Modern Artistic Sensibilities
| July 17th, 2008
Jazz and the Beats: perfect bedfellows. Article by Christopher Lloyd:
The Beat Generation’s jazz sensibility still resonates in a new century
If Jack Kerouac had been born in 1982 instead of 1922, he’d probably be blogging away like a madman in some obscure corner of the Web. Or thrashing out power chords in a garage. Or doing guerrilla street art with spray paint and found objects.
Indianapolis artist/poet/publisher John Clark believes the freewheeling creative process was a hallmark of the Beat Generation, which Kerouac captured in 1957′s “On the Road,” based on his cross-country travels with Neal Cassady. The Beats were rebels who took a look at the straight-laced ’50s and felt compelled to defy convention.
Clark, the man behind pLopLop, an occasional self-published literary magazine, or zine, pointed out that it took Kerouac six years to get “On the Road” published. And he never felt comfortable with the celebrity it brought him — much preferring the type of anonymity millions of do-it-yourself artists happily toil away in today.
