Offbeat: collaborating with Kerouac

360 Pages·15.492 MB·English

by  Amram, David, Kerouac, Jack

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Offbeat
Collaborating with Kerouac
David Amram
First published 2008 by Paradigm Publishers
Published 2016 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Copyright © 2002 David Amram
Copyright © 2008, Taylor & Francis.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
ISBN: 978-1-59451-544-6 (pbk)
Designed and Typeset by Straight Creek Bookmakers.
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Contents
Foreword by William Morgan v
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xxi
Book One
1 Children of the American Bop Night 3
2 A Night of Poetry on the Bowery 23
3 A Brief University of Hang-out-ology Field Trip 40
4 Spontaneous Commotion: The Making of
Pull My Daisy 48
5 Sojourn with Dody Muller 85
6 The Sixties 100
7 Copying My Kadish with Kerouac 103
8 Composing “A Year in Our Land”: Words and Music 109
9 San Francisco Reunion 122
10 Expression of Faith 148
11 Requiem: Jack’s Final Days 155
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iv • Contents
12 In Memory of Jack Kerouac 169
Book One Afterword 173
Book Two
13 Keeping the Flame Alive 177
14 Jack Goes to the Kennedy Center 182
15 Back with Jack: The 1998 On the Road Recordings 186
16 The Orlando Connection: The House That Jack Built 206
17 A Down-Home Louisville Insomniacathon 220
18 Jack in Northport: Off the Beaten Path 236
19 New Millennium Blues: New Vistas, Final Thoughts,
and Fond Farewells 245
Epilogue: Now’s the Time 286
Photo Section 320
Index 329
About the Author 335
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Foreword
Amram’s Compassion
William Morgan
When I first read David Amram’s Offbeat: Collaborating with
Kerouac 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. Amram’s memoir effortlessly brought the
reader into the fold and quite effectively recreated all the camaraderie
and playfulness the young writers and composer Amram shared at
that very moment in the late 1950s when they became “successful”
and famous. Their books were being published, Amram’s music was
being played, and stories about them were appearing in newspapers
and magazines. They were sitting on top of the world.
One image that lingered in my mind long after I put his book
down was that of Amram the designer/chef, the architect of fabulous
omelets and incredibly creative (and seemingly inedible) Dagwood
sandwiches. For some undisclosed reason Amram was allowed to
go behind the counter of the Arts Foods Delicatessen to concoct his
own unique sandwiches. On a single sandwich he was known to pile
heaps of lox, cream cheese, tuna fish, onions, Swiss cheese, capers,
and horseradish sauce. This image became, for me, a metaphor for the
entire book, for his story was assembled in the same way. Amram has
carefully taken an unlikely assortment of ingredients and combined
them into a delicious and tasty creation. It made me wonder what
held this offbeat sandwich of a book together in such a satisfying way.
Was it Amram’s generous nature? Was it his enthusiasm in telling a
good story? Or was it his energetic narrative style? What drew me
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vi • Foreword
as a reader to the table of this feast of a book? A large portion of his
book’s appeal is Amram’s inclusive nature that makes us like these
sometimes unlikable characters. But another quality permeated every
page and I realized it was the same quality that infused all of Jack
Kerouac’s writings, too. The more I thought about it, the more I felt
it might be the very key to defining a “Beat” sensibility.
That most important characteristic was compassion, a compassion
that seemed to be equally shared by everyone in the group. The com-
passion I’m talking about isn’t the familiar “to feel sorry for” definition,
and quite honestly you often feel that many of these people didn’t
feel sorry for anyone except themselves. No, the compassion inher-
ent in all of Amram’s Beat friends is the Oxford English Dictionary’s
compassion, the act of “suffering together with someone.” It wasn’t
a passive act. It was one in which Jack, David, and Allen all took part
and shared, an empathy for the plight of their fellow humans.
These three men honestly felt sorrow at the distress of others,
friend and stranger alike. And it should be said that no one felt that
compassion more than Amram himself. Miraculously, their paths
all crossed in mid-century New York City when they gathered as a
community of creative and devoted artists. Each participated in the
suffering of one another, just as David shared Kerouac’s suffering as
the burden of fame weighed heavily on him. Loyal to his friend, Am-
ram hoped to help relieve Kerouac’s suffering, but that relief wasn’t
to come in Jack’s brief lifetime. Eventually Kerouac succumbed to
depression and alcoholism and died at the age of 47. There was re-
ally no way to avoid the inevitable with Kerouac; however, Amram
was always there to lighten Jack’s spirits and take on some of the
weight he felt. Several of Kerouac’s friends did their best to keep
in touch with the increasingly bitter and reclusive writer, but it was
in vain. To some it became too emotionally draining to witness his
self-destruction, and they stopped taking his calls. During Kerouac’s
final years Amram was able to remain compassionate and be sup-
portive and positive. He tried to assure Jack that happier days were
yet to come and encouraged him by saying that he would someday
be recognized as the innovative writer he was.
Amram's Compassion • vii
Only in death were Kerouac’s dreams ever realized. Eventually
all of his books came back into print and were read as the remark-
able words of one of the century’s great writers. In 2007, fifty years
after the publication of On the Road, a special anniversary edition
was published, as well as the unrevised Scroll version of the book.
To commemorate Kerouac’s achievements, the actual Scroll toured
the country and was viewed by enormous crowds everywhere. As
he had in Jack’s own lifetime, Amram was there again to perform
his music and spread the word that Jack would never be forgotten.
Kerouac is now remembered as an author of the first order and
no longer put down as merely the “King of the Beatniks.” It was a
derogatory title he never sought and a crown he was loath to wear.
Compassion, as exemplified by David Amram’s example, is a legacy
of the Beats we would all do well to follow.
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Preface
In 2008, fifty-two years since Jack Kerouac and I first met and
began spending time together, there is barely a day that goes by
when I am not asked about how we met, became friends, and
began collaborating together.
It was simply happenstance and good fortune. I was lucky to be in
New York during a magical time in the mid-1950s. Like many other
struggling young artists, I was fortunate enough to rub shoulders
with amazingly talented, openhearted people under the most modest
and friendly circumstances. Jack was one of those people.
The collaboration and friendship that Jack Kerouac and I came to
share began in 1956, and it happened naturally. Our chance meeting
and ensuing friendship was a direct result of how we lived our lives,
in an open and spontaneous way. Each day was a new adventure for
each of us, even though each day was often a struggle for survival.
Still, every day, no matter how hard, was a celebration of life. We
considered ourselves to be prize students in our own homemade
University of Hang-out-ology. We each had our own paths that we
were pursuing, but long before and long after we met, we remained
interested in exploring the world around us and learning new lessons
from new people every day. We both knew you couldn’t do that if
you were cold, snobbish, or disrespectful. So we remained open to
everybody and everything.
At our chance meeting in 1956, when we first bumped into each
other at a wild weekend Bring Your Own Bottle Party in a painter’s
loft in downtown New York, we performed spontaneously when Jack
asked me to accompany him while he read a poem. We kept running
into one another and continued doing this wherever we were, often
until we were asked to stop. Eventually we formed a bond.
We were both totally unknown except in what were then regarded
as bohemian circles, so we had little to gain and nothing to lose.
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