Kerouac collaborator, jazzman and composer David Amram returns to Side Door on Friday.

This Friday’s appearance at the Side Door by David Amram is fast approaching. You’ll want to see this multi-faceted musicians, composer and Jack Kerouac collaborator. He’s a delightful human being and always entertaining.

David Amram

He’ll be playing piano and flutes, along with three of our favorite jazz musicians – James Suggs on trumpet, Alejandro Arenas on bass and Mark Feinman on drums. Nitty Gritty Dirt Band founder John McEuen, will also bring his banjo for a cameo appearance (he and Amram are long-time friends). And two actors from American Stage will be doing short readings of Kerouac while the band improvises behind them.

The event is part of St. Pete’s SunLit Literary Festival.

For tickets and more information, call the box office at 727 822-3590 or follow this link for online tickets.

Jonathan Tallon, president of the Grand Central District Association Board of Directors, has studied Kerouac and his collaborators and wrote this introduction for me. He’ll be here for the show and may be taking some questions himself.

Here’s is Jonathan’s intro of Amram:

David Amram has an artistic curriculum vitae that defies easy categorization and recitation. The list of the last century’s poets, filmmakers, jazz icons, pop stars and outlaw journalists that he collaborated with almost seems impossible. And yet here in the midst of the second decade of the 21^st Century, David Amram is still conducting, composing, and collaborating.

Amram is heading to the Sunshine City next week for a show at the friendly confines of the beautiful Palladium next week. There’s two things that are notable about this are; 1) A prodigious and talented artist, and by all accounts a gentleman’s gentlemen, will grace this humble hamlet with what is surely a fabulous performance experience. 2) Jack Kerouac was his collaborator and good friend.

Why is the second thing important? Well, pull up a stool and I’ll share the story. Jack, for those you who didn’t know, shuffled off this mortal coil in St Pete in 1969. Kerouac left his house, some of his stuff, and whole lot of stories behind. Some good stories, and some not so good. Jack wasn’t in the best of shape in his latter years.

But back in the late 1950s, Jack and David kicked around New York City with a traveling group of poets, artists, and filmmakers and were labeled the Beat Movement. “Davey” (According to Amram’s book OffBeat: Collaborating with Kerouac, this is what Jack called him. Kerouac spoke a lot like he wrote.) and Jack created the “University of Hangout-ology” and lived life to fullest, channeling universal forces to create their respective art. They shied away from stuffy culture aesthetics and communed with, as Jack wrote, “the mad ones.”

“Davey” never gave up on his friend, even when Kerouac succumbed to darker forces. Amram’s book “Offbeat”, reads as not “I drank with Jack” tales but as a blueprint for artistic adventures, and of a deep friendship and love that still remains.

David Amram is returning to St Pete in the middle of our collective artistic renaissance and reimagining. A vibrant and artistic community, I should think, would welcome one of the great collaborators of all time. David Amram will appear at the Palladium to conduct music, jam with poets, and talk about his friend, Jack Kerouac on April 14, 2017 at 8:00 pm.