The Horn

by John Clellon Holmes

John Clellon Holmes reflects on the history of jazz in this classic novel. Edgar Pool is "The Horn," the hero, and the man who helps change the face of American music. He becomes the legend whose triumphant and tragic career is reconstructed through the memories of his friends and lovers.

Genres: Fiction, Music, Literature, Jazz, Novels, Cult Classics

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

John Clellon Holmes, born in Holyoke Massachusetts, was an author, poet and professor, best known for his 1952 novel Go. Go is considered the first "Beat" novel, and depicted events in his life with friends Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady and Allen Ginsberg. He was often referred to as the "quiet Beat," and was one of Kerouac's closest friends. He also wrote what is considered the definitive jazz novel of the Beat Generation, The Horn.

Holmes was more an observer and documenter of beat characters like Ginsberg, Cassidy and Kerouac than one of them. He asked Ginsberg for "any and all information on your poetry and your visions" (shortly before Ginsberg's admission into hospital) saying that "I am interested in knowing also anything you may wish to tell... about Neal, Huncke, Lucien in relation to you..." (referring to Herbert Huncke and Lucien Carr), to which Ginsberg replied with an 11-page letter detailing, as completely as he could, the nature of his "divine vision".

The origin of the term beat being applied to a generation was conceived by Jack Kerouac who told Holmes "You know, this is really a Beat Generation." The term later became part of common parlance when Holmes published an article in The New York Times Magazine entitled "This Is the Beat Generation" on November 16, 1952 (pg.10). In the article Holmes attributes the term to Kerouac, who had acquired the idea from Herbert Huncke. Holmes came to the conclusion that the values and ambitions of the Beat Generation were symbolic of something bigger, which was the inspiration for Go.

Later in life, Holmes taught at the University of Arkansas, lectured at Yale and gave workshops at Brown University. He died of cancer in 1988, 18 days after his 62nd birthday.

Reviews

[Theo Logos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chalk upon the unfeeling iron of the subway wall, “The Horn still blows,” in grave, anonymous hand. And you will have another hero soon, America. What matter that sometimes he hated you, and that, like all your heroes, he fell so far?

John Clellon Holmes penned the first Beat novel, Go — a Roman à clef that introduced Kerouac, Ginsberg, and company as characters before any of their work was published. So it’s little surprise, considering how closely the Beats identified and were influenced by jazz, that Holmes also wrote one of the greatest of all jazz novels. The Horn chronicles the tragic downfall of Edgar Pool, a maverick jazz saxophonist (nicknamed The Horn) who missed his time by being ahead of it.

Holmes prose is dense and complex, like a jazz composition. The book starts out slowly, and it took me a few chapters to really get invested in it. But when my ear adjusted to the dense prose rhythms he was using, I was totally captivated by this tragic tale. It is, by far, the best fictionalized story of the jazz scene as it transitioned into the bebop era — a genuine masterpiece.

[Kristin Fouquet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Art in Evolution

In my childhood, it was customary for my parents to bring my brother and me to the French Market on Sundays to buy our weekly produce. It was on one of these occasions I heard the most amazing music. The song emitted through a radio owned by the man selling Creole tomatoes. I lingered to listen until my mother called for me. When I caught up, I asked about that music. Her reply, “Just jazz.” Despite being native to New Orleans, I wasn’t brought up in a household with jazz. It was up to me to learn the musicians and the songs- from trad jazz onward. Jazz became my favorite music.

Ten years ago, at the recommendation of the much-respected Carter Monroe, I read The Horn by John Clellon Holmes. It had such a deep effect on me, I recently decided to pick it up for another read. I’m so glad I did.

The Horn is considered the definitive jazz novel, so my humble opinion of it will hardly drive up sales. Yet, after rereading it, I was reminded of what impressed me a decade ago. Beyond the imaginative plot and poetic prose, is the cleverly crafted structure. The book itself is a song- consisting of alternating chapters of choruses and riffs. Each chorus offers a different musician’s viewpoint into the protagonist and his or her history with him. Every riff continues the present day into evening. I believe the literary first names of both horn players- the aged protagonist, Edgar, and his young challenger, Walden- are deliberately symbolic. Holmes was brilliantly observing how jazz has its own evolution much like literature has its own- proving The Horn is more than “just jazz.”

[Arthur Cravan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd give it 4.5 if I could, but since it's too hard to actually point out any flaws right now, let the homie round up. Great book, I'm impressed by Holmes & will be checking him out further. Real out there Wu-Tang cat slang.

[Lara Corona · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book ever written by the Beats.

[Roy McKenzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Blow!!!

