ghost of miles Posted January 8, 2017 Report Share Posted January 8, 2017 Nat Hentoff's son Nick has posted via Twitter that his father has passed away at the age of 91. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjzee Posted January 8, 2017 Report Share Posted January 8, 2017 Very sad. RIP. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmitry Posted January 8, 2017 Report Share Posted January 8, 2017 91 is a great run. He was writing on constitutional issues until the very recent months. RIP. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duaneiac Posted January 8, 2017 Report Share Posted January 8, 2017 Not even a full week into the new year and the losses the jazz/music world suffered last year look likely to continue into this one. Mr. Hentoff certainly did his part in advocating for the music he loved (as well as other issues he considered important). May he Rest In Peace. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlhoots Posted January 8, 2017 Report Share Posted January 8, 2017 R.I.P. Hope I make it to 91. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidewinder Posted January 8, 2017 Report Share Posted January 8, 2017 RIP - His writings on jazz were some of the earliest I remember reading, in the notes to the old Prestige 24000 twofers series. Thought they were brilliant even then. Sad that he won't be around any more but the fine text lives on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GA Russell Posted January 8, 2017 Report Share Posted January 8, 2017 RIP. I liked him a lot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjzee Posted January 8, 2017 Report Share Posted January 8, 2017 Obituary in The New York Times. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
medjuck Posted January 8, 2017 Report Share Posted January 8, 2017 In one of his books he says that what he was most proud of in the jazz world was his contribution to the tv show "The Sound of Jazz". I was able to talk to him on the phone about it several months ago but he couldn't hear me very well and didn't really understand my questions. I'm happy I did get to speak to him and tell him how much I admired his jazz writings. (BTW One of the things I asked about was why Lester Young appears with the Basie band on The Sound of Jazz record but not on the tv show. My guess is that Lester was just not in good enough shape--he's sitting down during his great Fine and Mellow solo.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnS Posted January 8, 2017 Report Share Posted January 8, 2017 Sad news. Always worth reading. I havve a signed copy of his short novel "Call The Keeper". Not to be overlooked his Candid productions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soulpope Posted January 8, 2017 Report Share Posted January 8, 2017 R.I.P .... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brownie Posted January 8, 2017 Report Share Posted January 8, 2017 May he rest in peace. He deserves it... He died while listening to Billie Holiday! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyril Posted January 8, 2017 Report Share Posted January 8, 2017 R.I.P. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Friedman Posted January 8, 2017 Report Share Posted January 8, 2017 Very sorry to hear that Nat died. His writing about jazz was influential for me when I began to listen as a teenager. His Down Beat gig, his books, his writing on jazz for other publications, and as one of the founders of Candid Records, Hentoff was an important voice for jazz. Heard him speak once on constitutional issues at an American Civil Liberties Union conference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teasing the Korean Posted January 8, 2017 Report Share Posted January 8, 2017 When I was a teenager buying jazz albums from the cutout bins, I always loved finding liner notes by Nat Hentoff on a new purchase. I had no idea who he was, but I loved his writing, and I really felt like I was learning something. RIP. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Beat Steve Posted January 8, 2017 Report Share Posted January 8, 2017 1 hour ago, Teasing the Korean said: When I was a teenager buying jazz albums from the cutout bins, I always loved finding liner notes by Nat Hentoff on a new purchase. I had no idea who he was, but I loved his writing, and I really felt like I was learning something. RIP. More or less same here. In much the same way that Ira Gitler did he provided lots of interesting info on the back sleeves. RIP. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gmonahan Posted January 8, 2017 Report Share Posted January 8, 2017 "Hear Me Talkin to Ya" was one of the first jazz books I ever read, and I've enjoyed many a liner over the years. RIP. gregmo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Olie Brice Posted January 8, 2017 Report Share Posted January 8, 2017 "Hear Me Talkin' to Ya" is wonderful. And via Candid he played a major role in making some of the greatest albums in the history of the music happen - "charles mingus presents charles mingus", "out from", "freedom now", vital early Cecil Taylor and Steve Lacy... massive contribution Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul secor Posted January 8, 2017 Report Share Posted January 8, 2017 13 hours ago, brownie said: May he rest in peace. He deserves it... He died while listening to Billie Holiday! When you have to go, that's not a bad way to do it. Thank you for your writing over the years, Mr. Hentoff. I'll miss you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Gould Posted January 9, 2017 Report Share Posted January 9, 2017 And on a day when a Book Review publication declared they would boycott all Simon & Schuster imprints for the rest of the year to "protest" their signing of some author. Clearly we still need Nat Hentoff. RIP. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeweil Posted January 9, 2017 Report Share Posted January 9, 2017 19 hours ago, gmonahan said: "Hear Me Talkin to Ya" was one of the first jazz books I ever read, and I've enjoyed many a liner over the years. RIP. Same here, first the German edition, and later the original. I love his Candid productions. R.I.P. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Beat Steve Posted January 9, 2017 Report Share Posted January 9, 2017 3 hours ago, mikeweil said: Same here, first the German edition, and later the original. I love his Candid productions. R.I.P. Knew about the German translation but never saw it (it was OOP by the time I got into jazz) but bought a secondhand copy of the original UK printing in 1998 or so at a London secondhand bookseller - and reading it set the stage in an ideal way for Ira Gitler's "Swing To Bop" oral history that I bought not much later. Both desert-island reading matter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alankin Posted January 9, 2017 Report Share Posted January 9, 2017 Here is the obituary in the New York Times. (The link above is to the Times' post of the AP obit.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted January 9, 2017 Report Share Posted January 9, 2017 Seems to me that he ran out of things to say about jazz a while back, but what he said until then remains notable. And as noted by all, his other endeavors were, and remain, notable and significant. And some of the most WTF! eye opening stuff I've ever heard has been his announcements on the very early Brubeck/Storyville bootlegs. He's downright silly (and somewhat intentionally), and it's a hoot! RIP to somebody who never stopped being engaged with life. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Beat Steve Posted January 9, 2017 Report Share Posted January 9, 2017 1 hour ago, JSngry said: Seems to me that he ran out of things to say about jazz a while back, but what he said until then remains notable. ... RIP to somebody who never stopped being engaged with life. This reminds me of the changes that underwent our national #1 jazz scribe, "jazz pope" Joachim Ernst Berendt - only that his engagement with life later on turned out to be a very special one when he went all esoteric. As for Hentoff, maybe time to revisit the archives of his "Jazz Review" on the Jazz Studies site again? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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