Midnight Concert - Lenny Bruce

How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Well, first you take a flight to Boston, then you try to charter a flight. On February 4, 1961, Lenny Bruce battled the elements to make it back to New York in time for his midnight Carnegie Hall show. During the first part of the Midnight Concert show, Bruce free-forms about his trip, the weather, and the acoustics of Carnegie Hall. Later on he goes into more serious matters, like a kidnapping, communism and the flag, homosexuality, and, most controversially, what would happen if Christ and Moses showed up in modern-day New York. You can definitely hear the parts of Bruce's style that influenced George Carlin in this performance, especially in the section dealing with homosexuality and the goofing around with the microphone early in the set. Despite the mostly unstructured format of this performance, it's still pretty coherent, a nice side benefit of this being recorded in the early '60s instead of his later, more rambling years. It's worth noting that this (very short) release was taken from the same concert that was later released in an extended form as The Carnegie Hall Concert; if you own that album, this one won't give you anything you don't already have. ~ Sean Carruthers, All Music Guide