“Cool Prose For Kats”  Ric Records

(20 votes, average: 3.70 out of 5)

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Iceberg Slim “Reflections” (1976) ALA Records. Producer: David Drozen; Executive producer: Louis Drozen; Photography: Robert Wotherspoon. Former Chicago pimp and convict, Slim (Robert Beck) reformed and became a published and celebrated author with his first autobiography, PIMP, The Story of My Life in 1969.  Slim passed away in 1992 at the age of 73. Rappers Ice Cube and Ice T, both cite Slim as the inspiration for their names.

With his polished delivery and smooth, almost soothing voice, Iceberg Slim could have been one of any number of beatnik poets, delivering elaborate monologues over smooth background music on 1976’s Reflections. The difference is Iceberg Slim (neé Robert Beck) was a pimp, and his stories are scathingly explicit, and, more often than not, extraordinarily compelling. The language can get graphic; this is not an album for the squeamish. For those who aren’t easily offended, though, this album will be spellbinding. Slim’s skills as a storyteller cannot be overstated; even at his crudest, he still spins riveting yarns. “The Fall” is virtually autobiographical, depicting his last days as a pimp and what sent him on a downfall to prison, leavened with scabrous humor.

“Broadway Sam” is a mean, hilarious story of another pimp who has the tables turned on him in prison. The second half of the record, though, is more poignant, as Slim remembers a lost love on “Durealla” and comes to terms with his relationship with his late mother on “Mama Debt.” Throughout the record, Slim is backed by jazzy music courtesy of the Red Holloway Quartet, which enhances the stories without overshadowing them. Many years later, of course, Slim would serve as the inspiration for gangsta rappers like Ice-T (who named himself after Slim) and Schoolly D. Too many of Slim’s followers, though, lack the mixture of street smarts and the intellectual and emotional depth shown here. For anyone interested in the roots of modern urban culture, Reflections is a must-hear. – Victor W. Valdivia, All Music Guide

(22 votes, average: 3.14 out of 5)

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“Beat Generation” Jazz Poetry. Folk Lyrics. John Brent, Len Chandler and Hugh Romney at the Gaslight, Greenwich Village. Musitron Records.

(17 votes, average: 3.71 out of 5)

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Jack Kerouac with jazz greats Zoot Sims and Al Cohn. (1958). His second album on Hanover after “Poems for a Beat Generation” on which he was accompanied by TV talk show host Steve Allen. Produced by Bob Thiele. Click on the back cover here and hopefully you can read the liner notes by Gilbert Millstein. Kerouac calls Zoot and Al “Holy Blakean babies” and says “Zoot and Al blow thoughtful, sweet metaphysical sorrows.” Kerouac actually sings on one cut with Zoot playing piano for the first time on record. Here’s one of the haikus: “In my winter cabinet/the fly has/died of old age” Beat that.

Track listing: American Haikus; Hard Hearted Old Farmer; The Last Hotel & Some Of The Dharma; Poems from the Unpublished Book of The Blues; Old Western Movies; Conclusion Of The Railroad Earth.

Hear some of this record HERE.

(28 votes, average: 4.71 out of 5)

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Jayne Mansfield: “Shakespeare, Tchaikovsky & Me” MGM Records. (1964) Jayne recites Shakespeare’s sonnets and poems by Marlowe, Browning and Wordsworth against a background of Tchaikovsky’s music.

Opening / How Do I Love Thee / The Indian Serenade / Good Night / You Say I Love Not / If This Be Love / The Lady’s “Yes” / She Walks In Beauty / Cleopatra / Was This The Face / Whiteness, Or Chastity / Madrigal / Jenny Kiss’d Me / Verses Copied From The Window Of An Obscure Lodging House / The Enchantment / The passionate Sheperd To His Love / Upon The Nipples Of Julias Breast / Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes / The Lovers / To the Virgins, To Make Much Of Time / Inclusions / When You Are Old / Daffodils / Take, O, These Lips Away / Mark How The Bashful Morn / Oh! Dear, What Can The Matter Be? / The Millers Daughter / The Fire Of Love / The Constant Lover / Why Should A Foolish Marriage Vow / Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms / Love Me Little, Love Me Long

The New York Times described the album as the actress reading “30-odd poems in a husky, urban, baby voice”. The paper’s reviewer went on to state that “Miss Mansfield is a lady with apparent charms, but reading poetry is not one of them.”

