Ken Nordine

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i didnt realise Colors was going to be like that!

he sounds like vincent price. i actually quite like this, theres something rather melancholy about it all

― gareth (gareth), Monday, 24 February 2003 23:02 (twenty-one years ago) link

get the collected Word Jazz Volumes 1 and 2. great stuff.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 24 February 2003 23:04 (twenty-one years ago) link

Wait, wait, volume 2?

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Monday, 24 February 2003 23:15 (twenty-one years ago) link

There's an earlier album called Word Jazz, Vol. 2, but it's an original album (and costs three trillion dollars when you try to find it via ebay). You can usually find the 2-LP set How are Things in Your Town? a bit cheaper and it has a lot of great stuff, too.

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Monday, 24 February 2003 23:17 (twenty-one years ago) link

I remember hearing Ken Nordine's music, and having no idea what to make of it - I have to go look for information about him now, or else I'll be woken tonight by a blue question mark, floating and tugging at my hair like a static-charged balloon.

― tom (a different one), Monday, 24 February 2003 23:40 (twenty-one years ago) link

(it would probably be bad form to tell you that www.allmusic.com has a bunch of reviews I've written on his albums...so I won't)

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Monday, 24 February 2003 23:49 (twenty-one years ago) link

The Ageing Young Rebel with DJ Food is absolutely awesome.

― esquire1983 (esquire1983), Tuesday, 25 February 2003 01:44 (twenty-one years ago) link

JAZZOETRY!!!

So are there some real Nordine fans on this board (apparently Jerry Garcia was way down with him) or did everyone get into him, like me, through Danny Baker's radio show.

Grey,
Is an old,
old,
Lady

I can't remember many others, is there a website with his poems on the web anyone could link me to?

Baker interviewed him over the phone on his show at the end of last year, it was wicked.

― Stephen Burrows (steveeeeeeeee), Tuesday, 25 February 2003 14:01 (twenty-one years ago) link

yeah i really like that dj food track as well
the super furries sample him for the live version of mountain people,which is brilliant as well

― robin (robin), Tuesday, 25 February 2003 18:42 (twenty-one years ago) link

I know about him because of the "Stay Awake" early Disney music project... from there a friend's dad gave me a tape of the aforementioned Word Jazz Vol. 1.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 25 February 2003 19:07 (twenty-one years ago) link

Mo, what Vol 2 are you talking about? What label?

By the way, you can get more info about Ken at his website.

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Tuesday, 25 February 2003 19:23 (twenty-one years ago) link

I've been lead to believe (by the aforementioned dad who gave me Vol. 1) that there was a Volume 2 that collected the rest of his output, but I've never seen it so maybe I should've just kept my mouth shut. I have the Vol. 1 on cassette and the "Colors" lp but that's it.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 25 February 2003 19:29 (twenty-one years ago) link

I always think of the Chicago International Film Festival when I hear this guy, b/c for the past several years he has done the v-o on their (profoundly terrible) ads that precede every screening.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 25 February 2003 19:35 (twenty-one years ago) link

three years pass...

What are your favourite Colors?

― Konal Doddz (blueski), Thursday, 4 May 2006 08:43 (seventeen years ago) link

Flesh, as a colour.

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 4 May 2006 08:45 (seventeen years ago) link

Muddy is one of my faves

― Vitbe... *pause*... Is Good Bread (Dada), Thursday, 4 May 2006 10:49 (seventeen years ago) link

To contradict the above:

Lavender...
is an old, old, old lady...
lavender is

― brianiast (briania), Thursday, 4 May 2006 12:00 (seventeen years ago) link

maroon. like a crazy loon. maroooooon. please say prune. maroon. has anyone spotted the current uk dulux paint telly advert that plagarises nordine's work to nauseating sub sex and the city effect?

― cw (cww), Thursday, 4 May 2006 12:05 (seventeen years ago) link

werent they originally recorded for a paint company? or am i getting confused again?

― zappi (joni), Thursday, 4 May 2006 12:07 (seventeen years ago) link

yeh i think that was the original commission. it's more the "blue fancies pink but she's got the hots for aqua marine" conceit that the new ad borrows.