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This review originally published in Looking For a Good Book. Rated 4.5 of 5

There have been changes in the jazz music scene and Edgar Pool (nicknamed "The Horn" by the young cats) has straddled a couple of the big changes, all the while staying true to his own sound. But jazz is more than just a sound - it's a way of life. The music, the booze, the drugs, and of course the women ... Edgar pushed the limits on all of these. For a man out of time (or perhaps ahead of his time), life is lonely.

This book is an exceptional example of capturing a mood. There's a story here and it's a depressing story, and the tone of the book hovers throughout. It starts with the opening sentence and never lets up.

Consider that it was four o’clock of a Monday afternoon, and under the dishwater-gray window shade—just the sort of shade one sees pulled down over the windows of cheap hotels fronting the sooty elevateds of American cities where the baffled and the derelict loiter and shift their feet—under this one shade, in the window of a building off Fifty-third Street on Eighth Avenue in New York, the wizened October sun stretched its old finger to touch the dark, flutterless lids of Walden Blue, causing him to stir among sheets a week of dawntime lying down and twilight getting up had rumpled.
Opening this book is like traveling back in time and walking through the 1940's. Author John Clellon Holmes captures the gritty back-alleys, the sounds, the language, I swear ... the smells, of the day.

I was pleasantly taken by surprise with this book (I wanted to read it because of the subject of jazz music, a passion of mine) and did a little research (ie: Google) on the author. I'd never heard of John Clellon Holmes before, and now I'm ashamed to even admit it. For those maybe in the same place as I was, Holmes was considered the first 'beat' novelist with his popular book, Go.

His contemporaries ... and friends ... were Jack Kerouc, Neal Cassady and Allen Ginsberg. Names in which I'm much more familiar and think of when I think of the Beat generation. Not surprisingly (to me) he was referred to as the "quiet Beat."

I've long been in search of a book that not only incorporate music as a theme in the story, but in which the writing itself is almost like a score. This book is the first time I feel that the writing is score-like. This book about jazz, reads like a jazz performance, full of riffs and solos and easy to get into and enjoy.

This was really powerful and I'm while I'm really glad to have read it, I want to know why this wasn't required reading in my college days!

Looking for a good book? The Horn by John Clellon Holmes is a classic from the Beat Generation and anyone interested in the Beat period of literature or jazz music should read this.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

[Chris Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Horn is a sad, sad, story. Mr. Holmes crafts one of the finest novels I have ever read. His ear for dialogue, his selection and order of words, his painful willingness to express what is true, and hard, and deep in America's soul and music, is perfect. I first heard about this book in Joel Dinerstein's fine book, The Origins of Cool in Postwar America, and would recommend reading his analysis before attempting this book. The Horn is Lester Young, and Geordie is Billie Holiday. I found it immensely helpful and sad to know that. There is mystery here to me. The copyright dates are 1953 and 1958, yet the final scenes portrayed here did not take place until 1959. Whatever the cause, this is fiction that is real and true.

[dimwig · Rating 4 out of 5]

when it hits it hits

[Alessandro Bortolozzi · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was difficult for me, and torturing

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Saw this in a bookstore years ago and decided to pick it up for real. OOP so I got a copy from Ebay.

Poor John Clellon Holmes, man. Best friends with Kerouac and the boys and no one knows anything about him. "The quiet beat" some call him. Maybe he was ok with that, and maybe he preferred it that way. Don't know. Just always sad when a writer's books are left to disappear.

It's definitely of it's time-- runon sentences, jamming in a ton of detail, throwing some words and terms around which don't necessarily need to be there. Thinly veiled portraits of what sure seems like Lester Young, Billie Holiday, and maybe Bird. Holmes was definitely there at the the time, seems to genuinely know and care about the music, so that's a plus.

And the concept is very appealing, at least to someone like me: each chapter is supposed to be inspired by a different canonical American author (Melville, Thoreau, Poe, etc.) who is supposed to correspond to the (semi-) fictional jazz musician. Love that.

But the execution left a LOT to be desired. Revise, refine, revisit your prose daddy-o, first thought best thought is for grandiloquent chumps.

The faults of the book shine brighter than the strengths. Doesn't have the thematic connections I was looking for, and it doesn't have much for the characterization of the people it's supposed to be about, the prose on a sentence by sentence level was a chore to slog through at times, which is a real shame given that he's writing about jazz, the most lithe and graceful and flowing and precise of musical forms.

[Federico · Rating 5 out of 5]

Words here are spread like notes coming out of a tenor sax. Not easy to read for a foreigner but what a concert!!!!

[Alex McLean · Rating 5 out of 5]

How this book has avoided spotlight attention and critical acclaim is beyond me. Holmes’ ability to paint scenes of love, lust, longing, hurt, denial, euphoria, identity, and just about any other emotion/dilemma that can be expressed through jazz music is spellbinding.

