Offbeat: Collaborating with Kerouac / David Amram. - Hardcover

Amram, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1560253622 ISBN 13: 9781560253624

Publisher: Thunder's Mouth Press, 2002

Synopsis

From painters' lofts and bohemian haunts in the Greenwich Village of the 1950s to funky clubs and Bowery bars like the Five Spot, jazz musician David Amram retraces in this engaging memoir the creative paths he followed through restless days and long, exhilarating nights with his collaborator and friend Jack Kerouac. With candor and humor, Amram re-creates the moments that shaped a mutually stimulating relationship—like the jazz-poetry reading, the first ever in New York, he performed with Kerouac, whose On the Road had recently made him an overnight literary success; or like the 1959 film, Pull My Daisy, they hilariously made with fellow Beats Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Peter Orlovsky, and Larry Rivers. Amram illuminates the private side of Kerouac, too, his extraordinary intellect and his ardent pursuit of music and literature long after the critics had turned on him and many of his old friends had abandoned him. Among the last of a generation that altered the style and substance of the arts in its time, Amram also celebrates in this at once wise and affecting book the renascence of interest in Kerouac's work three decades after his death. For the beat indeed goes on. And so does the collaboration.

About this title

Review

(from first edition)
“David Amram is a national treasure and his memoir, Offbeat, is an account of how he got that way. It is a great rolling river of a book, packed with details of Amram’s relationships with the likes of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. If you wanted the ‘inside’ story of the Beat movement, here it is. Like Amram himself it is vital and energetic and it sings. I envy anyone picking up this book: It’s almost as good as listing to Amram himself.”
―Frank McCourt

“David Amram is a musical prodigy with a genius for friendship. Offbeat tells an uplifting story of his close association with Jack Kerouac in vivid prose and riveting anecdotes. An essential new addition to the growing literature of the Beat Generation.”
―Douglas Brinkley

“This fascinating book must put PAID to the myth that Jack Kerouac was ever the King of the Beats or the Father of the Hippies. In Offbeat, we get to know many of the legendary painters, poets, musicians and film makers of the Fifties and Sixties, and get to know Jack Kerouac as well. Amram recounts his enduring friendship and artistic collaborations during Jack’s lifetime, and his continuing efforts on Kerouac’s behalf to the present time of his own incredible career and creative genius. What stories! A book for your library.”
―Carolyn Cassady

“Regarding Offbeat: Chaos brought together two extraordinarily gifted minds to form a comet which lit up the sky.”
―Kurt Vonnegut

“The conversations rang so true that I almost began to believe I had been sitting in the corner listening as Amram, Kerouac, Ginsberg and Corso talked, laughed and traded barbs over a bottle of wine.”
―Bill Morgan, from the new Foreword

"Offbeat challenges and dismisses the myth of a Beat Generation, replacing it with a riveting and heartfelt account of the community of artists of that era, and how they supported one another.”
―Publisher's Weekly

“A piece of pure entertainment that also reveals the individuality of Amram's friends and gives the Beat stereotype its walking papers.”
―Kirkus Reviews

“ ... The book includes some excellent photographs ... deepens understanding of the Beat milieu and the aspirations of its iconic figures. Recommended.
―CHOICE

Synopsis

From painters' lofts and bohemian haunts in the Greenwich Village of the 1950s to funky clubs and Bowery bars like the Five Spot, jazz musician David Amram retraces in this engaging memoir the creative paths he followed through restless days and long, exhilarating nights with his collaborator and friend Jack Kerouac. With candor and humor, Amram re-creates the moments that shaped a mutually stimulating relationshiplike the jazz-poetry reading, the first ever in New York, he performed with Kerouac, whose On the Road had recently made him an overnight literary success; or like the 1959 film, Pull My Daisy, they hilariously made with fellow Beats Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Peter Orlovsky, and Larry Rivers. Amram illuminates the private side of Kerouac, too, his extraordinary intellect and his ardent pursuit of music and literature long after the critics had turned on him and many of his old friends had abandoned him. Among the last of a generation that altered the style and substance of the arts in its time, Amram also celebrates in this at once wise and affecting book the renascence of interest in Kerouac's work three decades after his death. For the beat indeed goes on.

And so does the collaboration.

Edition details

• Publisher: Thunder's Mouth Press
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1560253622
• ISBN 13: 9781560253624
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256