(16 votes, average: 4.13 out of 5)

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“Did You Ever Hear The Blues?” BIG MILLER (1922-1992) does “deep blues” by Langston Hughes. United Artists.

Clarence Horatio Miller’s first influence in music came from his father’s church but he also heard the blues sung by men working on the railroad. In the 30s, while still a student, he formed a band, but with the outbreak of World War II he joined the army. After serving in the Pacific and in Europe, he began entertaining his fellow soldiers. In 1949 he joined Lionel Hampton’s band, then had a five-year spell with Jay McShann. Miller had a commanding style and his rich voice lent itself especially well to the material he favoured. His influences in the blues were Joe Turner, Jimmy Rushing, T-Bone Walker and Jimmy Witherspoon, whom he followed into the McShann band. He also admired the ballad style of Billy Eckstine. Miller’s abiding interest in the blues was such that writer-poet Langston Hughes wrote a series of songs especially for him.

Langston Hughes (1902 – 1967) published more than three dozen books during his life, starting out with poetry and then expanding into novels, short stories, and plays. He is closely associated with the Harlem Renaissance, the flowering of African-American literature and music in New York City following World War One, but he wrote poetry, books, and newspaper columns right through into the 1960s. Hughes’s work often spoke plainly about the lives of ordinary black people, which in later years earned him a reputation as one of the major black voices of the 1900s. His works include the poetry volumes The Weary Blues (1926) and Shakespeare in Harlem (1942), the novel Not Without Laughter (1930), and the short story collection The Ways of White Folks (1934). He wrote two personal memoirs: The Big Sea (1940) and I Wonder as I Wander (1956).

(8 votes, average: 4.63 out of 5)

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I love the recordings of Kerouac reading his works. He has a great voice and very cool, laid back style. Here’s a clip of him on the Tonight Show with Steve Allen on the piano.

Verve Records 1959. Cover photo of Kerouac by Robert Frank. Sleeve notes by Bill Randle. Kerouac reads extracts from “Old Angel Midnight”, “Desolation Angels”, “The Beginnings of Bop”, “Mexico City Blues”, “Neal And The Three Stooges”, “San Francisco Blues”, “The Subterraneans” and more. Unlike Jack’s previous two lps this one is him solo. Without Steve Allen on the piano or Zoot Sims on sax.

(13 votes, average: 4.69 out of 5)

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Edgar Allan Poe keeps you up at night.

(7 votes, average: 3.43 out of 5)

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Kenneth Rexroth organized and emceed the legendary Six Gallery reading on October 7, 1955, at which Ginsberg introduced the world to “Howl”. Rexroth’s work was composed with attention to musical traditions and he performed his poems with jazz musicians. Nonetheless, Rexroth was not wholly supportive of the dramatic rise in popularity of the so-called “Beat Generation,” and he was distinctly displeased when he became known as the father of the Beats.

A life-long iconoclast, Rexroth railed against the dominance of the east-coast “literary establishment” and bourgeois taste that was corrupting American poetry. While he refused to consider himself a Beat poet, his influence as champion of anti-establishment literature paved the way for others to write poems of social consciousness and passionate political engagement. His greatest contribution to American poetry may have been in opening it to Asian influences through his mystical, erotically charged poetry and superb translations. Kenneth Rexroth died in 1982 at 77 and is buried in Santa Barbara on a cliff above the sea.

Read more about Kenneth Rexroth at Modern American Poetry.

(6 votes, average: 3.33 out of 5)

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