Editor’s note: There are few figures who have striven harder to make sense of the relationship between music and literature, jazz and poetry, than David Amram. A member of the Editorial Board of Chapter&Verse, Amram was not only an early collaborator with Jack Kerouac’s jazz verse experiments in the 1950s but remains today a musician of the highest standing. His compositional achievement in orchestral, cinematic and jazz settings has earned him the accolade “the Renaissance man of American music”. In December 2003, he wrote the following e-mail to the desk of Chapter&Verse and reflects richly on a visit to Paris and then on the funeral of literary pioneer George Plimpton, editor and founder of The Paris Review. His letter is reproduced verbatim with minor edits only to aid the reader’s understanding. SW

Dear Simon:

Great to hear from you and I hope all is going well with your MONUMENTAL project. The trip to Paris, where Carolyn [Cassidy] also appeared, was marvelous, and I have been going non-stop ever since around the Globe, inclusing USA and Canada.

Going back to France was incredible.

After 48 years, this was my first time back in Paris since I left there in 1955 to return to the USA, after a year of living and working there in France as a musician.

Obviously, a half century later, Paris has changed enormously, and some of the places where I lived and worked at for the year I was there, are totally unrecognizable, but the esprit Parisian and the burning energy and sense of joie de vivre are still as strong as they were when I left Paris so long ago.

The warmth and craziness, the high energy and individualism of Parisians seems almost unchanged, in spite of all the physical changes which the city has undergone, the enormous amount of traffic, and the clothing, which is now more American, especially among the young people.

Shakespeare's Book Store, (they were the presenters of the first annual Festival of the Arts, and invited me as a featured performer and speaker) is the same four story jumble of books, papers, and endless hordes of people filling the store, quietly reading in all the dark rooms,. while others who comprise a group who have spent a night or two as temporary guests of the bookstore over the past 52 years) move in and out of the famous guest rooms above the store, still replete with bedbugs, flying insects, which during the warm weather, soar in and out of the grimy open windows, where you hear the sounds of klaxon horns (like the ones Gershwin used in American in Paris, from the endless traffic,) overlooking the Seine River, where people sit in outdoor cafes as well as in front of the bookstore for hours, eating, drinking, smoking, talking, and people watching.

The Bookstore was the command headquarters for the whole festival, which had many of the events held in a tent in a nearby park, as well as in theaters, cafes, jazz clubs and concert halls around the city.

The organizer of the festival was Sylvia Whitman, who is only 22 years old!!!

(Sylvia Whitman is the daughter of Shakespeare Books owner George Whitman, and George is now 90.) Sylvia spent months planning the entire eight days of nonstop events, (concerts, plays, readings, panel discussions, tours, etc.) with two other young women her own age (!!!) who ran the whole show. The three of them were extraordinary, and people came from all over Europe, the USA and Canada, to attend the eight day event.

I had a bunch of programs of my own, and was able to involve a lot of musicians, poets, actors and readers to participate with me, just from people I bumped into. As you know. I always love to get people to participate with me, whenever possible, wherever I go.

This particular time, while in Paris, I also had chance to sit down between nonstop activities, (at least once a day) and eat a meal, at any of the hundreds of outdoor cafes, RELAX for at least a few minutes and enjoy life!! Something I guess we all forget to do in our hectic way of living here. And I got to hang out with all kinds of people, speaking French and other languages with from all around the world who live in or were visiting the city.

There seemed to be no political bad feelings or anti-Americanism of any kind towards any of us from the USA, contrary to what you would expect.

The French don't really like any politicians, and don't seem to confuse politics with people.

I already have received requests to come back to Paris for concerts, literary events with music, readings from my two books and to conduct performances of my classical works.

I feel, after a 48 years interlude, that I have never left Paris, and had a chance, the day before I left, to visit my old building where I lived in 1955, (which is now part of a bustling upscale tourist's area) and the jazz club, the Camelion, which I wrote about in Vibrations, where I led my own group, and which is still at the same location. even though jazz hasn't been played there for decades.

The present owner, Pierre, knew of the history of the cave in the basement, now temporarily closed down, and he took me down a dark set of stairs into the dungeon-like cellar to see where I played with my quartet for several months in 1955.

It was like visiting a tomb!!!

