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The Best of Word Jazz, Volume Eight Unabridged description

This collection contains classic material from Ken Nordine's critically acclaimed NPR program, Word Jazz. This is a kind of free-form verbal radio that's close to the heart of the fun and games your mind can play when you let yourself wander in wonder wherever the imaginary takes you. Stare with your ears. You'll see.

Maybe Tom Waits says it best about his pal: "Ken Nordine? Yeah, I know that guy. I heard his voice 1,000 times. He's the guy in the bus station that says, 'Go ahead, I'll keep an eye on your stuff for you', and you see him the next day walking around town wearing your clothes. He broadcasts from the boiler room of the Wilmont Hotel with 50,000 watts of power. I know that voice; he's the guy with the pitchfork in your head saying, 'Go ahead and jump', and he's the ambulance driver who tells you you're going to pull through. He's the guy in the control tower who talked you down in a storm with a hole in your fuselage and both engines on fire. I heard him barking through the Rose Alley Carnival strobe as samurai firemen were pulling hose. Yeah, he's the dispatcher with the heart of gold, the only guy up this late on the suicide hotline. Ken Nordine is the real angel sitting on the wire in the tangled matrix of cobwebs that holds the whole attic together. Yeah, Ken Nordine, he's the switchboard operator at the Taft Hotel, the only place in town you can get a drink at this hour. You know Ken Nordine; he's the light in the icebox, he's the blacksmith on the anvil in your ear."