Customer Reviews

Carnegie Hall Concert

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Hmmm, I was just reading the review by the guy who says that MAYBE Lenny Bruce is funny to people born before 1960. Maybe he is. I was born in 1975 and purchased this album when I was 19. It was funny then and it is funny now. Yes, there is a LOT of social commentary, and Lenny certainly focused on current events which dates the album, but seldom do I find myself not being able to follow his humor.

Lenny Bruce is not a comic for the intellectually challenged. He was quick, improvisational in nature, and at times brilliant. Listening to one of his live performances requires your undivided attention, like great jazz or classical music, to truly appreciate. If you want jokes jokes about dad making breakfast and babies being born, go listen to Cosby and Pryor, they ARE great, but when I want my gray matter tickled along with my funny bone, I go to Lenny Bruce. To those of us who do appreciate Lenny Bruce he was more than just an important and influential comedian, he was a prophet and a sage; still is. But along the way, if you have the guts, the brains, the honesty to listen, you WILL laugh, because Lenny Bruce is a very funny (if dead) man.

If you wish to glimpse into a mind that could veer in the course of one performance (in one minute, sometimes!) from the hilarity of the burlesque that has been a joy to humanity from its birth, to the poetry of compassion and insight into the profound of a great poet, to the moral anguish of Auchwietz and Hiroshima, and the love of a father, brother, friend in a private moment, then listen to the words of this inimitable performer and creator.

Lenny Bruce has become such a cultural icon, a lot of his wit and genius have been burried beneath the "isms" - - that is to say, many people are more likely to know his face, even life story, than have actually heard his message or truly understand what he was about and even when we do, its almost as if we're no longer part of his audience... we're sort of listening to his routines the same way people rewind that tape of the Kennedy assasination and play it over and over again... its not Kennedy they're interested in seeing... its the conspiracy and what's hidden beneath the surface - - not what's there.

A fan of Lord Buckley, Bruce's mentor, it was inevitable after hearing schticks like "Psychopathia Sexualis" (on the Beat Generation boxed set)and hearing his gay Lone Ranger routine, I finally decided to bang my head against the wall, try to forget all the biographical/historical propaganda rammed down my throat and try to relive his routines. I found them to be incredibly engaging, thought provoking, at times rambly and self centered, at other times hillarious. In fact, in many ways, Bruce surpassed his mentor, especially in his abililty to bring a wide array of strange and twisted charactors to life... from his Yiddish accents to American icons and authority figures. Lord Buckley was moreso Lord Buckley and his imagination, whereas Bruce had a knack with charactors.

His routines are great and absorbing. He draws you into his world and holds you. Though perhaps a product of the beat generation, and later the hippies, his style of intellectual comedy holds well today, surpassing the times, and making much of the comedy one sees and hears today seem superficial.

Long live Bruce and Buckley ! ! !

Lenny Bruce is hard to work through. Like Renaisance poetry, so much is happening in such tightly packed phrases that it is hard to hear the joke. But after the third or fourth listen it becomes clearer. By the tenth you don't know how you ever went without having heard it. Perhaps you will never be rolling in the isles, but once you get over the fact that Lenny is making fun of you you'll laugh a little bit easier, not just at his points, but at everything.

Like many jazz and blues musicians, Lenny Bruce was truly in his element when performing live. His studio recordings simply do not have the spontaneity of his live stuff. This is why his Carnegie Hall Concert is essential listening for any fan of Bruce or stand-up comedy in general. There would be no Eddie Izzard, Bill Hicks or a host of thousands of other comics without Lenny Bruce. He paved the way and was a pioneer.

Listening to this recording is to hear the man in his element, riffing off the crowd and going off on anything that came into his head. He zips all over the place and it is almost as if you can hear his mind at work, racing from topic to topic. While his material is dated at times, it is an incredible snapshot of the times he lived in. He brutually skewered social conventions (like how we refer to minorities) and was quite political as well. But most of all he was just damn funny and this performance shows him in great form.

This is easily one of the best live recordings of Lenny at his uncensored best. Before he got beaten down by endless obscenity trials and his slide in substance abuse. Essential.

This is easily the best Lenny Bruce CD available today. Many of the others (Lenny Bruce Originals) are censored so it is up to his few available live concerts to give us a real impression of Bruce.

