Offbeat: Collaborating with Kerouac [Hardcover]

David Amram (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1560253622 | ISBN-13: 978-1560253624 | Publication Date: January 9, 2002 | Edition: First Edition

From painters’ lofts and bohemian haunts in the Greenwich Village of the 1950s to funky clubs and Bowery bars like the Five Spot, jazz musician David Amram retraces in this engaging memoir the creative paths he followed through restless days and long, exhilarating nights with his collaborator and friend Jack Kerouac. With candor and humor, Amram re-creates the moments that shaped a mutually stimulating relationship—like the jazz-poetry reading, the first ever in New York, he performed with Kerouac, whose On the Road had recently made him an overnight literary success; or like the 1959 film, Pull My Daisy, they hilariously made with fellow Beats Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Peter Orlovsky, and Larry Rivers. Amram illuminates the private side of Kerouac, too, his extraordinary intellect and his ardent pursuit of music and literature long after the critics had turned on him and many of his old friends had abandoned him. Among the last of a generation that altered the style and substance of the arts in its time, Amram also celebrates in this at once wise and affecting book the renascence of interest in Kerouac’s work three decades after his death. For the beat indeed goes on. And so does the collaboration.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In the late 1950s, musician and composer Amram (Vibrations) pulled frequent all-nighters with Jack Kerouac and pals. The artists drank Thunderbird, smoked pot and recited spontaneous poems while Amram belted his French horn. In 1957, Amram and Kerouac went public with the act at a small East Village gallery; two years later, they documented their unique teamwork in the short film Pull My Daisy. They never worked together again: Kerouac moved with his mother to Florida, where he became increasingly reclusive and enfeebled by alcohol, and Amram went on to compose more than 100 orchestral and chamber pieces and wrote scores for such films as The Manchurian Candidate. In this memoir, the author hopes to clear up "decades of misinformation and mythology" about Kerouac and many of the other poets, painters and artists of the so-called Beat movement (a label he vehemently rejects). Unfortunately, the characters Amram renders come off as unreal as the stereotypes he wishes to destroy. Readers interested in Kerouac should look elsewhere. Memory Babe: A Cultural Biography of Jack Kerouac by Gerald Nicosia is the most comprehensive biography. For a more personal account, read former Kerouac lover Joyce Johnson's memoir Minor Characters. Photos not seen by PW. (Mar.)Forecast: As with most things Kerouackian, this book is sure to attract the many, still cultish, fans.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Following the reissue of his earlier biography, Vibrations, this engaging memoir focuses on American composer Amram's lifelong friendship with Jack Kerouac, recounting their early meetings in Greenwich Village, collaborations on jazz-poetry readings at New York City venues like the Brata Gallery and the Circle in the Square Theater, and legendary work on Robert Frank's 1959 film Pull My Daisy. Amram has little use for the naysaying critics who were quick to label his friends "beatniks" and "know-nothing bohemians." His memoir, an upbeat celebration of the spirit that inspired the poetry of Gregory Corso, Allen Ginsberg, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, also documents the continuing influence and growing recognition of the Beat movement, as Amram discusses his current participation in various recording projects and academic conferences related to Kerouac and the Beat generation. Amram's distinctive voice is a refreshing antidote to much of the hype surrounding the Beats. Recommended for academic and public libraries. William Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNY
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Thunder's Mouth Press; First Edition edition (January 9, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560253622
• ISBN-13: 978-1560253624
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,561,778 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amram Is Amazing!, January 6, 2002

By 

Paul A. Maher "author of Kerouac: The Definit... (United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Offbeat: Collaborating with Kerouac (Hardcover)

Dave Amram passionately evokes in his newest book the rhythms and poetic vibes of his life all the while casting to the four winds the much misaligned "beatnik myth" that plagued Jack Kerouac's life and stigmatized his art. Through Amram's sound recollections, Kerouac's legacy as an artist resounds with the exclusive atmosphere that is also conducive, even to this day, to the heart and soul of Amram's classical compositions and world-wide performances. It is a testament written from a contemporary of Kerouac's that celebrates the efforts of those fascinating artists of the post-WWII years consisting of Jack Kerouac, Gregory Corso, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Frank, Philip Lamantia and Dody Muller (as well as a host of others). We are there at the first jazz/poetry reading in NYC in 1956, the filming of Pull My Daisy in 1959, the last years of Jack Kerouac's life in the late 1960s until the posthumous aftermath that gradually began to realize the literary merit of Kerouac's art that today firmly places him within the canon of American Literature along side Hemingway, Poe, Melville and Twain. Kerouac is not so much eulogized in this memoir as he is painted humanly as the soulful cat he was celebrating life the best way he knew how, in his books. Despite telling Amram in July 1968 that "fame is a drag to anybody who wants new work done", Kerouac intuitively sensed the longevity of his life's work would outlast his own years dogged by the fame he no longer wanted. The same can be said for David Amram whose own art is vital to the understanding and appreciation of post-WWII American culture in symphonic, jazz, global and folk music. Pick up this book today for a breath of fresh Kerouacian air . . . .

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Self-congratulatory blarney, but sweet, somehow, August 31, 2002

By 

Walter Horn (Arlington, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Offbeat: Collaborating with Kerouac (Hardcover)

For a substantial number of non-aficionados, David Amram's name is familiar today only from a line in a Rafi song for small children. But Amram has an impressive resume that includes entries as a classical composer of concert and film music (his score for The Manchurian Candidate has been justly praised) and as a bop French hornist who played with Mingus, Gillespie,Taylor and many others. I have long admired Amram's touching and understated violin sonata, of which there is, lamentably, no recording available at present. Amram was also a good buddy and frequent collaborator of Jack Kerouac's, and his new memoir "Offbeat" is a good natured-if highly repetitive and self-congratulatory-record of a number of Thunderbird wine-soaked experiences among "the beats."

