KEN NORDINE
WORD JAZZ: THE COMPLETE 19550S RECORDINGS

Legendary voice-over artist, narrator, and disc jockey Ken Nordine was born on January 19, 1920 in Chicago, Illinois. Blessed with an exquisitely deep, rich, soothing, and resonant baritone voice, Ken was heard on "The World's Great Novels" and other Chicago radio programs in the 1940s. Nordine achieved his greatest popularity in the 1950s at the peak of the beatnik jazz and poetry movement with his delightfully hip and creative free-form spoken-word aural vignettes on such albums as "Word Jazz," "Son of Word Jazz," and “Next!”

These albums, presented on this compilation in their entirety, showcase Ken's sublimely smooth and mellifluous narration over cool jazz music by the Chico Hamilton jazz group. His vignettes range from the lightweight and humorous to the more dark and paranoid to just plain odd and dream-like. High profile admirers of Nordine’s include Jerry Garcia and Tom Waits, both of whom have recorded with him during more recent times, but it remains the recordings he made during the 1950s, as illustrated on this collection, that remain his most significant, powerful and enjoyable work.