The straightforward, monochromatic plot is given texture, tone, and colour by the characters which appear throughout this brief tale. In traditional Beat style, they are provided with pseudonyms to conceal the identities of their real life counterparts. Whether the reader is familiar with the jazz cats depicted or not is largely irrelevant; Holmes gives us his own interpretation, which is more than a good enough reason to care about them and their origins. The ways in which they are introduced and interact with one another seamlessly mirrors the collaborative nature of jazz music.

The key theme that I picked up on during my time with this novel is identity. The assimilation of jazz musicians and their instruments is illustrated in raw, unapologetically honest detail. No better is this explored than in the book’s key pro(or an?)tagonist: Edgar Pool, “The Horn”.

The extremes that each of these young individuals are prepared to go in an attempt to make a name for themselves in the hazy, drab, and bleak jazz bars of post-depression America is telling of the cut-throat scene of the time. Each character has stuck with me, even after taking some time to consolidate my thoughts about Holmes’ overlooked masterpiece.

What this book may lack in the ability to describe the intricacies of playing jazz music, it more than compensates for in its ability to provide a blunt, unfiltered snapshot into the origins of American music’s greatest export.

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed Holmes' book about the beats living in New York and this seems to be the only other book of his in print. This was a story a night in the life of an old alcoholic jazz musician. It felt more literary than beat, despite the long sentence prose. Even without knowing much Jazz the story was still great. Drunken musicians are the same whatever the genre. Disillusioned, imitated, wanting to give up, visionary and fed up. The story follows the main character, the Horn, through one night, but it also focuses in on the people he meets and their back stories. The woman jazz singer who was taken out of the South became a junkie but then got clean, was I think the most interesting. But it was also interesting to see the different takes on racism, and what living in different parts of the US, and belonging to different subcultures affected that. There was a feeling of jazz bringing blacks and whites together, so it was possible for the white people to respect the black men, but it also came across that even in that setting the white men still viewed the black women as exotic creatures. It was all very interesting, enjoyable and well written. It seemed to hold a lot of insights and truths. Though there felt like something was missing, that it was almost too cleverly constructed to be as honest as it was trying to be. Like maybe there was too much put in together. But definitely worth reading anyway.

[Anders · Rating 4 out of 5]

It stems from legendary jazz musician's lives; Lester Young, Billie Holiday et al. What I got from it most prominently was the insatiability of outdoing others, and yourself. Pool ends up living the way the reader might see it, in order to play soulful music with fullness and honesty when you live a victimized and self-victimizing life, well the frame keeps growing larger with more time passed in a tough life. Harshness and truth sometimes go hand in hand. Scarred hearts and abused/abusive minds too. A fascinating read about a dark trajectory schooling the young to earn their place, and yet have no satisfaction in sight.... what is the quest?

[Jon]

Harrowing novel about a troubled jazz musician, based largely on the real-life troubles of Lester Young and Charlie Parker. One scene, where the protagonist's onstage shenanigans lead the bass player to apologize to the audience, saying "This has nothing to do with jazz, these people are sick!" was derived from a real-life incident involving Parker and Charles Mingus. Some editions include a well-written introduction by modern jazz master Archie Shepp (he does misuse the word "oeuvre", but let's not split hairs), who says he couldn't tell whether Holmes was black or white after reading this novel. (White is the correct answer.)

[David Rullo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sadly, I could not get through this book. Unlike Go, I felt the story was flat and disjointed. It moved slowly and I struggled to maintain my interest through the first 4 or 5 chapters. I would recommend "But Beautiful" to anyone that wanted to read stories centered on jazz and virtually any other book from any other beat writer if you are just starting to read beat authors.

John Clellon Holmes can write, and at times his turn of the phrase is worthwhile, mostly though this book is more forgettable than memorable.

[Hannah Ianniello · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, it's a harsh take on the Jazz life, but I like the links with literary figures as well as real jazz musicians. It has a tragic feel, but it is hard to like Poole... though I guess once you learn of his past he becomes more forgivable. Classic example of the jazz life narrative. Some over-done moments, but still worth checking out if you like jazz fiction or beat fiction.

[ANIOTUS Marcus Longmuir · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jazz by the horn is the ability to find the next piece of life. No set goals, just destinations to reach and if there is a slight switch in pacing, so be it. Going where the money may be is no guarantee of riches, but the connections made between musicians are a tangible bond.

[Tad Richards · Rating 5 out of 5]

Flat out, the best novel ever written about jazz. Still the champion after all these years.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this book, structured like a song, it was a song to the great American Jazz Musician, and a man battling his demons, this should be required reading for any hipster, Kevin

[Wendy · Rating 5 out of 5]

self contained treasure.

[João · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Fantastic Book, it drags a bit on Geordie's Chapter, but the rest flows clean and always with a very strong feel to it