My placement within scare quotes of the common term for beret-covered, bongo-carrying, scat-singing, goatee-wearing bohemians is highly advised, since Amram repeatedly insists that there never were any such animals. In fact, it is perhaps the main tenet of this book that Kerouac was a writer, pure and simple, and that the only part of the beat mythology with any grain of truth is that Kerouac and his friends Allen Ginsburg, Neal Cassady, Gregory Corso and David Amram, were precursors of flower children in being particularly gentle and constitutionally opposed to formality or exclusivity. In all other respects, at least according to Amram, Kerouac was just a slightly tipsy version of Melville or Emerson who is finally receiving from critics and academia his long-denied coronation as a towering genius of American Literature.

Offbeat contains a number of incongruities that are common to this type of work. Each of the dozen ingredients of a certain (now 50-year-old) omelet is recounted with precision, and entire conversations and minor details of late night jazz-poetry events from the 50's are set forth in detail, but where, when or exactly how Amram became Kerouac's collaborator/muse never comes to light.

In addition, there seems an almost painful desperation for Mr. Amram to get his "creds" into public view. Apparently sensing that he could tell us only so many times (three, I believe) that his prior book, Vibrations, contains 465 pages, and that he has written over 100 orchestral works, he frequently puts this sort of information in the mouths of others. At one point, poet Frank O'Hara, who is trying to ease Amram's disappointment at failing to get a Kerouac/Amram improv gig at the Museum of Modern Art in 1957, provides the following consoling remarks:

"Do it downtown where you're already loved. It was a mistake for me to try to break down the wall s of pretension here at the Museum. When you get better known, they'll fawn and grovel over you...at least until you fall out of fashion. Do it downtown. Let's try the Brata Art Gallery on East 10th Street. You've already played for their art openings, David. [so maybe I don't really need to tell you the address?] The artists all remember you from your stint this past winter at the Five Spot with your quartet. They know your scores for the Free Shakespeare in the Park you just started composing [because they're precognitive when it comes to their adoration of your work?], and they've heard you with Mingus."

This kind of thing is repeated endlessly throughout Offbeat-both in the pages of reminiscinces of his performances and conversations with Kerouac and in the later sections, which deal mostly with events undertaken in the writer's honor. An unwelcome pathos accompanies Amram's successive pleas that the reader engage in something akin to this mantra: "They were smart! They were serious about our art and could discuss it intelligently! They weren't anything like Maynard G. Krebs!" Everyone's wife is beautiful and gracious, everyone's daughter is devoted. Worst of all, each new Amram composition or improv and every Kerouac scat (we are given no transcriptions of these, unfortunately) is said to be a masterpiece of its type. Every performance is hailed as phenomenal, extraordinary, life altering. This aspect is exaggerated by over-the-top cover blurbs from Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Carolyn Cassady, and Frank McCourt-three individuals who are heaped with garlands within the pages of Offbeat.

In spite of all these shortcomings, however, it's hard not to like both Amram and his portrayal of the "beat" scene. Amram is obviously a sweetheart whose hyperbole can be traced in equal parts to a child-like sincerity and to his devotion to a talented friend who was lost to him in tragic fashion. Several recollections in the book are great fun, especially Amram's recounting of the cuckoo creation of the silent film Pull My Daisy, which consisted largely of the trashing of a New York City apartment to the accompaniment of Amram's music and Kerouac's improvised narration. Allen Ginsburg is affectionately portrayed as a bit of a left-wing scold, and Gregory Corso comes off as a horny, wisecracking commentator on contemporary mores, something like a poetic precursor to Seinfeld. Amram paints Kerouac as diffident about everything except his talents. When filmmaker Alfred Leslie asks him how he can be sure that his first improvisatory narration to Pull My Daisy can't be improved upon, the novelist answers, "Because I'm touched by the hand of God." Amram makes a credible case for their joint spontaneous creation of "poetry-and-music" sessions in the mid-50's being the basis not only of rap and hip hop music but of spoken word events and poetry slams.

Now in his seventies, Amram remains a tireless performer, composer and storyteller, but without more recordings of his work, his light could fade. Even so, it will never go completely out. There's just too much talent, love and chutzpah in both the composer of In Our Land and the author of On the Road for either man to cease to inspire those who will take the time to listen, who will look closely for the diamonds lying deep within the sidewalks of Old Manhattoes.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Offbeat, February 23, 2007

By 

OkieSong "OkieSong" (Okemah, Oklahoma, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Offbeat: Collaborating with Kerouac (Hardcover)

The book title is concise. Accurate. David Amram composes and conducts an upbeat validation of the raw and beautiful Jack Kerouac and was there as a friend when Jack died in his literal and literary arms. Amram is a true friend to art and on of the few men I can personally call a role model for modern times. Amram's first book, out of print, but readily available, is titled Vibrations. Vibrations is a symphony of the first 50 years of David's collaborative life. David cleaned up his eating act and has lived to tell the amazing stories of those who died soooo young from internal and external abuse. Blow, Davey blow your horn.

thomasjohnmiller
(February 22, 2007, comment written in Bellingham, Washington)