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Young Man with a Horn
Rick Martin loved music and the music loved him. He could pick up a tune so quickly that it didn’t matter to the Cotton Club boss that he was underage, or to the guys in the band that he was just a white kid. He started out in the slums of LA with nothing, and he ended up on top of the game in the speakeasies and nightclubs of New York. But while talent and drive are all you need to make it in music, they aren’t enough to make it through a life.
Dorothy Baker’s Young Man with a Horn is widely regarded as the first jazz novel, and it pulses with the music that defined an era. Baker took her inspiration from the artistry—though not the life—of legendary horn player Bix Beiderbecke, and the novel went on to be adapted into a successful movie starring Kirk Douglas, Lauren Bacall, and Doris Day.
Dorothy Baker’s Young Man with a Horn is widely regarded as the first jazz novel, and it pulses with the music that defined an era. Baker took her inspiration from the artistry—though not the life—of legendary horn player Bix Beiderbecke, and the novel went on to be adapted into a successful movie starring Kirk Douglas, Lauren Bacall, and Doris Day.
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1938
33 people are currently reading
1705 people want to read
About the author
Dorothy Baker
19 books58 followersDorothy Baker (1907–1968) was born in Missoula, Montana, in 1907 and raised in California. After graduating from UCLA , she traveled in France, where she began a novel and, in 1930, married the poet Howard Baker. The couple moved back to California, and Baker completed an MA in French, later teaching at a private school. After having a few short stories published, she turned to writing full time, despite, she would later claim, being “seriously hampered by an abject admiration for Ernest Hemingway.” In 1938, she published Young Man with a Horn, which was awarded the prestigious Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship Award. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1942 and, the next year, published Trio, a novel whose frank portrayal of a lesbian relationship proved too scandalous for the times; Baker and her husband adapted the novel as a play in 1944, but it was quickly shut down because of protests. Her final novel, Cassandra at the Wedding (also published as an NYRB Classic), examined the relationship between two exceptionally close sisters, whom Howard Baker asserted were based on both Baker herself and the couple’s two daughters. Baker died in 1968 of cancer.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 98 reviews
June 3, 2020
"There's nothing in the world so beautiful and so astonishing as the spectacle of a really disordered mind."
As an amateur jazz musician (that's even pushing it) in my earlier years, this statement reminds me of what personifies jazz.
I say this because to me jazz itself is somewhat of an oxymoron. As with all other music, there can be an order, a balance to it, but there can also be disorder. There aren't many other styles of music, in my opinion, that can be so disorderly and so beautiful at the same time. The mind of a jazz musician is oftentimes eccentric, sad, full of anger or madness (at least in the early days) and it shows in the music. The emotion with a few notes or too many notes is almost unsurpassed.
In Baker's 'Young Man with a Horn', the characters speak the language, drink the poison and live the hell. It's main character, Rick Martin, traverses the pages with first optimism and then despair. When I think of the 1920's-1930's music scene, this book describes it well. She draws out Martin's character so well; you know what to expect, but you don't know how it's going to get there.
"If I had been born into a different kind of world, at another place, in another time, everything changed, the name Martin might have lasted along with the names of the other devout ones, the ones who cared for music and put it down so that it's still good and always will be. But what chance has a jig-man got? He plays his little tune, and then it's over, and he alone can know what went into it. This is sad; but so is everything, and in the end there is another thing to say about it. The good thing, finally, is to lead a devoted life, even if it swings around and strikes you in the face."
As an amateur jazz musician (that's even pushing it) in my earlier years, this statement reminds me of what personifies jazz.
I say this because to me jazz itself is somewhat of an oxymoron. As with all other music, there can be an order, a balance to it, but there can also be disorder. There aren't many other styles of music, in my opinion, that can be so disorderly and so beautiful at the same time. The mind of a jazz musician is oftentimes eccentric, sad, full of anger or madness (at least in the early days) and it shows in the music. The emotion with a few notes or too many notes is almost unsurpassed.
In Baker's 'Young Man with a Horn', the characters speak the language, drink the poison and live the hell. It's main character, Rick Martin, traverses the pages with first optimism and then despair. When I think of the 1920's-1930's music scene, this book describes it well. She draws out Martin's character so well; you know what to expect, but you don't know how it's going to get there.