This is electric -- Bruce is giving 100% and the audience is eating it up. I highly recommend this CD for fans or future fans of Bruce!

On February 3, 1961, in the middle of one of the worst blizzards in New York City's history, Lenny Bruce walked onstage to a packed house at Carnegie Hall and for two solid hours, gave what all Lennyphiles agree was the greatest performance of his all-too-brief career.

To the uninitiated, this CD is as good a place as any to discover the genius of Lenny Bruce. Even now, almost 45 years later, The Midnight Concert is still screamingly funny; A testiment to Lenny's depth as a social commentater and comic philosopher. This was two years before the onset of the physical and mental decline that would end with his death, at age forty, from an overdose of heroin on August 3, 1966.

Why is Lenny Bruce remembered as a brilliant comedian all these years later? The answer is right here.

Happy listening!
Tom Degan
Goshen, NY

tomdegan@frontiernet.net

In the humble opinion of this Bruce-o-phile, "The Carnegie Hall Concert" is the most valuable document of what was great about Lenny Bruce and why he mattered. From a performance standpoint, he was at the height of his powers. From a social standpoint, this show was just prior to the beginnings of his problems with the law and features the best balance of his comedy and social commentary. Earlier than this, he was a bit "schticky" (as he often said himself). After the trials began, his understandable preoccupation with legalities began to imbalance his act (though he remained fascinating). Here, you get the undiluted best. I can't even pick out moments, because it should really be experienced as a whole. It's a 90-minute statement on where America stood in 1962, on the cusp of a social revolution, and it's brilliant.

Buy this. If you want to know why Lenny Bruce became an icon who deserves to be discussed alongside Kerouac, Kesey, Tom Wolfe, and Hunter S. Thompson; if you want a snapshot of our cultural mindset before the turbulence of the 60's erupted; or, if you just wanna laugh--Buy this. Whatever it costs, it's a giveaway. It's a parchment of history.

Until I heard this CD, I only knew of Lenny Bruce through his reputation as a dirty comic. The only way you'll find this obscene is if you've got a sick mind. He points out the fallacies and the ridiculousness of modern society. Frigteningly, everything he said on this record, almost 10 years before I was born, is still true almost 40 years later.

Don't make the mistake of expecting something funny when you listen to Bruce. He's not speaking to entertain you. He's speaking to show you something very frighteningly wrong.

Delve into any American alternative comedy and, like Peter Cook in the UK, you'll find Lenny Bruce as the ultimate source and inspiration of their act. Furthermore, like Bill Hicks (or James Dean), the story of the comedian outweighs their shortcomings.
Lenny Bruce died of an overdose while in the process of being censured by the Conservative establishment of 50's/ early 60's America. This makes him a martyr of comedy, to the point where the DVD's of him live (e.g. 'Ladies and Gentlemen' - available in UK) consist of an angry Lenny reading boring transcripts from his trial (as opposed to interesting, comedic material which might be more prominent were it not for his story.)

Happily, this recording was before Bruce's legal troubles and gives the best snapshot I've come across of his full act and method of performing.

Initially you may be a bit puzzled by what you hear. Bruce's style was Jazz-improv comedy, where he would talk stream-of-conciousness and hope the material would be funny and original. To the modern ear, though, his Yankee slang (e.g. 'stuup' = to make love and 'bread' = money) is initially very confusing, and it's very difficult to understand the culture references, given that they are about things that happened 50 years ago.

Still, once you get into the flow, it is a unique experience and Lenny covers everything from Las Vegas, to drugs to Communism, all with a fairly good hit-rate in creating laughter.
It is also worth noting that no comedian has repeated Lenny's feat of getting on stage and just talking. There are clearly repetitive elements (e.g. 'Jesus and Moses'), but mainly the material seems incredibly fresh.

Of course, if you aren't into experimental comedy and like comedy with a good 'hit rate', I would recommend going for comedians who fulfilled Lenny's legacy, such as George Carlin (especially with Class Clown) and Bill Hicks (with Arizona Bay). Carlin and Hicks also have the virtue of having taken the concept of 'Jazz comedy' but then 'working through' the material so that the Jazz-improv elements riff off of tried-and-tested routines.

That said, like Lenny Bruce himself, you should be bold enough to give this CD a go, even if only once.