Upcoming on Hilobrow: Proto-Punk

I’m very excited to have a short piece on Ornette Coleman in this upcoming online series at hilobrow.com about “proto-punk records from the Sixties (1964–1973).” And what a lineup of contributors, including Stephanie Burt, Jonathan Lethem, Lucy Sante, and Mike Watt. When I was invited to contribute, my initial idea was to write about “Excursion on a Wobbly Rail” by jazz pianist Cecil Taylor, because I’d read that its title was used by the Velvet Underground’s Lou Reed as the name of his radio show on WAER 88.3 FM (at Syracuse University in New York), but that track wasn’t in any evident way “punk,” and it came out too early to slot into this Hilobrow conceit (1959 — it closed out his Taylor’s sophomore record as a leader, Looking Ahead!). I’d also read about Reed’s affection for Ornette Coleman around the same time, and then this track came to mind. My piece will be out in maybe a couple months?