late ‘50s and early ‘60s fascination with all things space. The lion’s share of these tracks are early rock, rockabilly and hillbilly boogie, but there’s also early electronic music from Thomas Dissevelt and Theremin virtuoso Samuel J. Hoffman, orchestral scores from Ron Goodwin and Bobby Chistian, and outré jazz from Sun Ra and His Solar Arkestra. Tying it together are snippets of spoken word and dialog, including a short piece from NICUFO founder Frank Stranges. The breadth may be too eclectic for some, but the range demonstrates how widely the space race infiltrated the popular imagination, and the rock ‘n’ roll rarities will set any party on a collision course with fun. [©2013 hyperbolium dot com]

Chris Stamey: Lovesick Blues

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ChrisStamey_LovesickBluesA pensive set from a legendary singer-songwriter

It’s been nine years since Chris Stamey’s last solo album, Travels in the South. In the interim he’s worked with Yo La Tengo on A Question of Temperature., re-teamed with fellow dB Peter Holsapple for Here and Now, regrouped with the dB’s for Falling Off the Sky, and continued a busy career as a recording engineer and record producer. The long years between solo outings are certainly understandable, if not necessarily a happy state of affairs for fans; but those same fans should feel rewarded by this collection of eleven magnificent new productions. Stamey’s melancholy tunefulness has never sounded more graceful, rendered in contemplative tones and finely crafted instrumental textures that shift seamlessly between rock, soul, jazz and classical.

Stamey’s formal education in music theory and composition has never been a secret, but his recent work on the Big Star Third concerts seems to have deepened his thinking about how orchestral instruments could fit into and augment his music. He interleaves strings, woodwinds and brass with guitars, bass and drums, dotting his musical landscape with cello, bassoon, flute and trombone. The results are both ethereal and dynamic, offering everything from neo-psych dreaminess to symphonic vigor, sometimes within the same song, as on the sky-gazing “Astronomy.” This coalescing of musical influences is seemingly foreshadowed by the merging of souls in the opener, “Skin.”

At 59, Stamey’s long since expanded upon the punchy guitar rock with which the dB’s introduced themselves, though “You n Me n XTC” has a chorus hook that will make listeners think back. The album plays as late-night ruminations on metaphysical wanderings, philosophical wonderings and haggard day-end inventories. Stamey sings with a thoughtful absorption that suggests Paul Simon’s folk songs, and the self-referential “I Wrote This Song for You” has the charm of an Alex Chilton love song. Stamey’s lyrics remain poetic, but his vocabulary and singing have softened from their earlier percussiveness – a change that fits these pensive songs. [©2013 Hyperbolium]

Chris Stamey’s Home Page

Paul Sikes: Craft

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PaulSikes_CraftSkillfully crafted debut from a Nashville-born singer-songwriter

Paul Sikes is a rarity among Nashville country artists – a hometown boy. There are many Tennesseans in the industry, but those actually born in MusicCity, such as Deana Carter, Hank Williams III and Matraca Berg, are surprisingly rare. Sikes goes one step farther, in that he’s not the child of a professional musician; though both his parents are musical, he moved from childhood piano lessons to guitar to songwriting, and eventually to a college education in both performance and the music business. He’s worked as a publishing house songwriter (landing cuts with Emerson Drive, Billy Dean and others), but his background as both a performer and producer has led to this charming self-produced release.

Sikes sings with a sweetness that may remind you of Vince Gill, and like Gill, he’s also an accomplished picker. He’s quite soulful, as shown in the shuffling beat of the Little Feat-influenced opener, “Show You Now,” and as a writer, he finds original twists on well-worn themes. His fish-out-of-water story, “Swear I’m in a Small Town,” views big city experiences through the hometown memories he shares with his mate, and “A Seed” is sung from the perspective of a tree whose humble beginnings provides inspirational stories of possibilities. He couches the breakup of “Tin Man” in self depreciation, and sings the love song “Me, You and Malibu” as easy, supper-club jazz.

