|
||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
Larkin's Jazz Essays And Reviews 1940-84  Philip
LarkinContinuum, 2001 Paperback. 202pp £12.99 In bringing all these pieces newly together, Larkin's Jazz is not only a valuable addition to Larkin scholarship but also an illuminating corrective to all those who regard him as a jazz reactionary. While his deepest loves were Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke and figures of that early vintage, this collection shows that he enjoyed later jazz more than he frequently pretended and was much more incisive about it than many have allowed. Larkin once wrote that "A critic is only as good as his ear"; Larkin's Jazz offers decisive evidence of just how good his own ear was and how durable and penetrating his judgements have proved to be. PHILIP LARKIN (1922-1985), poet, novelist and jazz critic, is regarded as one of the most distinguished British writers of the twentieth century. His collections of poetry include The Less Deceived (1955), The Whitsun Weddings (1964) and High Windows (1974). Larkin's Jazz complements his collected record reviews, All What Jazz (1970). Philip Larkin was made a Companion of Honour in 1985. RICHARD PALMER is Head of English at Bedford School, an ISI Schools Inspector and a consultant for NatWest Bank. A regular reviewer and essayist for Jazz Journal International, he is the author of two chapters in the forthcoming Masters of Jazz Saxophone, edited by Dave Gelly, and of critical monographs on Oscar Peterson (1984), Stan Getz (1988) and Sonny Rollins (1998). He is currently on work at Deceptions: The Work of Philip Larkin, due to appear in 2002. JOHN WHITE is Reader in American History at the University of Hull. In 1998 he delivered the Emmy Parrish Lectures in American Studies at Baylor University, Texas. His previous publications include Billie Holiday: Her Life and Times (1987), Black Leadership in America: From Booker T Washington to Jesse Jackson (1985; revised edition 1990) and Artie Shaw: Non-Stop Flight (1998). He is co-editor of Americana: Essays in Memory of Marcus Cunliffe (1998). His essay Kansas City, Pendergast and All That Jazz received the Arthur Miller American Studies Prize in 1992. He is currently working on a study of the reputation of Martin Luther King, Jr. |
|
|
||||||||||||
|
© Jazzscript 2002 Wendover Bookshop, 35 High Street, Wendover, Bucks, United Kingdom HP22 6DU tel / fax: +44 (0)1296 696204 | email |
Philip
Larkin's reputation as a writer on jazz has so far hinged almost exclusively
on All What Jazz, which collects the 126 record-review columns
he wrote for the Daily Telegraph between 1961 and 1971. That volume
is chiefly famous - amongst jazz afficionados and Larkin's more general
readership alike - for the provocative and often misunderstood polemic
essay that forms its introduction. However, he wrote frequently elsewhere
on jazz - for the Observer, Guardian, New Statesman
and such journals as American Scholar. There is also some further
Telegraph work that was not included in All That Jazz.