"If I had been born into a different kind of world, at another place, in another time, everything changed, the name Martin might have lasted along with the names of the other devout ones, the ones who cared for music and put it down so that it's still good and always will be. But what chance has a jig-man got? He plays his little tune, and then it's over, and he alone can know what went into it. This is sad; but so is everything, and in the end there is another thing to say about it. The good thing, finally, is to lead a devoted life, even if it swings around and strikes you in the face."
December 2, 2021
“He could do one thing, and that almost filled his time...good straightforward life, and shaped toward the single purpose of playing a trumpet that nothing could touch”
“Smoke couldn’t quite believe it; he came of a race that isn’t used to having its words hung on, and he kept a wary eye on that line that can’t be crossed. There couldn’t be friendship, but there could be talk”
When reading “young man with a horn”, I thought about the variety of ways one could look this seemingly simple story of a musician’s meteoric rise and his demons leading to his inevitable crash back to earth.
One way to look at the story of Rick Martin, who is white, is through the lens of Jim Crow America in the 1920’s (the novel itself was written in 1938). Martin we are told is a precocious talent with a trumpet in his hands and as he makes the acquaintances of several local black musicians, and learns from them, quickly achieves a level of fame that comes close to outstripping them.
Martin is, like many white men of his day, rather retrograde in his racial attitudes and casually throws around words like the N word among others in the company of other whites. Yet despite this, it doesn’t hinder his respect of black musicians or his willingness to play with them or befriend them. It is after all his friendship with the black pianist Dan “smoke” Jordan that Martin considers to be his only real and lasting friendship.
In this sense, Baker’s novel while using racist tropes through Martin’s character, is also a remarkably integrated one. White musicians play, drink, and carouse with one another in integrated clubs with none of the hatred and racism seen in the world outside.
At the same time, Martin never speaks up when his white friends or colleagues drop the N word or otherwise disparage blacks. Which they often do.
Martin does seem happiest with his black musician friends. Such as in the following passage when he thinks:
“It didn’t occur to anyone that the reason he stayed with the Harlem crowd was that they were his rightful friends, they were closer to the music than any of the white men were; they were close to it in the same way he was”
But from the reader’s perspective it isn’t clear if this is a lack of racism or simply that they give him more space to express himself musically than white musicians do.
Furthermore, while it is perhaps unfair from the perspective of 2021 to criticize entrenched societal mores from 80 years ago, there is a bit of a Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai trope happening here.
Martin has black musician friends. We even get to know one of them, Smoke Jordan, reasonably well. But it is difficult to shake the impression that they were more props to showcase how talented Martin is rather than fully fleshed out characters. We are told they are talented but this is Martin’s story and the reader is led to believe that had Martin not met a tragic end, he would have surpassed them, if he hadn’t already.
The commodification of black music, such as jazz, by whites is something that has been controversial almost since its inception. To be fair to Baker she does through Martin express her dislike of “white” jazz as a commodity lacking freedom of expression. But isn’t this a stereotype as well? “Black” jazz is wild and free while “white” jazz is perhaps more technically proficient but lacks heart.
The character of Rick Martin, able to combine both of these worlds, takes “black” music and it is implied, makes it better though he almost seems to consider himself to be black.
There is an uncomfortable scene where Martin realizes his contract has been sold by his small time band leader to a big shot jazz producer:
“Rick was sold whether he knew it or not. He had become, overnight, the property of Les Valentine”
The analogy to slavery is not only disturbing, it is of course staggeringly inaccurate. Unlike real slaves, Martin was under no obligation to perform any work for his “master”. In fact, he is quickly working for someone else entirely before we really even know who Valentine is. It does however forward the idea that in spending so much time with black musicians, Martin begins to feel like he is one of them.
Perhaps this was not Baker’s intention but it is certainly an impression one can infer.
In the end, I mostly enjoyed this story. If not always the character arc of Martin, than Baker’s ability to describe the smoky clubs, jazz vernacular, fashion and other things that provide a wonderful glimpse into Jazz Age America.
“Smoke couldn’t quite believe it; he came of a race that isn’t used to having its words hung on, and he kept a wary eye on that line that can’t be crossed. There couldn’t be friendship, but there could be talk”
When reading “young man with a horn”, I thought about the variety of ways one could look this seemingly simple story of a musician’s meteoric rise and his demons leading to his inevitable crash back to earth.
One way to look at the story of Rick Martin, who is white, is through the lens of Jim Crow America in the 1920’s (the novel itself was written in 1938). Martin we are told is a precocious talent with a trumpet in his hands and as he makes the acquaintances of several local black musicians, and learns from them, quickly achieves a level of fame that comes close to outstripping them.
