David Amram, novelist Jack Kerouac’s musical collaborator, spoke and performed at DU last week in the event called “Names We Call America, Digging the Roots of Cool.” Dr. Audrey Sprenger, professor of sociology, was able to bring the musician to the school.
Amram has written over 100 orchestral and chamber music compositions, he has also composed music for Broadway theater and film, operas and the music for the
1959 documentary Pull My Daisy, which Kerouac narrated. He has collaborated
withB many artists including Leonard Bernstein, Langston Hughes, Dizzy Gillespie, Dustin Hoffman, Thelonious Monk and Arthur Miller.
The theme of this event was the idea of “cool,” as Dr. Sprenger is teaching a course called “Sociology of Cool.” Amram’s idea of being cool as a musician is to do what people say you can’t do or to do what people don’t expect.
Amram met Charlie Parker in 1952, a well known Bebop Jazz saxophonist, who said to him, “the hippest thing is to be a square.”
Amram spoke of his experiences with Kerouac and the other beatniks. He said that Kerouac paid attention to everything and that jazz is about loving, appreciating and understanding everything and living in the moment.
Amram introduced the other musicians playing with him. They included a drummer, who had only one snare drum and brushes instead of drum sticks, electric stand up bassist, bongo drummer Jose Garcia and harmonica player Adam Amram, David’s son.
The first song they played was called “Ladies Choice, Social Round Dance,” a Native American song where Amram played a Native American flute and sung in a language relating to the song.
Amram then spoke more about his times with Kerouac as well as how he played with other musicians in the past such as Charles Mingus, another jazz musician, and he also performed with Willie Nelson in 2000.
Besides playing the flute, Amram also plays the piano, French horn, whistles and he sings.
The next song the band performed was called “Pull My Daisy,” which is part of the documentary, and which Amram adapted to the event of being in Denver in 2005.
The song started off as spoken word and then the band jumped in as Amram started on the piano. The song continued with Amram singing scat, which is just a compilation of made up sounds that go along with the instruments. It then ended when Amram went back to spoken word with the piano and spoke about Kerouac’s life.
The song had a message, which spoke to the students in the room as Amram said that we should use our minds after finishing school, make art and love life.
Then several people from the audience were asked to read a poem by Kerouac or a section from one of his books. As people did this, the band played softly with them.
Amram and the band played their last song called “Meanderin’ in Mandarin,” which is about a trip Amram took to Chengdu, China as well as speaking of love and reincarnation.
The whole event was a learning experience as the audience understood more about Amram and all the time he spent with the beatniks and how this impacted his life as a whole.
