SARATOGA SPRINGS – What can one say about David Amram?
He’s played the French horn in the legendary jazz bands of Charles Mingus, Dizzy Gillespie and Lionel Hampton. He created and performed in the first ever Jazz/Poetry readings in late 1950s New York with his friend Jack Kerouac. He worked with Allen Ginsberg in the film “Pull My Daisy,” composed the scores for “Splendor In The Grass,” and “The Manchurian Candidate,” served as the Composer and Music Director for the Lincoln Center Theatre, and was appointed by Leonard Bernstein as the first Composer In Residence for the New York Philharmonic.
Locals may recall his recent appearance at SPAC with Willie Nelson at Farm Aid, or his emotionally stirring performance at the Lake George Jazz Festival in September 2001, when in the immediate days following 9/11, Amram brought together the T.S. Monk Sextet and Glens Falls Symphony Orchestra for a musical collaboration in Shepard Park that marked, for many, the first public event they attended in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Amram’s collaborations in a storied career have included the likes of Arthur Miller and Johnny Depp, Hunter S. Thompson and Bob Dylan. And topping it off, he IS the nicest guy you could ever meet – a point punctuated by his late friend Jack Kerouac, who for his cheerful disposition. dubbed Amram “Sunny Dave.”
Amram will perform Friday, Feb. 1 at Caffe Lena. Tickets are $35 general public, $32 café members, $14.50 students and kids.