Martin is, like many white men of his day, rather retrograde in his racial attitudes and casually throws around words like the N word among others in the company of other whites. Yet despite this, it doesn’t hinder his respect of black musicians or his willingness to play with them or befriend them. It is after all his friendship with the black pianist Dan “smoke” Jordan that Martin considers to be his only real and lasting friendship.
In this sense, Baker’s novel while using racist tropes through Martin’s character, is also a remarkably integrated one. White musicians play, drink, and carouse with one another in integrated clubs with none of the hatred and racism seen in the world outside.
At the same time, Martin never speaks up when his white friends or colleagues drop the N word or otherwise disparage blacks. Which they often do.
Martin does seem happiest with his black musician friends. Such as in the following passage when he thinks:
“It didn’t occur to anyone that the reason he stayed with the Harlem crowd was that they were his rightful friends, they were closer to the music than any of the white men were; they were close to it in the same way he was”
But from the reader’s perspective it isn’t clear if this is a lack of racism or simply that they give him more space to express himself musically than white musicians do.
Furthermore, while it is perhaps unfair from the perspective of 2021 to criticize entrenched societal mores from 80 years ago, there is a bit of a Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai trope happening here.
Martin has black musician friends. We even get to know one of them, Smoke Jordan, reasonably well. But it is difficult to shake the impression that they were more props to showcase how talented Martin is rather than fully fleshed out characters. We are told they are talented but this is Martin’s story and the reader is led to believe that had Martin not met a tragic end, he would have surpassed them, if he hadn’t already.
The commodification of black music, such as jazz, by whites is something that has been controversial almost since its inception. To be fair to Baker she does through Martin express her dislike of “white” jazz as a commodity lacking freedom of expression. But isn’t this a stereotype as well? “Black” jazz is wild and free while “white” jazz is perhaps more technically proficient but lacks heart.
The character of Rick Martin, able to combine both of these worlds, takes “black” music and it is implied, makes it better though he almost seems to consider himself to be black.
There is an uncomfortable scene where Martin realizes his contract has been sold by his small time band leader to a big shot jazz producer:
“Rick was sold whether he knew it or not. He had become, overnight, the property of Les Valentine”
The analogy to slavery is not only disturbing, it is of course staggeringly inaccurate. Unlike real slaves, Martin was under no obligation to perform any work for his “master”. In fact, he is quickly working for someone else entirely before we really even know who Valentine is. It does however forward the idea that in spending so much time with black musicians, Martin begins to feel like he is one of them.
Perhaps this was not Baker’s intention but it is certainly an impression one can infer.
In the end, I mostly enjoyed this story. If not always the character arc of Martin, than Baker’s ability to describe the smoky clubs, jazz vernacular, fashion and other things that provide a wonderful glimpse into Jazz Age America.
December 23, 2014
I picked this up because a) Dorothy Baker and b) there were some interesting stories attached to the film adaptation; namely, the Jean Spangler disappearance, and Lauren Bacall's oft talked about role as a mad lesbian femme fatale.
What a marvelous book and so startlingly different from Cassandra at the Wedding. Take that, writing workshop art police! Even more proof that you can write about gays and jazz and alcoholism and shockingly not be gay or an alcoholic or a jazz musician, although maybe Baker had a few aliases. It's oddly structured in that most of the conflict and drama come in the last fifty pages. Unfortunately, the movie stretches those fifty pages into a ninety minute combo of whitewashing and schmaltzy moralizing with a side of good music. Bacall gets in a few zingers though, far too few.
In fact, read the book and watch this clip and you can skip the movie altogether.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Vdle...
What a marvelous book and so startlingly different from Cassandra at the Wedding. Take that, writing workshop art police! Even more proof that you can write about gays and jazz and alcoholism and shockingly not be gay or an alcoholic or a jazz musician, although maybe Baker had a few aliases. It's oddly structured in that most of the conflict and drama come in the last fifty pages. Unfortunately, the movie stretches those fifty pages into a ninety minute combo of whitewashing and schmaltzy moralizing with a side of good music. Bacall gets in a few zingers though, far too few.
In fact, read the book and watch this clip and you can skip the movie altogether.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Vdle...
