Steve and Jack

Steve Allen. Jack Keourac.
Maybe you’ve seen the tape? Sure.
The beat poet and the talk show host.
Jack would compose stories on the fly, and the audience didn’t really get it.
So, Steve said maybe if there was piano accompanying the stories?
So, Jack agreed.
And the audience still didn’t get it.
The stories came out more like jokes, and the piano playing was awful.
Maybe, said Steve, Jack should read the stories and Steve should play on the piano.
And that’s when the magic happened, and years later, Tom Waits did both the piano and the storytelling himself.