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Nat Hentoff

Nat Hentoff is an NEA Jazz Master

"Since I was eleven years old, I have been nurtured by the life force of jazz musicians. Deeply honored as I am by this award, it could not have come to me but for these creators of this quintessential American language that has become international. As the Constitution – very much including its Bill of Rights – is the orchestration of our liberties, jazz is 'The Sound of Surprise' that is the anthem of our freedom."

One of the major voices in jazz literature, Nat Hentoff wrote about and championed jazz for more than half a century, produced recording sessions for some of the biggest names in jazz, and wrote liner notes for many more. Through his work, he helped to advance the appreciation and knowledge of jazz. It was fitting that he was the first to receive the NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship for Jazz Advocacy.

Hentoff began his education at Northeastern University in Boston, his hometown, and went on to pursue graduate studies at Harvard University. As a graduate student, he hosted a local radio show and became immersed in the Boston jazz scene. In 1953, after completing a Fulbright Fellowship at the Sorbonne in Paris, he spent four years as an associate editor at DownBeat magazine, where he laid the foundation for a truly remarkable career as a jazz journalist. Hentoff was co-editor of Jazz Review from 1958 to 1961, and worked for the Candid label as A&R director from 1960 to 1961, producing recording sessions by jazz icons such as Charles Mingus, Cecil Taylor, and Abbey Lincoln.

His books on music include Jazz Country (1965), Jazz: New Perspectives on the History of Jazz by Twelve of the World's Foremost Jazz Critics and Scholars (with Albert J. McCarthy, 1974), Boston Boy: Growing Up with Jazz and Other Rebellious Passions (1986), Listen to the Stories: Nat Hentoff on Jazz and Country Music (1995), and American Music Is (2004). His work has appeared in such venerable publications as the New York Times, New Republic, JazzTimes, and New Yorker, where he was a staff writer for more than 25 years. In addition to his status as a renowned jazz historian and critic, Hentoff also was an expert on First Amendment rights, criminal justice, and education and wrote a number of books on these topics.

In 1980, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in education as well as a Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association for his coverage of the law and criminal justice.

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Beauty, Love and Justice: Living A Coltranian Life

Tender and Fierce Blessings: Malcolm, Coltrane and My Mentor Nat Hentoff

Read "Tender and Fierce Blessings: Malcolm, Coltrane and My Mentor Nat Hentoff" reviewed by Christine Passarella


Dear Nat, It has been awhile since I wrote. You are heavily on my mind. I must say I miss the ability to reach out to you when I had something magnificent to say about my Kids for Coltrane Project in Education. Sharing other positive news in education such as George Lucas's online magazine Edutopia and the amazing research coming out of Harvard's Project Zero was nourishing. Working out my personal deep frustration with certain aspects of the ...

16
Opinion

Hentoff helped pave way for jazz journalism’s acceptance

Read "Hentoff helped pave way for jazz journalism’s acceptance" reviewed by Jim Trageser


Nat Hentoff's passing last week left me feeling, well, old. Whenever we lose a mentor--a grandparent, a teacher, someone who encouraged us--it's a reminder of our own mortality, that we are, in the parlance of football coaches, the next ones up. I don't feel anywhere near to ready or worthy or capable of assuming even a sliver of Hentoff's prodigious mantle, and yet the only way to honor a mentor is take up their work and carry it ...

1,312
Interview

Nat Hentoff: The Never-Ending Ball

Read "Nat Hentoff: The Never-Ending Ball" reviewed by Ian Patterson


This interview was first published at All About Jazz on June 23, 2010. Nat Hentoff was eleven years old when, walking down the road one day in Boston, he heard music so exciting that he shouted with pleasure and ran into the shop to learn that the music was of clarinetist Artie Shaw. In that moment was born a love affair with jazz which has lasted seventy-four years thus far. At nineteen, Hentoff was hosting his own jazz ...

13
Opinion

A giant of jazz journalism silenced

Read "A giant of jazz journalism silenced" reviewed by Jim Trageser


Nat Hentoff was an old-school intellectual whose favorite topic—whose very touchstone—was, throughout his life, jazz. At one point in the 1990s, Hentoff—who passed of natural causes on Jan. 7—announced that he was giving up writing about jazz to focus on topics that seemed more critical—free speech and civil liberties, which he felt were under constant attack from all ends of the political spectrum. And while he continued to advocate for free speech and civil liberties for the rest ...

557
Book Review

At The Jazz Band Ball: Sixty Years On The Jazz Scene

Read "At The Jazz Band Ball: Sixty Years On The Jazz Scene" reviewed by Ian Patterson


At The Jazz Band Ball: Sixty Years On The Jazz Scene Nat Hentoff Hardcover; 246 pages ISBN: 978-0-520-26113-6 University California Press 2010 The photograph which adorns the jacket of Nat Hentoff's At the Jazz Band Ball: Sixty Years On The Jazz Scene--a collection of articles, interviews and reviews--couldn't be more appropriate. It depicts Louis Armstrong blowing his trumpet to the sky in an apparent state of rhapsody, ...

