This is an interview with Natt Hentoff, probably the leading Jazz critic alive today. Here are some gems.
On the influence of Jazz on him when he was growing up:
I started listening to jazz when I was about 11 years old, and that has been a basic part of my life ever since. I consider jazz a life force. Fortunately, because I was able to get the radio program, I got to know a lot of the musicians. We did remotes from the Savoy Café, which is where I spent most of my off time, and they would come up to the studio and I got to be friends with some of them, Rex Stewart, for example, and Duke Ellington was very kind. They were my teachers in the sense that, by contrast to the other adults I knew in school or in my family, these were people who, first of all, took risks every night. That was part of their vocation, and who therefore if were not irreverant, certainly were not obedient to authority, they were their own authority. They traveled a lot, so I learned a lot. They would come back from India or someplace and I would find out stuff I didn't see in the newspapers. Most of all what I learned, because even at Boston Latin School, where I spent six years, and which was a very prestigious public high school I knew very little about Jim Crow. Thus, I learned a lot from them because many had come from the south or had traveled from the south. So I would say my post-graduate education in my teenage years came primarily from jazz musicians.
On writing notes for John Coltrane's albums:
Every time I would call him, we would go through the same routine. I would say to him that Bob Thiele, president of Impulse Records, asked that I do the liner notes on your new album. John would replay by telling me he wished I wouldn't, because if the music doesn't speak for itself, what's the point? I would also say, "John, it's a gig…" He would say, ok, what do you want to know? He was a very kind man.
On how Jazz has changed:
What is missing now in terms of a family, as Phil said, is in those days you could get on a bus with a band and the old guys and the young guys would be there and you would keep learning from the old guys, both in conversation and later on on the bandstand. I think there is less of that now because there are fewer places like big bands and jam sessions where that kind of mixture would take place. But, for the public at large, insofar as if they cared about jazz at all, which was not very much, it did seem like an elite society, and a rather forbidding one. I even heard a jazz writer say the other day, "You know, it's complex music and it's hard to get into…" That's not true at all! If anything, if somebody has put that in your mind, I can see how that is difficult - but that's not the point. The point is you open yourself to it. I once asked Ellington, what do you hope for in a listener? He said the last thing I want from the listener is somebody who is going to analyze what we are doing. I want the listener to feel what we are doing and to become part of the music, without having to analyze it.
http://www.jerryjazzmusician.com/linernotes/nat_hentoff.html#John%20Coltrane
On the influence of Jazz on him when he was growing up:
I started listening to jazz when I was about 11 years old, and that has been a basic part of my life ever since. I consider jazz a life force. Fortunately, because I was able to get the radio program, I got to know a lot of the musicians. We did remotes from the Savoy Café, which is where I spent most of my off time, and they would come up to the studio and I got to be friends with some of them, Rex Stewart, for example, and Duke Ellington was very kind. They were my teachers in the sense that, by contrast to the other adults I knew in school or in my family, these were people who, first of all, took risks every night. That was part of their vocation, and who therefore if were not irreverant, certainly were not obedient to authority, they were their own authority. They traveled a lot, so I learned a lot. They would come back from India or someplace and I would find out stuff I didn't see in the newspapers. Most of all what I learned, because even at Boston Latin School, where I spent six years, and which was a very prestigious public high school I knew very little about Jim Crow. Thus, I learned a lot from them because many had come from the south or had traveled from the south. So I would say my post-graduate education in my teenage years came primarily from jazz musicians.
On writing notes for John Coltrane's albums:
Every time I would call him, we would go through the same routine. I would say to him that Bob Thiele, president of Impulse Records, asked that I do the liner notes on your new album. John would replay by telling me he wished I wouldn't, because if the music doesn't speak for itself, what's the point? I would also say, "John, it's a gig…" He would say, ok, what do you want to know? He was a very kind man.
On how Jazz has changed:
What is missing now in terms of a family, as Phil said, is in those days you could get on a bus with a band and the old guys and the young guys would be there and you would keep learning from the old guys, both in conversation and later on on the bandstand. I think there is less of that now because there are fewer places like big bands and jam sessions where that kind of mixture would take place. But, for the public at large, insofar as if they cared about jazz at all, which was not very much, it did seem like an elite society, and a rather forbidding one. I even heard a jazz writer say the other day, "You know, it's complex music and it's hard to get into…" That's not true at all! If anything, if somebody has put that in your mind, I can see how that is difficult - but that's not the point. The point is you open yourself to it. I once asked Ellington, what do you hope for in a listener? He said the last thing I want from the listener is somebody who is going to analyze what we are doing. I want the listener to feel what we are doing and to become part of the music, without having to analyze it.
http://www.jerryjazzmusician.com/linernotes/nat_hentoff.html#John%20Coltrane
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