In this wise, stimulating, and deeply personal book, an eminent jazz chronicler writes of his encounters with four great black musicians: Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry, Milt Hinton, and Nat "King" Cole. Equal parts memoir, oral history, and commentary, each of the main chapters is a minibiography, weaving together conversations Gene Lees had with the musicians and their families, friends, and associates over a period of several decades.
Lees begins the book with an essay that tells of his introduction to the world of jazz and his reaction to racism in the United States when he emigrated...

The names of Nat Hentoff and Albert J. McCarthy have become almost synonymous with jazz writing. Hentoff, editor of Jazz Review, writer for Downbeat, High Fidelity, New Yorker, and theVillage Voice, and McCarthy, editor of Jazz Monthly, have raised jazz beyond mere appreciation and discography to a subject which demands the rigorous application of musicological, sociological, and historical analysis. In addition to their own contributions, the twelve articles they have commissioned by internationally noted critics and scholars provide almost revolutionary...

The last few years have witnessed an enormous resurgence in the popularity of jazz, after some lean times in the sixties when many potential jazz fans turned to rock. Now the pendulum is on the backswing, and vintage and modern jazz as well as "jazz rock" are attracting huge new audiences. One factor involved in the comeback of jazz among blacks and whites alike is the rise of black consciousness, with its search for roots in the American experience. Nat Hentoff's The Jazz Life explores the social, economic, and psychological elements that make up the context of modern jazz. Among the...

Since 1934, the Village Vanguard in New York's Greenwich Village has hosted the foremost in live jazz, folk music, and comedy. Its owner, Max Gordon, has now written a personal history of his club and the hundreds of entertainment legends who have played there. Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Lenny Bruce, Woody Allen, Woodie Guthrie, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Josh White, Pete Seeger--Max has stories about all of them. And what stories As Nat Hentoff says in his introduction, "A good many so-called professional writers have not done nearly so well."

As Nat Hentoff says, "Hearing Bix for the first time was like waking up to the first day of spring." Bix has always inspired such acclaim, for he was an unmatched master of the cornet. Ralph Berton was privileged enough to have been a fan--and younger brother of Bix's drummer--just as Beiderbecke's genius was flowering, before he died in 1931 at age twenty-eight. Listening from behind the piano, tagging along to honky-tonks and jam sessions, Berton heard some of the most extraordinary music of the century, and he brings Bix and his era alive with a remarkable combination of the excitement of...

Here is Nat Hentoff's deeply felt exploration of jazz, blues, country, and gospel--and the musicians who bring the music to life. Hentoff has not only loved music all his life, he has lived it by being friends with many of the musicians he writes about in this collection. Hentoff poignantly describes the early days of Roy Eldridge and the last years of Billie Holiday and Bird. He tells amazing stories of the Count, Duke, and Dizzy. "Full of insightful behind-the-scenes encounters" (San Francisco Chronicle), Listen to the Stories covers new recordings and old legends, remarkable...

From the Bill of Rights, freedom of speech, and civil rights to jazz, blues and country music, Nat Hentoff has written about American life for decades, in the Atlantic Monthly, the New Yorker, the Village Voice, the Wall Street Journal, and JazzTimes, among countless other publications. The New York Times has hailed Hentoff's work as "an invigorating and entertaining reminder of why freedom of expression matters." The Washington Post Book World has called Hentoff "an old-fashioned music lover who likes, as Charlie Parker once put it, 'to...

Writing in a passionate and streetwise style all his own, Nat Hentoff transports us into the diverse worlds of musicians that hold one thing in common: America. In over sixty pieces Hentoff has assembled a mosaic that creates a vivid picture of the music scene as it leaps into the twenty-first century. From sweeping surveys of the roots of American music to vivid assessments of individual performers (including John Coltrane, Billie Holiday, Joe Williams, Doc Pomus, Duke Ellington, Willie Nelson, and many more) Hentoff demonstrates once again why he is lauded as "a critic par excellence"...

Who would have believed that The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn could cause the worst crisis in the history of George Mason High School? Certainly not Barney Roth, editor of the school paper. But when a small but vocal group of students and parents decide that the book is racist, sexist, and immoral--and should be removed from reading lists and the school library--Barney takes matters into his own hands.

When the Huck Finn issue comes up for a hearing, Barney decides to print his story about previous censorship efforts at school. He's sure that investigative reporting and...

Nat Hentoff is one of America's most passionate and prominent writers about civil liberties and civil rights. In Living the Bill of Rights, he has taken what is too often thought of as an abstract issue and enlivened it by focusing on representative individuals for whom the Constitution is a vital part of life. As the late Supreme Court Justice William Brennan told Hentoff, Americans need to know how "American liberties were won--and what it takes to keep them alive." With characteristic eloquence, Hentoff covers the full range of American life in these inspiring profiles and stories...