Beatnik & Jive (& Beatploitation)

"I belong to the...Beat Generation" -- Beatnik tributes and caricatures never quite go out of style. Spike Jones spoofed of hipsters repeatedly, and "Beat Generation" was a 1950s beatploitation flick starring Mamie Van Doren (who sings the title tune). A more reverent anthem by that title was covered notably in 1980 by San Diego's heroic Beat Farmers. Gassiest is "Kookie's Mad Pad," from the ginchiest of LPs, by Edd "Kookie" Byrnes, the outrageous hot-rodder of TV's "77 Sunset Strip." Another beat rodder was the perennially puzzling Nervous Norvus. And many later '60s acts were Beat-inspired, of course: the Fugs, Captain Beefheart, the Last Poets.

"Beatnik" albums have less to do with the 1950s Beat poets (and their albums) than with early, "hipster," be-bop and scat-spouting jazz musicians of the late 1930s. Jazz is the "beatific" music of Kerouac, after all. While the Beats may not have appreciated every latterday caricature, undoubtedly they dug at least Babs Gonzales, Slim Gaillard, Al Collins, and the like. (All of whom followed Cab Calloway, who no doubt followed others.) Credit Juliette Greco for the all-black costume and Dizzy Gillespie for the goatee and beret. But it was class cutups Babs and Slim who laid down the swinging vibe of the "house rent party." While not your garden-variety PBS-approved "jazzz," it was classic, unpretentious music (and jive rantings of original jazzbos).

Oddly enough, the legacy of beatnik records contains a strong fairy-tale groove -- jive versions of the Brothers Grimm tales, that is. Steve Allen and disc jockey Al Collins (famous for The Purple Onion shows and later for work on the AMC television channel) revisited the theme at least three times in three different decades. A book version, Bop Fables (Simon & Schuster), also resulted. Perhaps the fascination with fables has something to do with the childlike wonder of the Beats, the rejection of all things square and adult, and poetry.

Beatnik characters abound in 1960s film and television, starting with Bob Denver as Maynard G. Krebs on the show "Dobie Gillis." As beatploitation became a minor B-movie idiom, such movies as Roger Corman's "Bucket of Blood" gave mild-mannered beatniks a less than beatific cast. John Waters' use of Pia Zadora in beret and black reduced pseudo-sophisticated stereotype to ultimate pop inanity. In a late revival of beatnikphilia, "Pee Wee's Playhouse" featured a puppet beatnik jazz combo (whose role was mainly speaking).

Hipsterism abounds in jazz and American music generally, but strict-beatnikism has some parallels in a few other key places. Obviously, the Last Poets and other "Black Power Rap" artists of the late 1960s and early 1970s owe a debt to both their jazz-age forebears and the more immediate influence of the Beats and hippies. For that matter, the so-called hippies of the 1960s began with a put-down ("hippie") for hangers-on, also-rans, and latecomers to the San Francisco Beat scene. Apart from cultural legacies, other music and speech idioms bear strong similarities to beatnikism. Trucker records, especially ones from the CB era, emphasize unique patois and frequently outlaw themes. The same is true of calypso (and there are calypsos about beatniks). And once in awhile the dominant culture (rock, television, movies, advertising) tries to be hip.

Buying: Manic modern jazz, the mad beat of the bongos, and hepcat jive all come together in Rafael "Googie" and Leon René's Romesville. Don Morrow's album also is as significant as it is sensational. For speech: Lord Buckley!