I had a copy of Vibrations with me, and read him the part of the book where I described playing there, and the musicians who played with me at the time, as well as those who came and jammed with me there, like Lionel Hampton, with whom I recorded in Paris during that year.

It was an amazing kind of reunion, and the owner's 16 year old son, a rock guitarist, joined us when we climbed back upstairs to the bar from the cave and spent time talking about the influence of jazz from 50 years ago on his
generation of young French musicians today, who play rock inspired in part from the music we played a half a century ago.

It was a wild feeling for me, as the returning kid musician of the 1955 Paris scene, finally coming to the place I played at nearly fifty years ago, and now speaking as some kind of an elder statesman to all the people in the bar about what it was like there before they were born!!.

Paris is still an inspiring place and I feel blessed to finally have
gotten back there again.

It makes me appreciate America more than ever, and makes me proud of all
of our artists, poets, painters, sculptors, musicians, composers, actors and
others, our true ambassadors whom the French appreciate and love sometimes more than we do.

I hope to go back every year from now on.

*********************************************

Simon, now returning to the present day, I am here in sunny California, where I am working on the documentary film being made about my life's work in music, by film maker Mark Reese.

My frequent flyer miles are piling up.

And I am answering your nice note. from England before leaving to go back
to my farm in upstate New York.

The performance of my cello concerto Honor Song for Sitting Bull in Chicago with the symphony was great, and I did several other events in Chicago and the surrounding area, including a recording with Billy Corgan (former bandleader of "Smashing Pumpkins" ) He now doing an all-acoustic series of his songs, on acoustic guitar, and I got right off the plane and went to his studio, (before going to where I was staying for the cello concerto rehearsals, performances, seminars, interviews and all the other things relating to it.

Billy Corgan and I met three years ago in Chicago when we played for a benefit concert for homeless kids, and h and Marian Faithful were performing together.

She had just spent time with Gregory Corso, and as she and I spoke, Billy told me how interested he was in Gregory's work, in Kerouac, and in what Jack and Gregory and I had all done together so long ago.

He subsequently read my second book Offbeat: Collaborating with Kerouac and got in touch with me to have me record with him on part of this new album.

They are very beautiful and touching songs. A complete departure from heavy rock. And a treat to do with him spontaneously.

On one of the songs, we did a duet where I accompanied him on Pennywhistle.

On the other, I am using ten members of the Chicago Symphony and writing a smallpiece that he will sing over, based on one of his songs. No restrictions. Just to write the very best music I can, which is what always do.

He specifically said he wanted that, not something that would sound like a hack arranger with five ghost writers, ground out on a synthesizer in five minutes.

My cello concerto, Honor Song for Sitting Bull was played Sunday Nov 16 as part of a birthday celebration and when I got up the next morning to head home, on a foggy Monday, November 17th, I realized on the way to the airport that Father and Mother Time had given me some REAL FREE CELLULAR MINUTES!!

I had to check my driver's license to make sure that my date of birth was actually Nov 17th 1930

Sure enough, I have made it to 73 and it feels like there is a lot more fuel in the tank.

I got home to rainy foggy Laguardia Airport in New York just in time from Chicago to have a birthday celebration with my kids, before driving upstate to unpack, sleep for a few hours and them drive back the next day to George Plimpton's memorial service in New York.

I send you all cheers for the coming Christmas holidays in Jolly Aulde England IN ADVANCE, and look forward to sending you a birthday card when YOU reach 73!!

I feel so happy to still be here. It gives me the chance to see so many of my old friends who no longer are with us, finally getting the recognition they have always deserved.

I also know now that when I am working 16 hour days at what I love to do, I am able, more than ever, to share whatever I have to offer with many others.

That makes every day a new adventure.

You know about that, from your own work, and from the dreams that you know you have to realize!! We have to hang in there and KEEP ON TRUCKIN'!!!

This latest addition on my speedometer of life makes me realize once again what a blessing it is (when not in the solitude creating new music and writings), never to dream for a second of ever retiring into a vacuum. I know as long as I am able to encourage others to delve into their own creativity, it will never be time to hit the shuffleboard courts.

I am spending whatever time at home I have, when not on the road, writing
my third book, composing a Mass with author Frank McCourt, and ready to go back out on the road again, playing, conducting, giving readings, workshops, writing on planes, trains, in motel rooms and thankful to here.