August 9, 2023
This was recommended by my son's girlfriend in a conversation about things she had recently read. I was not familiar with Baker or her work and had a paper copy available, so I dove in. This novel is credited with being the first “jazz” novel and Baker went on to write other novels which are apparently more well know (but not known to me) about other margininalized groups. For a white, seemingly cisgender woman writing in the 30s-50s, she was amazingly progressive. And added bonus for those with shorter attention spans: this little gem is remarkably short. I will definitely put a few others (Trio for starters) of Baker's books on my to-read.
While using language of its time, Baker clearly presents the beauty of jazz along with commentary on the difference between the substance and surface of things. She manages to convey a lot about the importance of relationships (even inappropriate ones) and the way that firsts can influence us for life. Rick (based on real life trumpet player Leon Beiderbecke) was white man and an orphan and while some attribute his floundering and early death to “falling in with a bad crowd”, Baker clearly presents that story in a different angle; Rick's music and the people who helped him learn to channel it were not his failing, but his saviors.
I apologize for the monstrosity of this review, but have divided the rest into categories by subject: firsts, race, and music with my favorite quotes/moments indicated below:
Firsts: Orphaned as a child, Rick is lucky that his aunt and uncle take him in; they feed him and give him a room and expect him to go to the local school. Unfortunately, they provide almost no emotional, mental, or familial support (again, for the time this was likely seen as generous); Rick struggles to find the connections that we all need as humans and eventually is introduced to music (jazz) and the community that makes that music: “Smoke was the first person Rick ever talked to, the first one he ever had anything to say to.” and “This was the first time it had ever been given to Rick to know the pleasure of confidential talk, and it had him glowing.”
Eventually, Rick is an established musician and Baker cements his position obliquely when he learned “the difference between being a success and being kicked out. It left him a little fluttery in the stomach, things like that are so close.....that recognition, that sweet thing, had been given to him because he had been doing some good playing. It's a simple formula: do your best and somebody might like it.” Similarly, once he gets to NY the reunion with Jeff's band is not just a reunion, but a homecoming for Rick.
Later, he meets Amy who, herself, is an oddity (a rich white doctor's daughter hanging out with the jazz crowd). Baker introduces Amy through Smoke's sister and they are in contrast: “the heathen and the English-looking”. Amy, like Rick at this point, is confident in herself; Baker describes her with: “There are various ways of showing off, and one of them is not to show off,” which also clearly applies to Rick's way of playing up to this point in the book. Amy grabs Rick's attention simply through her strength of purpose and thoughts, the same way he grabs the musical world's attention with his purposeful playing.
Rick's first broken heart comes when Amy is “reformed”. She sobers up and starts to spend more time back at school and with “appropriate” others. At this time, she gives Rick another chance to reconnect when she instructs him to bring some of the “boys” to provide some entertainment for “terribly rich, but fun” Jay Baker. When he disappoints her and neglects to perform, the relationship is irretreviably over.
When Smoke is offered lead drummer after the death of a friend, Rick is astonished that Smoke considers not taking the job: “Rick got a gleam in his eye. First time he'd ever seen anything wrong with Smoke. “ Rick quickly backtracks after scolding Smoke and understands the depth of his sorrow (while also encouraging him to take the drum job); but the example is still there of Rick learning how to be a human from his (socially understood to be “less than human”) friends in the jazz community. During the same interaction, Rick “did the best he could, considering that this was the first time he'd ever handled any tenderness directly. His knowledge of the jargon was limited to the lyrics of popular songs. He made it work though, well enough to make Smoke stop crying. Both of them rose from the piano bench recovered, the one reassured and the other exculpated and neither one embarrased”.
Continuing with firsts, Rick later attends the funeral and “removed his hat, an old black crusher he'd come on the night before in his uncle's closet, and which he wore for the single purpose of having something to remove in sign of respect. He'd seen hat holding men in European funeral corteges in news reels; that much he knew about funerals, and no more.” As Rick begins to navigate more complex adult relationships, he is relying more and more on pop culture (song lyrics and news reels) to provide the education he is lacking in social etiquette.
In the end, the last first is Rick's downfall when he reaches too far and the music fails him: “I don't know what that boy thinks a trumpet will do. That note he was going for, that thing he was trying for—there isn't any such thing. Not on a horn.” Unfortunately, no one realizes that he simply flew too close to the sun, the public believes that he was burned out and failed but that is not the truth as Baker conveys it: “he really wasn't slipping, he wasn't played out; he was only getting so good that he couldn't contain it.”
