Louis – Jack, the drummer with heavenly eyes
The Dharma Bum:
But now I was three miles into the industrial jungle of L.A. in mad sick sniffling smog night and had to sleep all that night by a wire fence in a ditch by the tracks being waked up all night by rackets of Southern Pacific and Santa Fe switchers bellyaching around, till fog and clear of midnight when I breathed better (thinking and praying in my sack) but then more fog and smog again and horrible damp white cloud of dawn and my bag too hot to sleep in and outside too raw to stand, nothing but horror all night long, except at dawn a little bird blessed me.
Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums 101-102.
The Dharma Bum is a piece of music based on the writing of Jack Kerouac, particularly the novel “The Dharma Bums”. It is a piece of music that attempts to deal with one of the recurring themes of Kerouac’s writings, that of inner conflict and a personal spiritual quest, issues that are recurring in this novel of dualities.
Samples
All samples taken from the Verve Recordings 1990 CD album ‘Readings by Jack Kerouac on The Beat Generation’.
Preface:
in the tradition, always clarifying, always new and centuries old
says
Sing!
Fight!
Sing!
Fight!
Sing!
Fight! &c. &c.
Boosheee dooooo doo doooo dee
doooo
doooooooooo!
DEATH T O THE KLAN!
Amiri Baraka – “In the Tradition”
The title of this extended piece comes from the Amiri Baraka poem “Preface to a twenty volume suicide note”, though the piece deals not so much with this poem as it does with the life and work of the author.
Basically, I think Baraka’s poetic voice is unique and shows aspects of genius… on the other hand he’s said some pretty controversial stuff… though at least he’s never been anything but honest with himself and everybody else in saying exactly what he thinks… you make your mind up.
I hope this makes some sense of what I was trying to do and maybe turns you on to Baraka.
Nausea:
The title and inspiration for this piece is taken from the Jean-Paul Sartre novel of the same name.
For the moment it’s the jazz that’s playing; there’s no melody, only notes, a host of little jolts. They know no rest, an unchanging order gives birth to them and destroys them, without ever giving them time to recover, to exist for themselves. They run, they hurry, they strike me with a sharp blow in passing and are obliterated. I should quite like to hold them back, but I know that if I managed to stop one, nothing would remain between my fingers but a vulgar, doleful sound. I must accept their death; I must even will it; I know few harsher or stranger impressions.
Jean-Paul Sartre, ‘Nausea’, 36-37.
This passage of the novel was of great influence during the composition process, particularly for the final section, where the layering of the five separate bass parts is intended to portray this sense of nausea due to the rapid attack of notes and disorienting layering of complex polyrhythms.
to download the entire album [mp3 & artwork, zip] click >>> here <<<
- add a bookmark:
-
- 2008-06-23