Details
Track Listing
1. Scribble
2. Complaint of the Skeleton to Time
3. Xmas Gift
4. To Aunt Rose
5. Lion For Real, The
6. Refrain
7. Shrouded Stranger, The
8. Gregory Corso's Story
9. Cleveland, The Flats
10. End, The
11. Stanzas: Written at Night in Radio City
12. Sunset
13. Hum Bom!
14. Kral Majales
15. Guru
16. Ode to Failure
17. C'Mon Jack
Album Notes
Personnel includes: Allen Ginsberg (vocals); Michael Blair (vocals, piano, marimba, drums, percussion, xylophone, shakers, temple bell, cymbals, background vocals); Marc Ribot (acoustic guitar, guitar, banjo, trumpet); Bill Frisell (electric guitar, guitar); Mark Bingham (guitar, ukelele, whistle, background vocals); Arto Lindsay, G.E. Smith (guitar); Ralph Carney (flute, harmonica, clarinet, bass clarinet, tenor & baritone saxophones, saxophone); Gary Windo (tenor saxophone, saxophone); Lenny Pickett (flute, piccolo, sopranino, soprano, alto & tenor recorders, bass & contrabass clarinets, oboe, contrabass sarrusophone, tenor, alto & soprano saxophones, drum); Steve Swallow (piano, bass); Rob Wasserman (bass).
Recorded at A&R Studios, Bearsville Studios and Sorcerer Sound Studios, New York, New York. Includes liner notes by Hal Willner and Allen Ginsberg.
A long way from the cliched tableau of the coffeehouse beat poet shouting spontaneous verses to the accompaniment of bongos, THE LION FOR REAL pairs one of contemporary poetry's most iconic figures with some leading lights in experimental and improvisational music. Released in 1989 (eight years before Allen Ginsberg's death), THE LION FOR REAL highlights the parallels between instrumental and verbal music, framing the sharp, clipped rhythms of Ginsberg's work via sympathetic and intense jazz accompaniment.
The personnel assembled here are mightily impressive, including Bill Frisell, Arto Lindsay, Marc Ribot, Steve Swallow, and G.E. Smith. These musicians selected poems of Ginsberg's they felt particularly drawn to, then composed charts to accompany Ginsberg's readings of those poems. The music falls somewhere between avant-jazz and film music, modifying and accentuating the tone and mood of each piece. Though Ginsberg's best known work is absent, there is plenty to appreciate here, from autobiographical narratives ("Kral Majales"), to metaphysical speculations ("The End"), to sheer funky wordplay ("Hum Bom!"). Sometimes beautiful, sometimes jarring, THE LION FOR REAL makes plain the poetry of music, and the music of poetry.
Industry Reviews
..well metered recitation with superb compositions.
Reflex ..well metered recitation with superb compositions.
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