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.