Sikes is a meticulous producer and engineer, giving the album’s title meaning beyond the songwriting. There are a few modern instrumental touches and some strings, but the clarity of the voices and guitars is the album’s calling card. The variety of styles plays like a songwriter’s demo reel, with acoustic country and blues, electric country-rock, inspirational melodies and swinging rhythms all sharing space. The CD (currently only available at Sikes’ shows) closes with a hidden bluegrass track written by Sikes’ proud Tennessean grandmother, Mildred Joyce. “My Home Tennessee” provides a sweet, home-spun ending to this finely crafted album of original Nashville song. [©2013 Hyperbolium]

Paul Sikes’ Home Page

Thelonious Monk: The Very Best Of

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TheloniousMonk_TheVeryBestOfWell-picked introduction to mid-50s Monk

Concord’s 10-track disc provides an introduction to Monk’s mid-50s recordings for the Prestige and Riverside labels. Collected here are prime examples of Monk in mid-career as an iconoclastic pianist, writer of jazz standards, and a band leader who attracted spectacular players to his sessions. Among the notable compositions are “Blue Monk,” “Ruby, My Dear” and “’Round Midnight,” and the sessions are highlighted by the talents of Percy Heath, Art Blakey, Clark Terry, Sonny Rollins, Max Roach, Paul Chambers, John Coltrane, Coleman Hawkins, Roy Haynes and many more. This is neither a full-telling of Monk’s career, which also included key recordings on Blue Note and Columbia, nor of his entire six year run on Prestige and Riverside (the original albums of which are mostly still in print); but for an introduction to Monk’s music, this is a good place to start. [©2013 Hyperbolium]

The Bill Evans Trio: The Very Best Of

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BillEvansTrio_TheVeryBestOfShort but well-picked introduction to Evans’ most fertile period

Bill Evans had a long and successful career, but the high point has always remained the trio he formed with bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian in 1959. This eleven-track disc selects tracks from four of the trio’s albums, Portrait in Jazz, Explorations, Waltz for Debby and Sunday at the Village Vanguard. The latter two, recorded live at New York’s Village Vanguard, were both career highlights and the end of the road; LaFaro was killed in a car accident just ten days after the shows were recorded. Evans returned to the trio format after LaFaro’s passing (with Chuck Israels filling the bass spot), but never again reached the depth of musical conversation engendered by this original trio. Rather than playing as a pianist against a percussion section, the trio played as equals, with each of the players shifting and moving the music of the other two rather than simply stepping up for a spotlighted solo and then stepping back. Though the original albums (or The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings) provide greater depth, this budget-priced sixty-three minute collection is an excellent introduction to the trio’s invention. [©2013 Hyperbolium]

Jack Kerouac and Steve Allen: Poetry for the Beat Generation

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Period performances of Jack Kerouac reciting poems to the piano of Steve Allen

Although Jack Kerouac was the “voice of his (beat) generation,” it was his writing – rather than his speaking – voice that became well-known. His three albums of spoken word poetry and prose, two from 1959 and one from 1960, received little circulation or critical notice upon their initial issue, and have only been spottily reissued ever since. Rhino’s 1990 box set The Jack Kerouac Collection included all three albums, as does the recent The Complete Collection, and individual album reissues have been available off and on as imports. Rock Beat now adds domestic reissues of Kerouac’s first two albums (originally released on the indie Hanover-Signature label), Poetry for the Beat Generation and Blues and Haikus.

Poetry for the Beat Generation teams Kerouac with jazz pianist (and television personality) Steve Allen for fourteen poems, several of which were unpublished at the time. The album was inspired by an impromptu pairing of Kerouac and Allen atNew York’s Village Vanguard, and the subsequent single-take studio session lasted only an hour. Allen’s improvised backings are lyrical and nearly sentimental in their melodiousness, more background late-night tinkling than challenging bop. Kerouac’s recitations roam more freely, powered by the strength of his rhythmically riffed words. His poems are percussive stories that break through any regulation of punctuation, paragraph or stanza, and his New England-accented voice is animated and rye.

Originally recorded for Dot, the album was dropped by label-head Randy Wood, reportedly due to concerns about the edginess of the content. But having your counter-culture expression suppressed in the 1950s wasn’t exactly news, and the album quickly found distribution through an independent label. Yet even with Kerouac’s literary fame in full flower (he’d published On the Road in 1957 and The Subterraneans and The Dharma Bums in 1958), his debut album was little known, and for many years, a rarity. RockBeat’s reissue includes the album’s original fourteen tracks and liner notes by New York Times reviewer (and early Kerouac proponent) Gilbert Millstein. If you’ve enjoyed reading Kerouac’s writing, you’ll be further enlightened by the voice and rhythm he gives to these readings. [©2012 Hyperbolium]