I read this review a couple of Sundays ago, and couldn't understand why anyone with any intelligence would care what Philip Larkin thought about John Coltrane's music. Judging from the review, it doesn't seem that the reviewer has any familiarity with Coltrane's music - at least he doesn't offer any opinions/ideas of his own, preferring to parrot Larkin and Ratliff - and used Larkin's opinions as an easy way to open and close his review.
One would think that The Times could have done better, but, these days, that's obviously not the case. It seems that book review sections and newspapers themselves are dying. That's a sad thing - at least to my mind - but it appears that it's suicidal, in addition to the other factors involved.