Ken Nordine’s Word Jazz albums and the radio programmes he has been making for the past fifty years are odd little soundscape stream-of-consciousness doodles.
Some of them are endearing, some of them are baffling, and some are just a little bit worrying. He’s either entirely mad or a complete genius — though I suppose there’s really no reason he can’t be both.
One thing you have to say for him though — great voice. And if anything, his voice has become more compellingly rich, soft, chocolatey and resonant as time has gone on. He’s been making radio programmes and doing voice work well into his eighties.
These days, he’s even podcasting. Literally talking to himself. He plays both characters: his internal monologue, and his subconscious mind responding in dialogue.
Adult Kindergarten is from 1957. A lot of people got very excited about Ken Nordine when this first came out, but most of them were reading On The Road, and were smoking drugs regularly. Many of them still are, I think.
