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Music makes Amram's stories go 'round
David Amram is busy, making music, making connections.
By William McKeen, Special to the Times
Published October 14, 2007
Upbeat
By David Amram
Paradigm Publishers, 316 pages, $23.95 Festival of Reading
Amram will be on a panel, "Visions of Kerouac," at 10 a.m. on Oct. 27.
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David Amram could use one response for everything: "Been there, done that." Because he has. Amram is a 20th century musical Zelig, and like that Woody Allen character, he stands at the edge of hundreds of historical photographs, swapping stories with musicians, writers and actors. Upbeat, Amram's latest memoir, finds him again spreading his musical wings over the world. Before the people at Best Buy figured out there was a category called "world music," that's what Amram was doing: speaking the universal language. He tells a story - and he's very good at that - about being marooned in an airport in India. He and 100 other passengers learn via the airport squawk box that their flight is delayed again. Curses. Anger. What does Amram do? He starts a drum circle to ease the tension. Everyone was giddy when the flight finally took off. Maybe it's corny, but it proves music's ability to bridge cultures. Even in his seventies, Amram remains busier than most musicians a third his age, conducting here, lecturing there and on the road heading for another gig. He's made some interesting friends. Back in the 1950s, he met and collaborated with Jack Kerouac on Pull My Daisy, a bebop musical sketch that sounds just as fun and relevant today (because Amram always changes the words). In Upbeat, he recalls how that 50-year-old piece of music continues to evolve and open doors for him. With Dizzy Gillespie, Amram was part of the first U.S.-Cuban musical exchange of 1977, full of political and social significance - and another chance for improvisation as he and Dizzy serve as pied pipers to the street kids of Havana. Amram is a great musician, composer and storyteller. Shouldn't it be against the law for someone to be so good at so many things? William McKeen is chairman of the journalism department at the University of Florida.
[Last modified October 10, 2007, 18:08:22]
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