Hentoff covers the big-band and bebop eras with style and grace, providing insights into the lives and work of such greats as Duke Ellington, Billie Holliday, Louis Armstrong, and Charlie Parker. Anyone with even a passing interest in jazz music will appreciate this collection of essays (most previously published in the Wall Street Journal) on its luminaries. Aficionados, especially, will value the discographic information included. A "less is more" thread runs throughout the book: Dizzy Gillespie, for instance, says, "It's taken me most of my life to figure out which notes not to play." Hentoff (Free Speech for Me But Not for Thee, 1992, etc.) takes his cue from these efficient, economical musicians. Most essays run two to three pages, but Hentoff finds a key phrase, his own or another's, to nail down an elusive personality. John Coltrane comments, after a set with Thelonious Monk, "I lost my place...and it was like falling down an open elevator shaft." And the author himself writes that alto and soprano saxophonist Johnny Hodges "looked on the bandstand as if he were figuring out his tax returns." Most readers will be surprised to learn that there was a swinging big band composed entirely of women, the Sweethearts of Rhythm, active from 1937 to 1948. And that Bing Crosby — surprisingly hailed by Hentoff as a great jazz singer — opposed the war in Vietnam. Politics figures in other ways as well: There are a few accounts of playing the south during the Jim Crow era. Throughout, Hentoff treats his subjects with great respect. But his outright disdain for "free jazz" and most of its young, living practitioners limits the scope of these essays. The country music section is too brief to do that genre justice. Hentoff combines a fan's passion, a scholar's mind, and a poet's sensibility to illuminate one of the most elusive and distinctly American phenomena-jazz musicians and their music.
Pub Date: April 12, 1995
ISBN: 0306809826
Page Count: 224
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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