The Hunt - Dexter Gordon & Wardell Gray 1947

 "They ate voraciously as Dean, sandwich in hand, stood bowed and jumping before the big phonograph, listening to a wild bop record I had just bought called “The Hunt,” with Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray blowing their tops before a screaming audience that gave the record fantastic frenzied volume."

Jack Kerouac - On The Road Part Two Chapter 1 "To the wild sounds of Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray blowing “The Hunt,” Dean and I played catch with Marylou over the couch." Jack Kerouac - On The Road Part Two Chapter 4

Symphony Sid Show - Charlie Parker

"Dean took the wheel and drove clear the rest of the way to New York, and we began to hear the Symphony Sid show on the radio with all the latest bop." Jack Kerouac - On The Road Part Three Chapter 11

Moon Dreams - Miles Davis

 "Bop was somewhere between its Charlie Parker Ornithology period and another period that began with Miles Davis."

Jack Kerouac - On The Road Part One Chapter 3

Sweet Adeline - The Mills Brothers

 "The boys from the chorus showed up. They began singing “Sweet Adeline.”

Jack Kerouac - On The Road Part One Chapter 9

A Fine Romance - Billie Holiday

Dean sat on the floor with a music box and listened with tremendous amazement at the little song it played, “A Fine Romance”—“Little tinkling whirling doodlebells. Ah! Listen! We’ll all bend down together and look into the center of the music box till we learn about the secrets—tinklydoodlebell, whee.” Jack Kerouac - On The Road Part Two Chapter 3

Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee - Stick McGhee

"Dean and I had ended up with a colored guy called Walter who ordered drinks at the bar and had them lined up and said, “Wine-spodiodi!” which was a shot of port wine, a shot of whisky, and a shot of port wine. “Nice sweet jacket for all that bad whisky!” he yelled." Jack Kerouac - On The Road Part Three Chapter 4

Billie Holliday In Jack Kerouac's On The Road

 "My mind was filled with that great song “Lover Man” as Billie Holiday sings it; I had my own concert in the bushes. “Someday we’ll meet, and you’ll dry all my tears, and whisper sweet, little things in my ear, hugging and a-kissing, oh what we’ve been missing, Lover Man, oh where can you be . . .” It’s not the words so much as the great harmonic tune and the way Billie sings it, like a woman stroking her man’s hair in soft lamp-light."

Jack Kerouac - On The Road Part One Chapter 13

Dean sat on the floor with a music box and listened with tremendous amazement at the little song it played, “A Fine Romance”—“Little tinkling whirling doodlebells. Ah! Listen! We’ll all bend down together and look into the center of the music box till we learn about the secrets—tinklydoodlebell, whee.” Jack Kerouac - On The Road Part Two Chapter 3

Slim Gaillard In Jack Kerouac's On The Road

 "We went to see Slim Gaillard in a little Frisco nightclub. Slim Gaillard is a tall, thin Negro with big sad eyes who’s always saying, “Right-orooni” and “How ’bout a little bourbon-orooni.” In Frisco great eager crowds of young semi-intellectuals sat at his feet and listened to him on the piano, guitar, and bongo drums. When he gets, warmed up he takes off his shirt and undershirt and really goes. He does and says anything that comes into his head. He’ll sing “Cement Mixer, Put-ti Put-ti”."

Jack Kerouac - On The Road Part Two Chapter 11

"Slim sits down at the piano and hits two notes, two Cs, then two more, then one, then two, and suddenly the big burly bass-player wakes up from a reverie and realizes Slim is playing “C-Jam Blues”" Jack Kerouac - On The Road Part Two Chapter 11

George Shearing In Jack kerouac's On The Road

"George Shearing, the great jazz pianist, Dean said, was exactly like Rollo Greb. Dean and I went to see Shearing at Birdland in the midst of the long, mad weekend. The place was deserted, we were the first customers, ten o’clock. Shearing came out, blind, led by the hand to his keyboard. He was a distinguished-looking Englishman with a stiff white collar, slightly beefy, blond, with a delicate English-summer’s-night air about him that came out in the first rippling sweet number he played as the bass-player leaned to him reverently and thrummed the beat. The drummer, Denzil Best, sat motionless except for his wrists snapping the brushes. And Shearing began to rock; a smile broke over his ecstatic face; he began to rock in the piano seat, back and forth, slowly at first, then the beat went up, and he began rocking fast, his left foot jumped up with every beat, his neck began to rock crookedly, he brought his face down to the keys, he pushed his hair back, his combed hair dissolved, he began to sweat. The music picked up. The bass-player hunched over and socked it in, faster and faster, it seemed faster and faster, that’s all. Shearing began to play his chords; they rolled out of the piano in great rich showers, you’d think the man wouldn’t have time to line them up. They rolled and rolled like the sea. Folks yelled for him to “Go!” Dean was sweating; the sweat poured down his collar. “There he is! That’s him! Old God! Old God Shearing! Yes! Yes! Yes!” And Shearing was conscious of the madman behind him, he could hear every one of Dean’s gasps and imprecations, he could sense it though he couldn’t see. “That’s right!” Dean said. “Yes!” Shearing smiled; he rocked. Shearing rose from the piano, dripping with sweat; these were his great 1949 days before he became cool and commercial." Jack Kerouac - On The Road Part Two Chapter 4

 

Lester Young In Jack Kerouac's On The Road

 "Lester Young, also from KC, that gloomy, saintly goof in whom the history of jazz was wrapped; for when he held his horn high and horizontal from his mouth he blew the greatest; and as his hair grew longer and he got lazier and stretched-out, his horn came down halfway; till it finally fell all the way and today as he wears his thick-soled shoes so that he can’t feel the sidewalks of life his horn is held weakly against his chest, and he blows cool and easy getout phrases."

Jack Kerouac - On The Road Part Three Chapter 10