It’s not too much to say that modern standup began with Leonard Schneider—or as he’s better known, Lenny Bruce. His jazz-inflected, free-associative style was perfectly suited to the abstract expressionist 50s; and his almost Freudian insistence on plumbing issues of the throbbing unchained id opened up vast new areas of comment for comedy. Religion, sex, the sanctity of the First Lady, Bruce never met a taboo he didn’t want to break.
His prime lasted only five years—1958-63—and like his contemporary Mort Sahl, Bruce never regained his balance after Kennedy was assassinated; his form of boundary-bashing needed strong and secure authority to push against. Maybe that’s why he never really made an effort to connect with the hippies. Though the counterculture was ready to welcome Lenny with open arms, Bruce wasn’t interested, instead determined to convince one middle-aged judge after another that he was a serious cultural commentator, not just a dirty comic.
The sad thing is, if he’d managed to stay alive the issue would’ve solved itself, and the respect he craved would’ve come to him. He would’ve ended up on a postage stamp. Instead, Bruce was dead from an overdose at only 40 years of age. But comedy would never be the same, in style or content. Unfortunately, like the jazz musicians he felt so connected to, Bruce’s genuine artistic breakthroughs came with the romantic ideal of comedian as drug martyr; from Bruce to Belushi to Hedberg, this idea has taken a terrible toll in the decades since.
Today, Lenny Bruce appears more frequently a piece of cultural shorthand—for comedic outrageousness, a live-fast-die-young lifestyle, or government repression of free speech—than as a comedian. A lot of his material, being topical, does show its age. Still, the stuff below is a great starting point for anyone interested in this American original, and the art form he transformed.
Audio:
Carnegie Hall concert (1961): Part 1 • Part 2 • Part 3 • Part 4 • Part 5 • Part 6 • Part 7
Routine: “Airplane Glue”
Routine: “How To Relax Your Colored Friends at Parties”
Routine: “The Meaning of Obscenity”
Routine: “Adolf Eichmann”
Video:
Song: “All Alone” (Steve Allen Show, 1958)
The Lenny Bruce Performance Film (1965): Part 1 • Part 2 • Part 3 • Part 4 • Part 5 • Part 6 • Part 7
Biography:
Ladies and Gentlemen, Lenny Bruce!!! by Albert Goldman