Now that I have hit 73 big ones this November 17th, I realize I am definitely convinced of the wisdom of the sages of ancient Greece, when asked what to do in life.

As I may have recounted to you before, (during one of my James Joyce goes to Birdland legnthy e-mails), the ancient seers and Greek philosophers left us all a message, from the time of Pericles, in 415 B.C., that could have been written today.

It is timeless.

Translated into English, it still retains the classic elegance of the Golden Age of Greece.

Inscribed in stone, beneath the pillars of the Temple of Sunion, is the Motto "Bop till you Drop"

I'm not about to drop yet but....I'm still boppin'!!!

And I know you are boppin' (and hoppin') too!!!!

One of the people I knew for 50 years, George Plimpton, who just left us, spread a lot of joy and exuded this philosophy.

I tried to honor his memory by writing below a note to his wife, to honor his friendship and his life.

I hope you enjoy reading it. He was a great friend an amazing guy.

I send all best to you, and know you will continue to make our World a better place by sharing your gifts and reminding others that laughter and smiles, poetry, painting and music, and at least one good meal with a friend and/or a loved one, whenever possible, are the key for surviving the deleterious forces of the adult world.

I send warm feelings from Venice California, where I am this week, as well as from the chilly hills of Putnam Valley (when I return there Dec 2 for a week before going to San Francisco Dec 9 and than LA and then home Dec 22 for Christmas....... , as Old Man Winter (no woman could ever be so cold) sneaks down over the Valley and through the floorboards of my house at Peekskill Hollow Farm.

All joy to you, for all you do, and renewed energies each day

Until our paths cross again, stay on your road and as they say in Kerrville Texas DRIVE FRIENDLY.

Until our next time together, I remain, as they say in New Orleans Red Beans and Ricely Yours

David

And all power to you to finish your imporatant new publication.

i can bee one of your Yank afficianados and cheer leaders, withy the hopes that your new work can enlighten us all.

WE NEED IT!!!

*********************************************

A Joyous Farewell to George
.
After spending most of the day stuck in the airport, surrounded by Midwestern November fog, our plane finally took off from Chicago and landed at Laguardia Airport in New York. I grabbed my bags, and drove home upstate to our farm.

In fourteen hours George Plimpton's Memorial service was scheduled to begin. I slept a few hours, got up and drove back down to Manhattan.

Like so many others that afternoon, I had come to say good-bye to George.

When I walked up to the stairs in front of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine (a HUGE MONSTER of a building) the steps were filled with people, many of whom, like myself had grown a little older since the 50's when so many of us met one another for the first time through George.

Several people I didn't recognize at first glance. And many of them didn't recognize me either. But when we did recognize one another, it was as joyous a reunion as it was a joyous farewell to George.

When I saw Norman Mailer, Kurt Vonnegut, Peter Matthiessen and a host of other people I have known nearly 50 years, I realized (as they did) that we might not ever all be together again, as we were for so many decades at George's fun-filled get- togethers, where authors, poets, artists, musicians, composers, actors, football players, boxers, Bohemians and society people all got together, and where I would play George's piano for hours and often jam with everyone from Brazils great Antonio Carlos Jobim, to members of the New York Philharmonic until the wee hours.

It was usually after 2 a.m. that George would finally sit down at the piano, play his composition that he debuted at the Apollo Theater's amateur night in Harlem, and proudly recall his triumph and the thunderous applause he received.

Seeing so many people from all walks of life at the Cathedral was very touching.

Many of us sensed, as we greeted one another on the steps outside the Cathedral that this might be a farewell, not only to George, but to one another.

When I got inside the Cathedral, it was even MORE mobbed with people I knew from the 50s, many of whom I also didn't recognize at first. Some moved much more slowly now, as they made their way up the stairs and to their seats.

But they were all smiling and glad to see one another again and share a few
moments to remember George

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine is magnificent, but it is so enormous, it doesn't automatically exude a healing or spiritual feeling. It needs people to make it smaller and more human.

That happened later on, as soon as the gospel choir opened up the program, and warmed our hearts with some sanctified wailing music that made you want to get up and dance and holler in the name of the Lord, regardless of what God or Goddess you pray to.

