Graham Reid | | <1 min read
Ken Nordine looked like an ad executive in the Fifties: buttoned down, horn-rimmed glasses and hair neatly bushed and oiled. Sounded like one too with a confident and stentorian baritone which was often used in radio advertisements.
But something very strange ticked inside him, a weird intellect capable of surreal juxtapositions of ideas and imagery.
He invented “word jazz” and took it to left-field radio stations where late at night his dark visions and paranoia found a small but dedicated audience.
He recorded albums too.
Elsewhere has written about Ken Nordine – who died in 2019 age 98 – previously but we are always glad to present something from him pulled From the Vaults.
This piece was on his first Word Jazz which had accompaniment by the likes of Chico Hamilton, Paul Horn and cellist Fred Katz.
They don't make many people like Ken Nordine.
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For more oddities, one-offs or songs with an interesting backstory check the massive back-catalogue at From the Vaults.
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