The Jack Kerouac Collection

Rating:
Summary: Melts your mind into the beat mind-set....
Review: If you are familiar with everything Jack Kerouac ever wrote, then this set is a great memory jogger. If you are new to his work it is a superb introduction. Or perhaps you've tried to read him but never got into his "flow of consciousness" style. Then, these recordings teach you how to hear him in your mind- as one long, sweet jazz riff. Just close your eyes and let him transport you to better times and better places. Of course, Kerouac's America is still out there, here and there, in forgotten corners, in special places and special people.
Kerouac was the soul of his age. Who else but Jack could go from commenting on Dostoeveky one minute, then switch to the Three Stooges without missing a beat? Or just as easily go from Sanskrit to skat. And it works. That is because a great soul can encompass entire worlds without contradiction....

Rating:
Summary: A Mixed Bag
Review: The Jack Kerouac Collection is a four-tape set from Rhino Records compiling recordings Kerouac made in 1958 and 1959. Here's an overview of what you'll find here:

Tape 1, Poetry For The Beat Generation, a recording of Kerouac reading his poetry accompanied by television personality Steve Allen on piano. This is probably the weakest tape in the set. Altough it contains a couple of Kerouac's better poems ("Charlie Parker" and "The Wheel Of the Quivering Meat Conception"), most of his other work here comes off as self-indulgent and pretentious. Allen's piano is workmanlike but dull.

Rating: **

Tape 2, Blues And Haikus, is a little better. Here, Kerouac's accompanied by Al Cohn on saxophone and piano and Zoot Sims on saxophone. The standout track here is "American Haikus", featuring Kerouac reading short snatches of often striking, imagistic poetry in between Cohn and Sims' riffing saxes. Suprise: "Hard Hearted Old Farmer", on which Kerouac sings (!).
Even Bigger Suprise: He's not too bad (!!). Crazy, man, crazy.

Rating: **1/2

Tape 3, Readings By Jack Kerouac On The Beat Generation, is easily the best one of the bunch. This concentrates more on Jack's prose pieces, which is its saving grace. Standout track: "Fantasy: The Early Years Of Bop", which, with the exception of Lester Bangs' essay on Van Morrison's Astral Weeks (collected in his excellent Psychotic Reactions And Carburetor Dung), is probably the best piece of music writing I've come across.

Rating: ****

Tape 4, The Last Word, consists of outtakes from the Blues And Haikus sessions; a speech entitled "Is There A Beat Generation?' from a Brandeis University lecture of the same name, and brief readings from Visions Of Cody and On The Road from a 1959 television appearance. These range from the embarrassingly bad (the Blues And Haikus outtakes, featuring on obviously drunk Kerouac) to the sublime (the '59 TV show readings), which makes the tape a fitting capper to the set.

Rating: **1/2

In sum - if you're a Kerouac fan, you'll probably want to check this out. If you're new to his work, you're probably better off starting with one of his novels - On The Road is probably his best.