Pete Kelly's Blues (1951, radio)

There's an episode of this famous Jack Webb radio program which provides perhaps my favorite short crime story of all time.

Written, produced, & aired in 1951, the series is set in 1927 (speakeasy era) in Kansas City, MO. Very easily downloaded from the Internet Archive.

It's filled with beatdowns, hoods, bootleggers, crap games, molls, nightclubs, machine-guns, gin, trumpets, and one-liners. Superb sound-effects, characterizations, dialog.

Its a 13 episode series which combines live jazz numbers, & perfectionist, hard-boiled, storytelling.

I'm pretty sure you've never heard anything like it; although it influenced numerous TV shows and movies. It became a 1955 movie and tv series in its own right.

Anyway, the format is perfect for today's headphone era. If you want to experience terse, economical narration, this is a gem.

Particularly calling out the bizarre tragedy titled 'June Gould'. This gruesome tale will make you choke down hard on your adam's apple. Just a gut-buster. I dare you to listen to it. Come back here and tell me what you think.

Helix said:

Perhaps you could put in a link.

Click to expand...

You're right; I hesitated because last night when I posted I couldn't remember this websites' overarching policy on links-to-other-sites. Sometimes moderators have special rules which apply to such things.
Anyway here it is:
(Main page)
https://archive.org/details/PeteKellysBlues
Five of the reputed thirteen installments are generally available. Webb plays a cornet blower in a band in a late-night speakeasy in KC (which was a jazz hotbed at the time).

And naturally things 'just happen' in such an environment. He's not a tough guy and he doesn't carry a gun. He just winds up in scrapes and has to solve his way out.

'Gould' is #4. Listen via the site or download to your own audio player of choice. Second favorite would be: the 'Trudeau' episode. #2.

It's a treat for jazz fans (as I am) because of the rare featured performers included in the story, who sometimes are cast as characters themselves, or as musicians in the clubs which form the setting of the tale. Jack Webb himself started out as a jazz DJ in San Francisco.

To me, this kind of thing blows audiobooks outta da water. Of course, these little sagas probably wouldn't read well as books--they are audio experiences. [The best short crime fiction I've ever read? Probably something by Hammett or Hemingway, ('The Killers' perhaps)]. But Webb was a perfectionist with his early radio series and these 30 minute radio plays are superb in their own way, for what they set out to do. The atmosphere they create and the period details. Extraordinary.

I'd certainly like to hear what you think. I found it a clinic in evocative, and flavorful, yet economical writing. That's the name of the game for many of us. I don't write prose, so I can't speak to that craft (I salute those of you who do write novels)...

p.s. this series 'just missed' being directly useful to me re: one of my projects. Since its set in the Roaring-Twenties, I get no more than personal amusement value from it. But one of my front-burner stories is a crime yarn set in Brooklyn in the fifties and sixties. And believe me, I'm making that one as authentic as possible. Scorcese fully shows how to go about that kind of thing.