Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)While inevitably much of this book is dated - it was written in 1961, as jazz was reaching a crest - that's also one of its strengths. Hentoff's account of the 1960 Newport Jazz Festival riots is fresh and indignant; his peek at recording dates by Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis (for Sketches of Spain!) are fascinating; and though his profiles of Mingus and Davis don't reveal any surprises, the ones for Count Basie, John Lewis, and Ornette Coleman are engrossing. It's too bad that the prediction he made in the new introduction from the 70s that rock n' roll fans would turn to jazz in disillusionment never came to happen.
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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 jazz greats whose lives and work are discussed are Count Basie, Charles Mingus, John Lewis, Miles Davis, Thelonius Monk, and Ornette Coleman. Written with intelligence, passion, and wit, this jazz classic is of immense importance to anyone wanting a better understanding of the jazz-or indeed our American life.
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