Readings By Jack Kerouac on the Beat Generation [Limited Edition]

Jack Kerouac | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 28, 1997)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Limited Edition
• Label: Polygram Records
• ASIN: B0000047EY
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #192,186 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding Reading By The Premier Beat Poet, April 27, 2004

By 

turtlex "turtlex" (PA USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Readings By Jack Kerouac on the Beat Generation (Audio CD)

If you've read any of Kerouac's books, and likely if you're reading this review and considering this purchase, you have - then you are truly in for a treat.

This is an excellent Spoken Word disc.

Hearing Kerouac reading his own words, the wonderful cadence of his voice, the slight Massachusetts accent coming through, the improvised jazz be-bop, and even the very crisp noise registered when he turns the page of his ever present notebook - this is the Kerouac you've wanted to hear since you first read "On The Road".

He expounds on San Francisco, Allen Ginsburg, Jazz and Be-Bop, and impressively The Beats.

Hearing him describe the "beat" in the opening track, the tempo he uses, the tonality in his voice, you'll hear what the "Beat Generation" is all about.

The excellent liner notes and packing, some of which are presented as postcards, indicate this recording was made sometime in 1958 or 1959 and Mr. Jack Kerouac is at his prime.

This is a treasure, a real gift for the Kerouac fan.

I strongly suggest you purchase this excellent recording. The production values are very high. The sound is crisp and clean.

Thank you Verve Records for this real historic find.

17 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The King of Beat Defines Beat, August 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Readings By Jack Kerouac on the Beat Generation (Audio CD)

Since I read On The Road, Kerouac has changed the way that I viewed prose and poetry. It is here in these recordings that I heard the voice of Jack himself. Often humorous--at times even daring to be silly, he shows how literature isn't dead and dusty meant to be spoonfed to school-children--But it breathes, slides jumps from the soul to the tongue to soul of others. These works are pieces of Jack's vision of the "American Night." They are real, gritty, and intense. Unedited, and bleeding. No cliches. No reliance on sentiment. So if your ready for real art, put down that Tom Clancy novel, and check this CD out for yourself.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "The angel bone is connected to the God bone....", August 7, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Readings By Jack Kerouac on the Beat Generation (Audio CD)

The words seem to flow from an other wordly source much as mantras flow from the mouths of tired old bhikkus. It's nice to hear Jack himself read his works not some later day rock musicians posing as "literary types" who probably read On the Road once just to tell their friends they are "hip." You can get stoned from this CD alone.