Customer Reviews

Beat Generation

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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hands down , without a doubt , the most entertaining box set i have ever heard (i own 3,000 + cds) red hot jazz , blues , and lounge with bits of news reports , poetry readings , and general zanniness . i have never laughed so hard while having my mind blown . this collection is so good it almost made me stop buying cds . it can't get any better . now i have to save up for the kerouac box .

What I love about the Beat Generation Box Set is that in addition to serving as a great social portrait of the era, as well as hipster culture, throughout it maintains a sense of humor and focuses on its strange relationship and rivalry with American pop culture. Beyond mere literary readings, a colorful cast of charactors make the scene... from beboppers to hipsters, bongo beating philosophers to comedians and pop icons arise. One track might be Annie Ross's bebopistic tribute to Schizophrenia "Twisted", the next a recitation by Lord Buckley or Ken Nordine - in other tracks, square singers try to cash in on bebop and hipster culture... reporters go out on the streets of Greenwich village in search of America's lost youth, while others show beat generation icons in action from Dizzy Gillespie to Slim Galliard and Ray Brown Jr. - - Cuts from the rare, "How to Speak Hip" and even Lenny Bruce's Psychopathia Sexualis (I'm in Love With a Horse That Comes from Dallas) appear.

While by no means comprehensive, the three CDs along with the illustrated booklet are not only educational but incredibly entertaining.

If you enjoy this album, be sure to check out a reissue of Ken Nordine's Colors, as well as stuff by Harry The Hipster Gibson, Slim Galliard and Leon Watson, as well as the movie, "Sweet Love Bitter" (based on the life of Charlie Parker.)

It's January, 2005 and sleeting outside in Shin-Urayasu, Japan, but I'm here wailing with Jack Kerouac. Steve Allen is tinkling away on the piano, and Ben Hecht is waiting to ask Jack some smart-aleck questions, which Jack will answer in an innocent, pure-heart, eternal good-guy way before heading back out on the road. This three-CD set is incredible. Not only do we get a sense of what the big names of beat-dom were up to, but we are treated to little-heard beat-fare, like a hyper-beat effusion on falling in love with a horse from Lenny Bruce, and zany reflections of beat-dom from such square media dogs like Perry Como crooning about his young beat honey, and Howard K. Smith, who gives us the low-down on THE COOL REBELLION. Kenneth Patchen's "The Murder Of Two Men By A Young Kid Wearing Lemon Colored Gloves" is a gem, and Kenneth Rexroth's hang-dog rendition of "Married Blues" is yet another great cut I would never have heard otherwise. Langston Hughes fronting his own jazz band is a treat too, but there's lots more. After listening to all 3 CDs one can get a pretty good idea of the scene, both from the inside, hipster's angle, and from the square's point of view, too. Generous cuts from Gerry Mulligan's Quartet have me snapping my fingers and reaching for my sunglasses. Forget the sushi and pass the nutmeg!

This is, outside of the first "Nuggets" box set, the most played multi-artist compilation in my collection. The greatest thing about this collection is the wide variety of peices included. There are readings by the major players of the generation (Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs), beat Jazz (Don Morrow, Lee Konitz), various parodies or outsider views of the movement (the "Basic Hip" recordings, the clips from the cult film "High School Confedential", Bob McFadden), the comedians (Lord Buckley, Lenny Bruce), and the sucessors (Tom Waits). In other words, this is an absolute must-buy for anyone with a passing interest in America's first counterculture movement. This was one of the most fascinating and unique eras in American history, and the Beat Generation was a blow against the conservative American ideals and dreams. The highlights of the collection are obviously the readings. Hearing the geniuses of the time read their own work is just as fun, if not more so, as reading the books themselves. Each one of the top three (Ginsberg, Burroughs, Kerouac) has an unique style of writing and an unique style of delivery so that you can tell each one apart from the other. Outside of the readings, some of the selections are odd but none don't fit in with the overall concept of portraying the movement. This is almost as much an essential as the writings of the Beats, and is a fascinating portrait of America's original counterculture movement. Why did Rhino let this go out of print?

The breath and life of the beat generation is expressed in total array in this box set. The Bird is god and Kerouac is an angel to deliver the soul of truth onto a new generation of tripped out, wild, outcasts which have been labeled "misfits" by the societal concept. Live on true beats.

The Beat Generation is a term used to describe both a group of American writers who came to prominence in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the cultural phenomena that they wrote about and inspired (later sometimes called beatniks though this is considered by many to be a pejorative term). This box set features material by genuine beats alongside "commercial" recordings made to cash in on the beatnik "fad". The CDs include poetry, jazz, news reports and other recordings related to the beat phenomenon. It is interesting and informitive if you are curious to learn about the Beat Generation.

Great Jazz, poetry, and spoken word. A diverse group of artists are included in this boxed set. It is a window to another time that suspiciously looks similar to our own. I cherish this collection. I don't know how I survived without it. Highly recommend!

The Beat Generation (Rhino Word Beat 3 disk set): This one is cool, ya know? Not like frost bite, but like diggin' the scene. Cool? Oh yah, very cool!

OK, I'll get serious. If you were ever forced to read any of the Beat poets in school, you know that it could leave you with the idea that it was a dreary and miserable time. Well, sometimes it was. However, this box set has such a great collection of songs and words that the Beat Generation box set ends up being the most fun you can have in three disks. Highly Recommended.

One Note: As of this review (2011) the Amazon preview of this box gives the impression that there are only 2 disks in the set, be assured that there really are Three disks in the set. The audio preview given above has the last two disks with the first disk not posted for you to listen to.
Here is the line up of the first disk:
1- San Francisco Scene - Jack Kerouac
2- Beat Generation - Bob McFadden & Dor
3- Footloose in Greenwich Village
4- Blues Montage - Langston Huges...
5- Manhattan Fable - Babs Gonzales
6- Reaching into it - Ken Nordine
7- Parker's Mood - King Pleasure
8- Route 66 Theme - Nelson Riddle
9- Diamonds on my windshield - Tom Waits
10- Naked Lunch excerpt - Burroughs
11- Bernie's tune - Lee Konitz...
12- Like Rumpelstiltskin - Don Morrow
13- Opp-Pop-A-Da - Dizzy Gillespie
14- Basic Hip - Del Close & John Brent
15- Christopher Columbus Digs the Jive - John Drew Barrymore
16- The Clown - Charles Mingus with Jean Shepherd
17- The murder to two men by a young kid wearing lemon colored gloves
- Kenneth Patchen

Hopefully this oversight on amazon's part will be corrected soon and this note will be unnecessary. But in the mean time...