296
Book Review

Boston Boy: Growing Up with Jazz

Read "Boston Boy: Growing Up with Jazz" reviewed by Kyle Simpler


Boston Boy Nat Hentoff Paul Dry Books ISBN: 096796752X

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2

Obituary

Nat Hentoff (1925-2017)

Nat Hentoff (1925-2017)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Nat Hentoff, the dean of jazz essayists who in the 1950s applied modern feature-writing techniques to musicians who up until that point had been treated as little more than hip novelties by many trade journalists and print hacks, died of natural causes on Jan. 7. He was 91. As an intellectual, Nat was many things, including a critic, a civil libertarian, a writer keenly tuned into the Supreme Court and an unbridled champion of free speech and the U.S. Constitution. ...

Obituary

Nat Hentoff Is Gone

Nat Hentoff Is Gone

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey

Last night we lost Nat Hentoff, a defender of civil liberties and—notably, for this readership—a lifelong champion of jazz. He was 91. His son Nick reported that members of the family were nearby and a Billie Holiday record was playing when Hentoff died in his Greenwich Village apartment in New York. Influential as a jazz critic for DownBeat, the Village Voice and other publications, he was even better known for his books and columns explaining and defending First Amendment freedoms. ...

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Recording

Charles Mingus Complete 1960 Nat Hentoff Sessions (Solar Records, 2011)

Charles Mingus Complete 1960 Nat Hentoff Sessions (Solar Records, 2011)

Source: Music and More by Tim Niland

When the great bassist and composer Charles Mingus recorded the albums included in this collection for the Candid label in 1960 he was arguably at the peak of his powers. Beginning with the epochal album Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus that takes up most of disc one, he instructs the band to play a mock live set, recorded in an empty studio with a pianoless quartet featuring Eric Dolphy on alto saxophone and bass clarinet, Ted Curson on trumpet and ...

105

Radio

Riverwalk Jazz Interviews Nat Hentoff

Riverwalk Jazz Interviews Nat Hentoff

Source: Don Mopsick

Author and columnist Nat Hentoff is one of America's most revered commentators on jazz. This week on Riverwalk Jazz, host David Holt caught up with the 85-year-old at his home in Greenwich Village to talk about the people and personalities covered in his new book, At the Jazz Band Ball: Sixty Years on the Jazz Scene. Riverwalk Jazz is a weekly hour-long show distributed nationally by Public Radio International and heard on Sirius/XM's “Real Jazz" channel, as well as streamed ...

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Book / Magazine

Book: Nat Hentoff

Book: Nat Hentoff

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey

Nat Hentoff, At The Jazz Band Ball: Sixty Years On The Jazz Scene (U of California Press). Hentoff is our leading avatar of the proposition that jazz is a living expression of the principles embedded in the US constitution, of which he is also a scholar. He does not deal in technical analysis of music. He gives strong, informed opinions and tells stories about those he knew or knows intimately, among them Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane and Clark ...

78

Interview

Nat Hentoff on Dizzy Gillespie

Nat Hentoff on Dizzy Gillespie

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

"In the 1980s, there was to be a concert at Lincoln Center honoring [trumpeter] Dizzy Gillespie. He and a big band were, of course, to be at the center of the celebration. A few days before, I went to a rehearsal. Everyone was there except Dizzy. [Photo of Dizzy Gillespie in 1963] “No music was played. The only sounds were a bitter argument between Max Roach and Gerry Mulligan [pictured]. Each had some compositions on the program, and at the ...

115

Interview

Noted Author Nat Hentoff Interviewed at AAJ...And More!

Noted Author Nat Hentoff Interviewed at AAJ...And More!

Source: All About Jazz

Nat Hentoff was eleven years old when, walking down the road one day in Boston, he heard music so exciting that he shouted with pleasure and ran into the shop to learn that the music was of clarinetist Artie Shaw. In that moment was born a love affair with jazz which has lasted seventy-four years thus far. At nineteen, Hentoff was hosting his own jazz radio program, and by the age of twenty-eight he was an editor of Downbeat Magazine, ...

110

Book / Magazine

Nat Hentoff: At the Jazz Band Ball

Nat Hentoff: At the Jazz Band Ball

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Nat Hentoff and I talk often but usually in quick bursts, since we're both always chasing a deadline. What I love most about the dean of jazz journalism is his locomotive energy and kite-flying spirit. Nat, of course, penned some of the most insightful jazz essays and books of the post-war period, including Jazz Is, Listen to the Stories, Journey Into Jazz and Boston Boy. Each time I speak with Nat, I find him enormously optimistic, infectiously excited and ferociously ...

143

Interview

Interview: Nat Hentoff (Part 2)

Interview: Nat Hentoff (Part 2)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Nat Hentoff has some ear. To accurately capture the notes and quotes of jazz musicians over the past 60 years, Nat has employed a fast pen, a photographic memory and enormous sensitivity. Even today, Nat's deep voice resonates with hot-type urgency and a hard-boiled sense of purpose. Little distracts him from doing what's necessary to arrive at the truth, whether he's writing about jazz or the Constitution. Woe to those who call and cannot get to the point or interrupt ...

136

Interview

Interview: Nat Hentoff (Part 1)

Interview: Nat Hentoff (Part 1)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

By any measure, Nat Hentoff is a giant of jazz journalism. It's impossible to write about the music or interview jazz musicians today without thinking of Nat and the print trails he has blazed since the early 1950s. Before Nat, jazz writing consisted largely of publicists banging out pun-riddled notices and articles that had more in common with promotional copy than modern reporting. Growing up in Boston in the 1940s, Nat saw the enormous sensitivity and energy required to perform ...

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