This 1960 movie is the only film adaptation of a Jack Kerouac novel to date, employing a jazz score and Gerry Mulligan as a hip, saxophone-playing priest.
In the mid-1950s Art Pepper had already served two prison terms on narcotics charges and was struggling to re-ignite the promising solo career he’d started several years earlier after leaving Stan Kenton’s orchestra. 1956 was a spectacular year for Pepper, and the recordings he did for the Aladdin label, featuring West Coast greats such as…