The particular part audience, where I finally sat down, was by chance a group of the what must be the last of the Old New York Society Mohicans.

While the rest of the mob of an audience that now filled most of the vast reaches of the Cathedral had that typical New York look of a United Nations, (which is what makes New York City so fantastic and soulful and always exciting), the section I inadvertently happened to stumble into looked like a New York Stock Exchange Board of Directors meeting, with a lot of extremely reserved upper-crust types, who, in spite of occasional guarded and restrained chuckles, didn't seem the kind of people who could ever be truly appreciative of the free-spirit of George, with all his unabandoned wit, grace, boyish sense of adventure and endless generosity, someone who transcended his New York Society upbringing to become a wonderful kind of Everyman, a genius editor, a brilliant author, an adventurer, and a loving gracious catalyst for bringing the World closer together.

But as the service progressed, with the excellent speakers and gospel choir singing again, George's mercurial, egalitarian way of embracing everything and everyone in life seemed to change the Cathedral into a George Plimpton Saturday night/Sunday morning party.

His spirit seemed to slowly fill the Cathedral and it became a warm and inviting place, as it was when I played there with a group of Native American musicians and speakers at many programs we did together over the past few years for their annual Indian Thanksgiving celebrations. By the end of those evenings, the Indians had made the Cathedral feel like you were attending a powwow at a ceremonial place of affirmation

By the end of the service for George, the Cathedral became like home, and most of us didn't want to leave, and lingered inside, talking to one another, and greeting old friends.

The words and music had changed everything.

Finally it was over and a small group of us were invited by George's lovely wife Sarah to Elaine's (where I don't go that often any more, since it changed in the 70's from a writers hangout to a Hollywood/Lets Make a Deal/Celeb City Egomaniac Center).

Elaine herself is still the same great down-home lady I knew from the middle 60's from Greenwich Village, when she worked in a bar downtown close to my old apartment, and hung out with all us crazy folks.

The last time I been to Elaine's was three years ago, with George, his wife Sarah, my three kids, my sister Marianna, as well as Helen Kelly and Ed Adler from NYU, who had invited us all, for my 70th birthday in November of 2000.

Here I was, exactly three years later, for a final hurrah for George.

I sat with Mailer (at a tiny table up front by the entrance) for first time in years and talked about how in 1955, he drove me uptown to George's (in Plimpton's borrowed red convertible sports car), picking me up from my 6th floor walkup at 319 East 8th St., between Avenues B+C, and taking me to George's apartment for the first time, after I had been in NY for only three weeks and George had called me, (looking up my number in information), having heard that I was back from Paris, where we had met and hung out for year, and telling me a guy named Norman would come and pick me up.

That year, at what became George’s weekly gatherings, I made lasting friendships with many people, and many of them who were still alive were at Elaine's to celebrate one more time all the gifts that George had given us.

Later on in the evening, I sat with George's wife Sarah, and some her and George's old friends, and told her that my children Alana Adira and Adam, all hoped that someday we could all visit New York and take her and her kids to the Zoo.

With all the heartfelt tributes to George, it seemed (outside of all of us at our table who knew Sarah not just as George's wife) that many had failed to address Sarah and her needs and feelings, as an extraordinary woman and the mother of two five year old twins, who now would have to continue her and her children's lives without George by their side.

Hopefully, now Sarah and George's first wife Freddie and her son Taylor, and daughter Medora, will all be able to overcome this loss, have attention paid to their needs, and all receive the love that they deserve.

A few days after George's passing, I had a chance to spend some time with George's son Taylor, who is an amazing young man, and is the kind of son that every father dreams of having.

I also had a chance to talk to Freddie as well, and share memories of wonderful times from long ago.

By the end of the long afternoon and night, there was a sense of completion, as we left Elaine's.

We had said good-bye to George in the best way that we could, knowing he would want us to celebrate every precious moment of life, as he did.

There was no one else like him, and in that celebration, he touched many other people's lives as well.

All the writers he championed in their beginnings, like Kerouac, Terry Southern and Philip Roth, and The Paris Review he founded and ran for 50 years will be a legacy for Sarah, his children and all of us to be proud of for the rest of our lives.

As the old saying goes....."There was a man."

*********************************************