There was swing | Jack Kerouac & Roy Eldridge
Jack Kerouac
“…Then there was swing, and Roy Eldridge, vigorous and virile, blasting the horn
for everything it had in waves of power and logic and subtlety – leaning into it with
glittering eyes and a lovely smile and sending it out broadcast to rock the jazz world.”
Jack Kerouac, On the Road, 1957
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“Your item about ‘Embraceable you’ couldn’t be truer because when I was alone on a mountain for two months in the northwest Washington State woods, mountains, in 1956, I sang Embraceable You You Silk and Laceable You to all the stars of mountaintop night, scaring the bears, altho my real first favorite song is ‘I Love You’ by Irving Berlin. No. 2 is ‘Embraceable You’ and No. 3 at the time was ‘Last Night’ as sung by Sinatra but now I stick to ‘Moon River’ as No. 3 Of course, I’m not forgetting No. 4 ‘Lady of the Evening’ by Duke Ellington.”
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Jack Kerouac
The Lowell Sun (October. 25,. 1962)
Once there was Louis Armstrong blowing his beautiful top in the muds of New Orleans; before him the mad musicians who had paraded on official days and broke up their Sousa marches into ragtime. Then there was swing, and Roy Eldridge.*
And there's no use wondering how high Roy can go on his trumpet, because he can go higher than that.
Louis Armstrong
And for just a moment I had reached the point of ecstasy that I always wanted to reach, which was the complete step across chronological time into timeless shadows, and wonderment in the bleakness of the mortal realm, and the sensation of death kicking at my heels to move on, with a phantom dogging its own heels..^
At lilac evening I walked with every muscle aching among the lights of 27th and Welton in the Denver colored section, wishing I were a Negro, feeling that the best the white world had offered was not enough ecstasy for me, not enough life, joy, kicks, darkness, music, not enough night.~
Jack Kerouac / On the Road / 1957
*Part 3, Ch. 10/^Part 2, Ch. 10/~Part 3, Ch. 1
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https://sites.google.com/site/pittsburghmusichistory/pittsburgh-music-story/jazz/jazz—early-years/roy-eldrige
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