Here, I feel that there is a distinct, if distant echo of Gaillard's 'vout' technique, as Kerouac disrupts the phrase 'Gabriel Toot...Horn n All/Blows Awful/Blues/... When... Done.. From China... To Ole Penoy' by adding 'Toy Doy,' 'Bo Moy,' 'mo Moy.' This works in the same 'additional' way that Gaillard uses the words 'vout, 'orooni' etc. in the above extract, and also provides a rhyming continuity: 'Boy/Doy/Moy/ MoyPenoy/Oy.' There also appears to be a strong connection with 'back-slang' for both Gaillard and Kerouac, with its reversals and additions that act to obscure phrases and translate them into private codes - a distinct feature of the African-American oral tradition in the U.S.A. (4.) Not forgetting Gaillard's wild humour, a near cousin of Kerouac's irreverent destabilising poetics.

Apart from the aspect of the 'sound' of this chorus, one sees again Kerouac's rhythmic diversity at work here, expressed visually. Playing off the line 'The Angel in heaven,' he indents the following lines in a block that takes the reader down the page, varying it in the last three lines by further indentations. Thus, 'Y gerta' is pulled back slightly to the left margin, while the last line moves back to the indent at 'Oy-y -' This gives a visual rhythmic twist to finish off the chorus.

Another example of 'Gaillardish' wordplay, which occurs earlier in the poem, might well be in the 13th chorus: 'O the ruttle tooty blooty/windowpoopies of Fellah Ack Ack/' (MCB, 13, 5-7) where 'windowpoopies' sounds like quintessential Kerouac, yet the 'ruttle tooty blooty' gives a flavour of Gaillard. This verbal playfulness of Kerouac works as a lighter, humourous contrast to his treatment of the more serious religious themes, and is inseparable from his style as a whole - which gives his 'bop poetics' such a democratic and irreverent flavour.

Equally - or more - important is the possible influence of 'vocalese':

'A term for the practice of jazz [singing] in which texts (newly invented) are set to recorded jazz improvisations. The word is a pun on the terms "vocaliser," combining the ideas of a jazz "vocal" and a private language (indicated by the suffix " -ese")... the singing of vocalese is most closely associated with the bop style... ' (GR, 1250-1251.)

This direct translation of the melodic shape of a solo into words meant that the lyrics do not follow the standard narrative two- and four- bar units of the conventional popular song, but go where the original solo line dictates. I would argue that this influence is a very strong one, a vocal equivalent of the bop saxophone's asymetrical phrasing already mentioned, and evolving out of 'scat':

'In the late Forties scat singers like King Pleasure(5.) fit lyrics to solos by Parker and Gillespie, and Jack and Tom (Livornese) listened to many of their records. At Birdland they would scat together...' (MB, 185)

When one hears Kerouac reciting his own poetry on recordings, one hears this influence more clearly in his vocal rhythms - but it is also evident on the written page as he 'solos' using words to approximate an improvised jazz line. Vocalese was unsuccessful as a popular style beyond a certain period, apart from odd resurrections (and a certain influence on modern rap). (6.) I would submit that its influence in Kerouac's poetry is much more successful (and long-lasting). One can see how he intends the choruses to be read - blocks of lines in each stanza forming a rhythmic/melodic unit according to the flow of the line and the breath. Another parallel with Olson? As the latter said:

'... the sons of Pound and Williams... are composing as though verse was to have the reading its writing involved, as though not the eye but the ear was to be its measurer, as though the intervals of its composition could be so carefully put down as to be precisely the intervals of its registration.' (O, 394.)

Given the stress that I have made on Kerouac's interest in both the shape and freedom of the bop line and the sound of the new music, one can see a strong relationship being established between ear (as 'measurer'), voice and music. The African-American jazz and blues tradition is heavily concerned with instrumentalists 'vocalising' the instrumental line, and vocalists attempting to approximate the instrumental line. (7.) I would argue that this combined influence on Kerouac is vital: and I would further submit that one can see how he uses the text on the page to force the reader to hear the sound of the written poetry - to 'vocalise' the line. Towards the end of the poem, where he is straining to burst out beyond any linguistic restraints of conventional sense, privileging rhythm and sound instead, one can see this carried to the extremes that anticipate, in many ways, the coming revolution in jazz of the late fifties and early sixties:

'The poems in Mexico City Blues were bound together less by theme than by Kerouac's internal speech rhythms. At some points, as in the 217th Chorus, they become pure sound.' (CH, 200-201.)

