"David Amram is a national treasure, and his memoir, Offbeat, is an account of how he got that way. It is a great rolling river of a book, packed with details of Amram's relationships with the likes of Jack Kerouac. If you wanted the 'inside' story of the Beat movement, here it is. Like Amram himself, it is vital and energetic and it sings. I envy anyone picking up this book. It's almost as good as listening to Amram himself"

-- Frank McCourt

"A loving evocation of the sweetness, energy and inspired looniness of the Beat era and the artists who changed American culture."

-- Joyce Johnson

"Regarding Offbeat: Chaos brought together two extraordinarily gifted minds to form a comet which lit up the sky."

-- Kurt Vonnegut

"David Amram is a musical prodigy with a genius for friendship. Offbeat tells an uplifting story of his close association with Jack Kerouac in vivid prose and riveting anecdotes.An essential new addition to the growing literature of the Beat Generation."

-- Douglas Brinkley

"This fascinating book must put PAID to the myth that Jack Kerouac was ever the King of the Beats or the Father of the Hippies. In Offbeat, we get to know many of the legendary painters, poets, musicians and film makers of the Fifties and Sixties, and get to know Jack kerouac as well. Amram recounts his enduring friendship and artistic collaborations during Jack's lifetime, and his continuing efforts on Kerouac's behalf to the present time of his own incredible career and creative genius. What stories! A book for your library."

-- Carolyn Cassady

"David Amram is full of terrific beatific tales!"

-- Lawrence Ferlinghetti

David Amram passionately evokes in his newest book the rhythms and poetic vibes of his life all the while casting to the four winds the much misaligned "beatnik myth" that plagued Jack Kerouac's life and stigmatized his art.

Through Amram's sound recollections, Kerouac's legacy as an artist resounds with the exclusive atmosphere that is also conducive, even to this day, to the heart and soul of Amram's classical compositions and world-wide performances.

It is a testament written by a contemporary of Kerouac's that celebrates the efforts of those fascinating artists of the post-WWII years consisting of Jack Kerouac, Gregory Corso, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Frank, Philip Lamantia and Dody Muller (as well as a host of others). We are there at the first jazz/poetry reading in NYC in 1956, the filming of Pull My Daisy in 1959, the last years of Jack Kerouac's life in the late 1960s until the posthumous aftermath that gradually began to realize the literary merit of Kerouac's art that today firmly places him within the canon of American Literature along side Hemingway, Poe, Melville and Twain.

Kerouac is not so much eulogized in this memoir as he is painted humanly as the soulful cat he was, celebrating life the only way he knew how, in his books. Despite telling Amram in July 1968 that "fame is a drag to anybody who wants new work done", Kerouac intuitively sensed the longevity of his life's work would outlast his own years which were dogged by the fame he no longer wanted.

With this book, we also see that David Amram's own art is vital to the understanding and appreciation of his contribution to post-WWII American culture which spanned symphonic works, jazz, global and folk music. Pick up this book today for a breath of fresh Kerouacian air . . . .

-- Paul Maher, Jr. (Posted on amazon.com on Jan 7, 2002)