The 14th already! October's a bird that flies too fast. Time herself's such a bird. I would freeze her flight, but not that of
Charley 'Bird' Parker, Ornithology
It's a sad October for me: my main man from college days, Thomas C. Coleman, Jr. died in September, too young, a mere 74 years of age. I left the following memorial note on his obituary page:
The news that Tom had passed hit me hard. He and I go back a long way, having met circa 1970 at LMU. Books and ideas drew us together and common interests in Nietzsche and Wagner, jazz and Kerouac. I played Sal Paradise to his Dean Moriarty except that I was the driver while he rode shotgun. I have forgotten how many trips we made up California 1 to Big Sur, Frisco, Arcata and where all else in my '63 Karmann Ghia convertible. We stayed in touch over the years with meetings in such improbable places as Fort Huachuca, Arizona where Tom was stationed for a time. We enriched each other's lives. He and I and Kerouac were 'Octoberites' to use a word Tom coined. I'll honor his memory this October by re-reading our correspondence and recalling our adventures. My condolences to his family, friends, Army buddies, and all who knew him.
Jack Kerouac and Steve Allen, Charlie Parker
Kerouac and Allen, October in the Railroad Earth
Jack Kerouac, San Francisco
Mose Allison, Parchman Farm.
This one goes out to Tom Gastineau, keyboard man in our band Dudley Nightshade, who introduced me to Mose Allison in the late '60s. Tom went on to make it, more or less, in the music business. I caught Allison at The Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, California, a couple or three times before I headed East in August of '73. Heard him on the East Coast as well at a joint in Marblehead, Mass. with a girlfriend I dubbed 'Springtime Mary' which was Kerouac's name for his girlfriend Mary Carney.
Mose Allison, Young Man's Blues
Mose Allison, I Ain't Got Nothing but the Blues
Dave Brubeck, Blue Rondo al a Turk
Herbie Hancock, Watermelon Man
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