One could say that the extent to which Kerouac is successful in his textual strategy can be measured by the extent to which the reader will be a sympathetic 'sounding board' for his poetry, the way that the text leads the reader to 'sound' it - either out loud or sub-vocally. The late chorus, 250, demonstrates this:

     Moll the mingling, mixup
             All your mixupery,
     And mail it in one envelopey:
                 Propey, Slopey, Kree.
                 Motey, slottey, notty,
                 Potty, shotty, rotty, wotty,
                 Salty, grainy, wavey,
                 Takey, Carey, Andy
                         Sari Pari Avi Ava
                 Gava lava mava dava
                 Sava wava ga-ha-va
                 Graharva pharva
                     Dharma rikey rokkkk
                         Tokkkk sokkkk
                         Mrock, the Org
                         Of Old Pootatolato
                         England Ireland
                                   O
                             Sail to Sea
(MCB, 215)

In one sense, perhaps, ' Moll the mingling, mixup/All your mixupery,/And mail it in one envelopey,' is a textual summation of Kerouac's poetics, expressed in an almost child-like (and subversive) manner, 'Moll the mingling, mixup etc.' meaning to combine all the disparate and contradictory aspects and confusions thrown up by his improvisations, and send them headlong into the poem: 'mail it in one envelopey.' But rather than strive for a conventional textual reading here, in the awareness of the caveat that Gerald L. Bruns offers on this subject: '... improvisations are always incitements to interpretation, with mixed and unimpressive results...' (8.) I would suggest that Kerouac is improvising and 'scatting' around the sounds and rhythms that his text is generating, and attempting to notate this movement of sound down on the page for the reader to participate in the process. Thus, one gets successions of words that change internally through consonantal and vowel movement but retain the rhyme in an overlapping series, starting with 'Propey Slopey' - a long 'o,' and Kree - a long 'e.' 'Motey' retains the long 'o' and gives the 't' sound that will be re-iterated as the 'o' contracts, in the series 'slottey, nottey, notty,/Potty, shotty, rotty, wotty,/. 'Salty, grainy, wavey' starts another series, pivoting on the '-ty' of 'Salty,' which, although sounding with the short 'o' of the series preceding it, visually anticipates the coming long 'a' of 'grainy' that ends on 'Takey.' 'Carey' gives a different 'a' sound again, that will be transmuted into the broader 'a' of 'Sari Pari' etc. down to Dharma. This line produces sharper sounds, beginning with 'rikey,' of 'rokkk/Tokkk sokkkk/Mrockk.' This last series is expressed visually to produce an echo effect. The '-kkkk',s' give the impression of the after-resonations of a drum beat, a visual exercise in the rhythms of sound, a combination of eye and ear and a further demonstration of what I have termed the 'vocalised text,' or the 'sound on the page.' This is born out further by the sense of a long musical line unfolding that is given by the indentation starting at 'Propey,' with further rhythmic shifts within the section provided by the indents at 'Sari,' Dharma,' and 'Tokkkk.'

By its foregrounding of sound and rhythm, this chorus acts as an approximation of a drum solo, where the soloist lays out, letting the rhythms through to keep the momentum of the performance going. And a sign of weariness? However playful Kerouac's intent often is in such passages, the strain that the language is being subjected to, is signalled in line 1 of the next chorus, 216: 'Fuck, I'm tired of this imagery,' (MCB, 216A, 1) and again in the ending lines: 'I'm sick of this/misery poesy/flap Jean/Louis/Miseree.' (MCB, 216A, 21-24)

Nearing the end of the poem, Kerouac is forcing his 'bop poetics' to the point of overload.

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