Lenny Bruce: Let The Buyer Beware

Considering what an enormous impact Lenny Bruce had on modern social mores, satire, politics, and entertainment, it's surprising that a box set of his material didn't appear until nearly four decades after his 1966 death. LET THE BUYER BEWARE ... Full Descriptionpresents six discs' worth of Bruce at his best. Shockingly, it consists predominantly of previously unreleased recordings. For as much fine Bruce work as there is on previous releases, the mercurial, spontaneous nature of his art was such that even the performances that had fallen through the cracks, as on this set, were masterpieces in and of themselves.

Listening to Bruce's humanistic but uncompromising skewering of everything from legal and moral hypocrisy to jazz musicians and fellow comedians, it also becomes apparent how much craftsmanship actually went into his free-wheeling style. Many of the routines heard here exist in different forms on other Bruce albums, and comparisons reveal the masterful manner in which Bruce would branch off and experiment even within a predetermined framework. While some of the references may sound dated to 21st-century ears, the incisive themes and expert comic technique in abundance on LET THE BUYER BEWARE make it clear why Bruce remains an iconoclastic legend.Entertainment Weekly (p.180) - "[T]he definitive audio-biography of Bruce as a revolutionary craftsman and antic wit." Down Beat (pp.80-1) - 5 stars out of 5 - "Bruce challenged contentment, especially when polished in the gloss of hypocrisy. He spoke the language of jazz in his monologues, which were more like free-form satirical essays and psychodramas laced with Yiddish slang than standup bits."