This triple-disc box set is centered on the reissue and restoration of Jack Kerouac's three long-players: Poetry for the Beat Generation (1959), Blues and Haikus (1959), as well as Readings by Jack Kerouac on the Beat Generation(1960). The Jack Kerouac Collection (1990) also adds over a half-hour of previously unissued material. These include outtakes from the Blues and Haikus sessions, recitations from On the Road and Visions of Cody from the Steve Allen Plymouth Show, as well as a candid recording from a symposium titled "Is There a Beat Generation," which was held at the Hunter College Playhouse and sponsored by Brandeis University. As a poet, Kerouac's readings were rarely as entertaining as those of his contemporaries William S. Burroughs or Allen Ginsberg. However, the liberation in his writing style is absolutely replete with a youthful joy tethered by somber optimism. His blend of achingly poetic verbiage and stream of consciousness were intersected by his rapier wit and perpetual vision. Much like the instrumental jazz musicians of his time, his poetry and prose were wide open to interpretation and the delivery often bears a crude and uncomfortable nature -- much like the uncertainty that faces many of the characters he animates. Accompanying Kerouac on his spoken-word jazz odysseys are Steve Allen (piano) on Poetry for the Beat Generation as well as Zoot Sims (tenor sax) and Al Cohn (tenor sax) on Blues and Haikus. The Jack Kerouac Collection also includes a 32-page liner-notes booklet with essays and commentary from Ginsberg, Burroughs, Jerry Garcia, Ray Manzarek, David Perry, and Steve Allen, among others. There is also copious discographical, biographical, and bibliographical information as well. This set is an essential piece of Americana and is highly recommended for literary buffs and beatniks alike. ~ Lindsay Planer

This three-disc set is a bonanza for aficionados of the Beat school of literature that Kerouac and his cronies created. Recorded in the late '50s at the then-apex of Kerouac's popularity, the three albums contained here find him reading original poems and verse as well as previously published material (including, of course, excerpts from the genre- and generation-defining ON THE ROAD). On BLUES AND HAIKUS, he's accompanied by venerable West Coast jazzmen Al Cohn and Zoot Sims. POETRY FOR THE BEAT GENERATION finds him accompanied by unexpected kindred spirit Steve Allen (of '50s TV fame) on piano. Perhaps most effective of all, though, is READINGS BY JACK KEROUAC ON THE BEAT GENERATION, where Kerouac reads unaccompanied. Though his delivery is notoriously deadpan, the sheer musicality of his words provides a special kind of music, recalling the bebop jazz sounds that inspired Kerouac's finest writing. As a sonic document of Kerouac's world, or of the Beat scene in general, one couldn't do better than the KEROUAC COLLECTION.