Jazz Of The Beat Generation.

This is turning into jazz week in my house. It is Wednesday, showery and quite cold. The heat wave is well and truly over. I am listening to an album called Jazz Of The Beat Generation which I came across on eBay recently. It only cost £3.50 inc p&p, a bargain. It arrived in a neat little box containing a booklet and the CD. I recognised the tasteful artwork on the front cover immediately. It is from the UK Pan paperback edition of On The Road by Jack Kerouac. I had a first edition of this paperback many years ago. I see copies of that book change hands for £75 these days, so I wish I hadn’t sold my copy. The booklet is packed with information. There is an introduction by Keith Shadwick who did a great job of compiling the 22 tracks on this album for the Jazz fm label in 2003. 

He explains why Jack Kerouac was the Beat writer most enthused by jazz. Jack’s books are littered with references to the jazz sounds of the 1940s & 50s. Keith relates where the music and artists are written about by Jack in such books as On The Road, Desolation Angels & The Subterraneans. Some of my favourite passages in Jack’s books are descriptions of seeing musicians performing live, such as when Sal and Dean see Slim Gaillard and George Shearing in On The Road. Van Morrison fans might recall seeing Van read from On The Road accompanied by Slim playing bongos. The booklet also contains two great essays written by Jack. The first is the eponymous Jazz Of The Beat Generation first published in 1955 which later was adapted as part of On The Road. It shows how Jack’s spontaneous bop prosody (as he called his writing style) was literatures equivalent of Jazz, and Jack’s instrument was the typewriter. The second essay called The Beginning Of Bop first appeared in Escapade magazine and was later included in a book called Good Blonde & Others. Jack recorded this essay for an album released in 1960. The recording is divided into sections and included on this album. I must say Jack’s reading voice perfectly compliments the jazz music included here.

The opening track The Beat Generation is Jack reading a piece that later became chapter 77 of book 1 of Desolation Angels. Then we have The Gasser by Roy Eldridge recorded in 1943. I won’t mention every track because I’m no expert and there are 22 tracks here. I’ll just mention a few I particularly like, such as In A Little Spanish Town by Lester Young, Salt Peanuts by Dizzy Gillespie, Scrapple From The Apple by Charlie Parker, Slim’s Jam by Slim Gaillard who is the only one of all these musicians who I had the good fortune to see playing live which was in Plymouth back in 87. The only song included here is I Only Have Eyes For You by the great Billy Eckstine recorded in 1946. I also like Hackensack  by Thelonious Monk featuring the great drumming of Art Blakey. There is a track called Sub-Conscious Lee by The Lennie Tristano Quintet recorded in New York in 1949. I saw a photo recently of Jack Kerouac at a Lennie Tristano gig in New York. I wonder if this number might have been recorded that night? Stella By Starlight with Stan Getz is also wonderful, as is Line For Lyons by Gerry Mulligan, and the final track Nutty by Thelonious Monk. I have really enjoyed listening to every track of this music on this rainy Wednesday afternoon and hearing the bop sounds that so inspired the writing of the one and only Jack Kerouac. 

Wind Of Change by Julian Bahula.

It is Monday morning; the sun is shining, and my kitchen is filled with the sound of African rhythms. I am listening to an album called Wind Of Change by Julian Bahula featuring Chico Freeman. I bought this album because Julian Bahula has lived in my town of Westbury for the best part of 20 years. It was only in the last few years that I found out that he is a famous musician. I looked on Wikipedia to find out more about him. Julian was born in Pretoria, South Africa in 1938. He came to prominence in South Africa in the 1960s as a drummer and percussionist in a band called Malombo playing a form of African jazz. Because of the situation with Apartheid in 1973 he moved to London where he formed the group Jabula with Ernest Mothle, Lucky Ranku and Eddie Tatane. As well as making their own albums the band appeared on three albums by Mike Oldfield, Ommadawn (1975), Incantations (1978), and Amarok (1990). Julian played on a Stevie Wonder album in 1987. He also founded the band Jazz Afrika, and in the 1980s he played with Dick Heckstall-Smith’s Electric Dream group. 

Julian also established a regular Friday night featuring African bands at the London venue The 100 Club. He booked a lot of musicians who were also political refugees; his series began to symbolise a movement for change. Players such as Fela Kuti, Miriam Makeba, and Hugh Masekela were among the performers whose early British appearances were organised by Julian. With the Anti-Apartheid Movement, he also organised in 1983 African Sounds, a concert at Alexandra Palace to mark the 65th birthday of Nelson Mandela, drawing a 3,000-strong audience and raising the international profile of Mandela and other political prisoners. I have shared Julian’s Jazz Africa song about Nelson Mandela to this page. Jerry Dammers of The Specials has said this song was the inspiration for the song Free Nelson Mandela.

When Nelson Mandela was finally freed, Julian made a return trip to South Africa which was the inspiration for the music on the Wind Of Change album of 2001 which I discovered only last week. In the sleeve notes Julian says, ‘Music was my only weapon, and I wanted to use it for the struggle of my people’. You can feel that optimism in the joyful infectious rhythms of the music. Julian composed all the music of the eight tracks. As well as his drums and percussion there are tenor, alto and soprano saxophones, trumpets, flugelhorn, keyboards, synthesizers, Hammond organ, guitars, and bass. All the tracks are instrumentals. I have really enjoyed hearing this album. I bet this music would sound even better played live on a sunny day at a festival. In 2012 the President of South Africa presented Julian with the Order of Ikhamanga (Gold) which is the highest honour in South Africa awarded for artistic achievement, so I think we are privileged to have such a great musician living in our town and I’m pleased I discovered his music.

Mandela - Julian Bahula's Jazz Afrika