Blowin' Hot and Cool: Jazz and Its Critics

by John Gennari

Book Overview

In the illustrious and richly documented history of American jazz, no figure has been more controversial than the jazz critic. Jazz critics can be revered or reviled--often both--but they should not... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226289222
• ISBN13: 9780226289229
• Release Date: June 2006
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 494 Pages
• Weight: 0.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.4" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Favorable

As a jazz enthusiast I am interested in its perceived position in the culture, as interpreted by contemporary critics. My own interest in jazz and in most subjects is regretably mostly enjoyed on a visceral level. I do not have the fortitude or drive to research jazz criticism the way Mr. Gennari has done, so was delighted to find he did. "En passant" I am still waiting for Gunther Schuller's orginally promised sequel to his book on Swing. It ended with bebop taking hold in the mid'40's but also the author's clear intention to cover Charlie Parker's muscianship in detail in the next book. However, the massive silence on any publication date for that tome implies it aint ever going to happen, even in partial form. That means I will not have the pleasure of following the Bird on the page and so learn more, to enjoy more, when I next listen to that maestro. But, I digress. I see a lot of unfavorable reviews on "Blowin'Hot and Cool" but feel there is insufficient appreciation of the scholarily and rigorous approach Mr Gennari took with his subject. First without this book we would not have an objective record of jazz critcism within the American culture. As a person myself forever reacting cerebrally to the different individual musicians and their approach, I entirely lack any musical education. Even to try tapping out a good sympathetic beat sets my son's ears on edge. None the less , this book was a mine of critical history without any of the intellectual or pretentious snobbery with which much jazz criticism has been written. I can appreciate some readers may feel a few sections of the book were a little dense, but I took that as the author doing his level best to carefully and faithfully portray the subject's motives. To my mind that book exactly fitted how a writer's work should be "scientifically" examined, that is, agnostically. Laying out in background what the state was of the particular art at the time the subject writer wrote. I think the psychology of the writer Mr. Gennari is writing about, as expressed in their work, should stand unemcumbered by insertions of slings and arrows by later pundits whose ability to critique another's work comes only from the hindsight of new research. Here is an exagerrated and made up piece of criticism to illustrate my point. " While Freud did keep up to date with his psychiatric peers he was, of course, unable to read our contemporary practioners. Had he been in a position to study Stephen Hawkins in particular. I think it would be true to say Freud would have completely rejected his own and Jung's work, on dream interpretation, as completely false in 1913. Instead he would have researched string theory and discovered five new dimensions. So Freud is to be discounted for his failure to carry out proper scientific analysis of his theories and thus for holding back critical thinking by 100 years." However juicy the target is for the latter day critic I think Mr. Gennari was true to all the people he wr

Jazz Critics' Critic

Mr. Gennari spent many years writing this extremely well documented book, one that needed to be written. Generally he is on the mark with his history of and comments about most of the major critics who've written about "America's classical music." He spends the bulk of his time on the expected figures, including Rudi Blesh, Leonard Feather, Nat Hentoff, Martin Williams, Whitney Balliett, Ralph Ellison, Dan Morganstern, Stanley Crouch, and Albert Murray, but the amount of space devoted to John Hammond, who, although a major player as talent scout and record producer for jazz of the 1930s and 1940s, is not a name that rolls off one's lips as a critic. Gennari's one major misstep is the section in which he features Ross Russell and Albert Goldman. Russell, the owner of Dial Records who recorded some of Charlie Parker's greatest sessions, write a novel based upon Parker's life and a full blown biography as well. Both efforts remain highly controversial and hardly qualify Russell for as much attention as he receives here. And Goldman, another controversial writer best known for sensational bigraphies of Lennie Bruce and Jim Morrison is at best a marginal figure as a jazz critic. In spite of that one major lapse, a highly recommended study of jazz criticism.

Like Dancing About Architecture

Thelonius Monk once said that writing about music is like dancing about architecture. If you nevertheless enjoy reading about jazz as much as listening to it, this is a great read. On the other hand, if you think jazz critics are a bunch of navel-gazing wannabes who use music as a platform to expound their pet social or political views, you may yet find this book interesting. It's not a breezy book by any means, but Gennari succeeds in not getting caught up in academic discourse-speak. "Liminal" appears only once, books and magazines aren't "texts," and they're read, not "interrogated." Whew! Gennari starts with Leonard Feather and John Hammond, two critics with serious conflict of interest issues, both from a business perspective and from the standpoint of their strong social beliefs. Feather largely overcame his, while Hammond gave in to his temptation to judge a record by whether its label allowed unions in its pressing plants. Genneri spends much of his book focusing on the post WWII critics: Martin Williams, Nat Hentoff, Ralph Gleason, Gene Lees, Whitney Balliett and Marshall Sterns. He devotes a chapter to the radicals Amiri Baraka and Frank Kofsky and closes out with the new kids, Stanley Crouch, Gary Giddins and Albert Murray. There are some odd digressions: the cult of the (mostly British) record collectors; the Newport Jazz festival; Dial records producer and author Ross Russell's posthumous obsession with Charlie Parker. There is something of a leftward slant. While the radical leftists such as Baraka and Kofsky are dismissed when they eventually wander away from music criticism for pure politics, Baraka is taken seriously for his work up to about 1964-65. On the other hand, hard conservatives such as Richard Sudhalter and James Lincoln Collier simply get the back of the hand. Gennari doesn't wear his politics on his sleeve, however; up to the last chapter you really have to read between the lines to get a sense of his drift. There is, however, a blast near the end when he slams the conservatives for their assertion that jazz historians have inflated the role of black musicians and ignored whites. As I said above, this is a fascinating book for anyone who enjoys reading about jazz and an indispensable item for those interested in the history of jazz literature.

entertaining read

This is a very interesting book. The topic essentially concerns the perception and canonization of jazz among a select group of critics. This process of the canonization of jazz intersects with perennial questions about the nature of art, America, democracy, and race...lots of fuel, as you can see, and the author gets a lot of mileage from these questions. The book hits a few speed bumps along the way (I thought, for instance, that discussions about gender and jazz were stretched and the discussion of the psychosexual motivations of jazz collectors was overwrought). And the author's even tone throughout is lost at the end as he doesn't hide his contempt for certain 'conservative' critics But, overall, a very fine book and highly recommended.