― cw (cww), Thursday, 4 May 2006 12:29 (seventeen years ago) link

in the beginning... oh, long before that... when light was deciding who was to be in and out of the spectrum... yellow, was in trouble

― milton parker (Jon L), Thursday, 4 May 2006 17:47 (seventeen years ago) link

Ha ha, I'm gonna play this album to death when I get home

― Vitbe... *pause*... Is Good Bread (Dada), Friday, 5 May 2006 15:42 (seventeen years ago) link

Haven't heard enough colors, but my favorite Word Jazz bits is "The Sound Museum"

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Friday, 5 May 2006 16:40 (seventeen years ago) link

Man, colors is SO cool.

― Forksclovetofu (Forksclovetofu), Friday, 5 May 2006 17:50 (seventeen years ago) link

the Hip-O select set (reissue of his 50s albums) is insanely great.

― Stormy Davis (diamond), Friday, 5 May 2006 17:53 (seventeen years ago) link

I really get into this album when I get into it.

the answer is PUCE

― ghost dong (Sonny A.), Friday, 5 May 2006 19:16 (seventeen years ago) link

four years pass...

You know, his piece "The Vidiot" is utterly, wonderfully bizarre. Who the heck is the guy playing his friend?

Also, Nordine sure reminds me of Orson Welles's delivery.

― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 22 May 2010 05:24 (thirteen years ago) link

eleven months pass...

The Hip-O Select compilation of the Word Jazz stuff goes for crazy money, can't hardly find a quality rip of it online either. But I scored a copy of the comp for reasonable money. Amazing stuff! Is the rest of his work of the same caliber?

― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Friday, 6 May 2011 21:31 (twelve years ago) link

Nutria!

― Limousine Driver Nicknamed Hilton (Craigo Boingo), Saturday, 7 May 2011 00:22 (twelve years ago) link

four years pass...

What are your favourite Colors?

Ecru
is a critic,
loves to see the show.
Just doesn't know
when to say yes
and when to say no.
But that's because of beige.
You see, beige has taught ecru
a funny point of view,
that true is like false
and false is like true.
Who can expect to get anything straight,
like an answer I mean,
from an ecru that thinks,
or thinks that it thinks,
by the thought it was taught,
that love is the same as hate,
that shouldn't's the same as should,
that dumb is the same as smart,
that bad is the same as good.
A kind of critical confusion in critic
could have complications almost arithmetic.
Those of us (are there any? huh, too many!)
who have to know exactly what to do,
what to see, what to say, what to think,
will have to wait until ecru is ready,
with his double talking trade,
to make steady unsteady
calling crooked straight.
But, what the heck, you know ecru.
Just a freeloading critic,
who loves to see the show.
Just doesn't know
when to say yes
or when to say no.

― Terry Micawber (Tom D.), Friday, 9 October 2015 19:43 (eight years ago) link

Recentl picked up "Wink" (née Twink), almost as good as his seminal Word Jazz albums. A singular talent.

― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Saturday, 10 October 2015 03:15 (eight years ago) link

three years pass...

RIP. 98 years old!

https://www.wbez.org/shows/wbez-news/word-jazz-creator-and-host-ken-nordine-dies/71c82188-3b11-432b-93da-91d83affdaad

― Twee.TV (I M Losted), Saturday, 16 February 2019 21:00 (five years ago) link

Too young. RIP Ken, been spinning some colo(u)rs in your hono(u)r tonight.

― Wee boats wobble but they don't fall down (Tom D.), Saturday, 16 February 2019 21:57 (five years ago) link

RIP big guy, he got so close to the ton too! I very much enjoyed the concert he played in London about 20 years ago, as part of Laurie Anderson's Meltdown iirc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IVuagl9GEY

― Zeuhl Idol (Matt #2), Saturday, 16 February 2019 23:39 (five years ago) link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGQ7xu2_xAM

r.i.p. ken

― ☮ (peace, man), Sunday, 17 February 2019 00:05 (five years ago) link

Wow, that Levi's advertisement linked to in the obituary might be the best ad I've ever seen.

RIP. I always liked Colours a great deal. I should have heard much more by now.

― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Sunday, 17 February 2019 12:16 (five years ago) link

Damn, I was just thinking about how it's time to give "Word Jazz" a spin again.

― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Sunday, 17 February 2019 15:06 (five years ago) link

nine months pass...

my gf and i made a silly music video set to a song off of 'love words' to submit to a local music video fest:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHJ1evmwxbw

― flopson, Sunday, 1 December 2019 21:57 (four years ago) link

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