ABSTRACT
David Amram has been described as the Renaissance man of American Music. His musical career has spanned participating with Jack Kerouac in the original jazz-poetry reading in 1957 in Greenwich Village to being honored as the first Composer-in-Residence for the New York Philharmonic and to playing in Farm Aid concerts. He performed with an incredible variety of musical greats, such as Dizzy Gillespie. For a few years now, Jack Kerouac and the author has talked about doing something together, based on Vivaldi's Four Seasons, but having it set with the four seasons in America. Jack lifted the near-empty bottle of Taylor port wine that we were passing back and forth, and took a giant gulp. The author mailed Jack a recording of a live performance of Dirge and Variations by the Marlboro Trio that he had seen broadcast on a Sunday morning TV show.
