Patchen, Kenneth
Reads With Allyn Ferguson And The Chamber Jazz Sextet
New vinyl, shrink torn and price tag on the jacket, with drill hole). Reissue of a 1958 beatnik Cadence label album, this LP version is from 1983. "Patchen's mournful poetry coincides with Ferguson's sextet in a chamber-jazz dirge-like frame of reference. 'Lonesome Boy Blues' and 'I Went To The City' are outstanding. Downhearted, yes. Despondent, no. Ferguson plays piano, percussion, and French horn." Or as another reviewer put it: "The 'Beat Generation' is born. This recording is a source for everything from Ginsberg and Kerouac, through to Dylan, Tom Waits, Laurie Anderson and beyond. And these trance-like dispatches, being the beginnings of a certain type of art-form, retain a freshness all these years later. Kenneth Patchen is accompanied here by the jazz-noir tones of the Chamber Jazz Sextet, playing woodwind based compositions specifically written for these poetry recitals. Patchen's schtick is that of a sleepwalking seer, his stream-of-consciousness words somehow meshing with the abstracted style of the music to great effect. The literal meaning of these interior monologues may be elusive but the twilit mood of his delivery is captivating. The final piece, 'I Went To The City,' is more straightforward; an elegy for city dwellers and "men out of touch with the earth..." 'State Of The Nation' seems to conjure up the 1950s as a sublime, subterranean landscape of parping saxophones and fever-dream words. This early jazz poetry is historically crucial and still a fantastic listen now!"