"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 Kerouac’s 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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