John Clarke and Charles Keil in Performance Buffalo, 1984-5 | Vox Audio

John (Jack) Clarke (1933 – 1991) and Charles (Charlie) Keil were recorded at least three times performing as “Skald/Song” in the mid 1980s, and we have located two of the tapes. Paul Kluger recorded the performance at Nietzsche’s in May 1984. It’s not known who recorded the performance at TheatreLoft in 1985, nor the additional musicians involved. We have not been able to locate a third recording, made at Central Park Grill on May 23, 1986. These recordings have imperfections, such as bleed-through and tape hiss, which couldn’t be eliminated. On the recordings, Charlie plays beaten string bass, hi hat cymbals, barrel drum, finger piano, oriental gongs, rattles, and piri. He’s the author of Urban Blues (U Chicago 1968) and Music Grooves (with S. Feldman, University of Chicago 1994) as well as other books. Jack’s books include The End of This Side (Black Book 1979), From Feathers to Iron (Tomboucto 1987),and In the Analogy (Shuffaloff 1997). Thanks, Charlie, Cass Clarke, Mike Boughn, Mike Basinski, Jim Maynard, the Poetry Collection/Rare Book Room at SUNY Buffalo, Jeff Davis, Paul Kuglar and the Analytical Psychology Society of Western New York for help locating tapes and seeing us through this.

Edited by Bruce Holsapple. Photo of Jack by Paula Satow. Copyright 2009 Charles Keil, the Estate of John Clarke and Vox Audio PO Box 594, Magdalena, NM 87825. Note that on Cut 40 Jack identifies a poem as “American Syntax Without A Sentence.” He later corrects himself. The poem is “At The Edge Of Night.” Continue reading