Steve Allen - Steve Allen at the Piano (1951)

"Where or When" by Steve Allen

Steve Allen on the piano accompanied Jack Kerouac's first recorded poetry. They first performed the material together at the Village Vanguard two years earlier, and they only seemed to impress Kerouac who liked how his poetry sounded overtop Allen's improvisations.

Steve Allen made a career of improvisations overtop the structure of his own hard work. Although well-settled in radio by the late forties, he took any job he could in the new medium of television. In the early fifties, his popular reputation grew in large part to the familiar manner and quick wit he'd use as a wrestling announcer, as a guest host on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts and as a regular panelist on What's My Line? Besides being a television personality, he was a songwriter and musician. He released his debut album Steve Allen at the Piano in 1951 on Columbia Records.

The album, made up of highly embellished popular tunes, shows off his skill and only occasionally his wit.

Here is the discography surrounding Steve Allen's debut album:

Steve Allen at the Piano

Cinderella (Bebop's Fable) (1953 single)

Jack and the Beanstalk (Bebop's Fable) (1953 single)

Bebop's Fables (1953 EP)

But Officer (1953 single)

Piano Tonight! (1956 EP)

Tonight! Starring Steve Allen - The First Episode

"Cinderella" and "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" by Steve Allen

Pass the Headphones!!