This came out in 1999 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
So dig it: They found some scratchy old acetates in the Kerouac archives labelled Charlie Parker, but when they played them, bam!, they turned out to be big bad Jack his old self, reading a half-hour slab from his fabulous, funky, freewheeling American classic, only maybe the discs weren’t really mislabelled since Jack’s reading style is like music unto itself, laced with scatting and riffing and all the verve of Bird blowing Ornithology at the Three Deuces on Saturday night, so naturally they had to put it all out there for the world to hear, and even tacked on some extra spoken-word tracks, including a never-published poem, along with a tribute song from Tom Waits and even a few tracks with Jack singing — singing! — oldies but goodies like Ain’t We Got Fun in a surprisingly dulcet tone and with only the merest tip of the hat to irony; so dig it.
