"October in the Railroad Earth," read by Jack Kerouac with Steve Allen on piano, on the Aeolus 13
Umbra YouTube channel.
In another installment at our
look at the recordings of Jack Kerouac, Aeolus
13 Umbra turns its attention to this little gem, "October in the Railroad Earth," yet another pairing of Jack
Kerouac and Steve Allen (see Jack Kerouac: Readings From On the Road and Visions of
Cody). In this short piece, cut one from the 1959 album
Poetry for the Beat Generation, Kerouac teams up with the talk show host to paint an aural portrait of San Francisco in the classic Beat style — spoken word and jazz. Allen’s
accompaniment to Kerouac’s readings have been described as “cocktail music” by
some, but that really does a disservice to both Allen and Kerouac. Kerouac, in fact,
selected Allen for this piece, and it is easy to see why. Allen’s work both establishes
the mood and underscores the emotional temper of the text.
Listening to this piece, one can grasp
the passion and frenetic nature of Kerouac’s stream-of-conscious narrative. Contemporary
critics of his style dismissed Kerouac’s writing as undisciplined, yet very
much the opposite was true. Kerouac’s early style owed much to the influence of Hemmingway, but it was his passion for
life that influenced his work. Similarly, Picasso’s early critics
dismissed his abstract work while being unaware that he was also trained in the more realistic classical
style. Life, however, inspired Picasso’s art very much in the same way it
also affected Kerouac's — it compelled them to leap beyond their training and
embrace a new form of expression that both reflected and influenced the era
that gave them birth.
Kerouac wrote his drafts on rolls
of paper with the ends taped together so that his pacing wouldn’t be
interrupted by the turning of pages (something he managed to overcome for
public readings). His description of San Francisco and the
marginal and forgotten characters that he encountered on the docks and in back
alleys is so evocative one can easily imagine oneself at Kerouac’s side as he
takes us on a hipster’s two-dollar tour of the City by the Bay. Kerouac’s creative word
play — amply demonstrated here — is not simple riffing; it is analogous to Allen’s piano as it establishes the mood
as well as provides subtext.
“October in the Railroad Earth”
was also included on volume two of the three-disc set The Beat Generation released in 1992 by Rhino Records. It is
presented above on the Aeolus 13 Umbra YouTube channel.
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