#david amram

[stinckers]

PEEP comic magazine

lots of sticker friends inside. cover by Alex Schubert

[fiataeterna]

David Amram at the 5 spot cafe, New York City, 1957. Burt Glinn

[dwellsinparadise]

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"

—Jack Kerouac, On the Road

From left to right: Larry Rivers, Jack Kerouac, David Amram, Allen Ginsberg, and Gregory Corso in white hat with back to camera

[amoebasareverysmall]

Gregory Corso (Beanie), Larry Rivers, Jack Kerouac, David Amram, Allen Ginsberg

New Years Day, 1957

[newyorkthegoldenage]

Some of the painters who frequented the Five Spot with Jack Tworkov were the friends who first introduced David Amram to the club. Amram thinks part of the affinity of painters and jazz musicians in the fifties was that they shared a common experience: “The struggle painters had was like that of jazz musicians. People still thought that if art wasn’t from Europe it was worthless. Jazz was an accepted art form in Europe in the fifties, but only a small group of people recognized it here. Miles and Bird were playing an incredibly sophisticated kind of music, like spontaneous chamber music at the best level.”

     —Dan Wakefield, New York in the ‘50s

Above: A back table at the Five Spot, 1957: sculptor David Smith, painter Helen Frankenthaler (back to camera), poet and art guru Frank O'Hara, painter Larry Rivers, painter Grace Hartigan, unidentified man, sculptor Anita Huffington, and poet Kenneth Koch.

Photo: Burt Glinn for the NY Times

[stevepotterwrites]

[postpunkindustrial]

David Amram at the Five Spot Cafe in New York City, 1957 Photo by Burt Glinn

[mosaicrecords]

Making a New Kind of Scene: New York's The Five Spot

David Brent Johnson has created a wonderful episode and essay on The Five Spot in its original Bowery location and its later St. Marks Place address. It was an amazing place that fed the contemporary arts & culture scene of New York at the time, and gave impetus to the careers of Thelonious Monk, Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman and Charles Mingus among others.

-Michael Cuscuna

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