Celebrating the Spoken Word: "Charlie Parker" by Jack Kerouac

In 1961, Jack Kerouac collaborated with Steve Allen to produce an album of Kerouac's poetry readings accompanied by Allen's piano improvisation. One of my favorite tracks from that albunnm is "Charlie Parker."

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Gregory Corso on Jack Kerouac, Poetry, and Poets

The following clip is from the 1986 documentary, What Happened to Kerouac? The late Gregory Corso who was one of the Beat Poets along with Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, et al., talks about the nature of Kerouac's poetry and writing and also gives some hard-won advice for anyone wanting to pursue the life of a poet.

Jazz and Jack Kerouac (with Steve Allen)

The pioneering broadcast journalist Fred W. Friendly once said, “Television makes so much at its worst, that it can’t afford to do its best.*” Steve Allen, one of the television pioneers working in front of the camera was an exception to Mr. Friendly’s observation, as we see in this television interview he did with Jack Kerouac. 

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* Quoted by Garrison Keillor on The Writer's Almanac, October 30, 2019.



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