Race: Right from the beginning, Baker manages to express Rick's jealousy of Smoke's family along with his respect for his new friends, and the confusion over his supposed superiority due to the color of his skin: “The more Rick heard, the sadder it made him. He began to think how satisfactory it would be to sleep in the same room with three brothers—all of them good guys—and have three sisters sleeping somewhere in the same house, and a pap to give your money to, and a mother to wake you up for breakfast with the family. And then he'd remember they were just a bunch of coons, but it wouldn't last long; the glow would come back....The good life, even if they were coons. Much better than peanut butter and crackers by yourself all the time, or a can of spagetti, even if you were white, and no place to go”
Additionally, she emphasizes the way that these surface differences create categorical differences that can be tough to navigate (I imagine even more so in the 1930s, when this novel is set and written): “He was going on to say what he really looked like, but think it over, how can a black describe another black to a white?” and emphasizes the ways that assimliation is often more for the ease of dominant groups than for marginalized folks: “The name Yoshio had broken down, as words will, first to Yosho, then to Jojo, an finally to Joe.”
Later she describes groups of folks on the beach and without evoking race (or an identity) specifically, she is able to convey the interchangeability of all people: “The wonderful thing was that a man could leave his base and go down to the sea to swim and cool off, and find his way back, apparently, to the same umbrella and the same people he had left. You wouldn't believe, just to look at all those striped umbrellas and all those bare legs stretched out like spokes in the sand below them, that there could be differentiations, that it would matter much whether a man found his way back to one or to another.”
And yet, Baker continues to emphasize that there are distinctions between people; not just with regard to their musical capabilities, but also their minds and thoughts. Amy's status as psychology student allows her to articulate “that is what matters, or thinking; the mind, in any event, is what matters.” Unfortunately, we continue to evaluate each other based on surface characteristics, but Amy knows: “The surface is forever a hoax, a commonplace, uninteresting thing for kids to waste time on.”
Particularly for Rick, he knows that he has received love, respect, and musical instruction from the black community (and not really from his white kin); he feels himself to be an outsider still with regard to the musicians (he is not yet practiced enough to develop his own sound) and because of his race: “Rick was quiet a moment. He got hit in the chest with the same feeling he had the day they smoked cigars and he asked Smoke to take him to hear Jeff play---the feeling of not belonging where you want to belong.”
Eventually, through the music, Rick earns his place: “He'd got so used to being with negros that it no longer bothered him when people gave him funny looks. He'd come to take such glances for granted, as do all those who are stuck with some outward peculiarity.” His place is due to his work as a musician and also his respect for his fellow humans, regardless of identity (theirs or his own): “'That's a funny thing. You'd think any white man could learn to play as well as a negro.' He paused and thought it over, and then went on in a voice of a peculiarly different quality: 'Well, I think a white man could do it, all right, if he'd only try hard enough to.'” Despite jazz being black music and black musicians having this assumed superiority, the racism of the era still requires that they been seen as inferior humans, except in very exceptional cases: “Jeff Williams, it was easy to see, was in the eyes of Lee Valentine a musician, not a negro.”
Ironically, in a call back to slavery itself, Rick is bought and sold throughout to different orchestras and band leaders. In fact, near the end of the novel, Rick attempts to refuse to leave CA for NY and discovers “he had become, overnight, the property of Lee Valentine.”
Music: For Rick, the music was everything. Like any true artist, he lost himself in time when he was playing. Baker makes the case that: “He expected too much from it and he came to it with too great a need. And what he expected he never quite found.”
Baker's description of jazz and the relationship between the music and the musicians (both independently and collectively) is almost magical; it springs into being fully formed like the Greek Gods being birthed from Zeus's head: “Feeling ran high, and happy inspiration followed happy inspiration to produce counterpoint that you'd swear somebody had sat down and worked out note by note on nice clean manuscript paper. But nobody had; it came into the heads of four men and out again by way of three horns and one piano.”
Initially, upon first discovering his talent, Rick was driven: “he worked with an intensity that you don't find in every fifteen-year-old boy; that you don't find, in fact, in anybody but the off-center ones, these ones who have to work whether they like it or not, and not for economic reasons either....He didn't reason but he had a good set of right instincts which accomplished reason's purpose admirably.”
In describing the emotional component and ambiance created by the music, Baker provides one of the better examples of collective effervesence I have come across in literature: “there had developed a real excitement, something like the spirit that goes into a football squad after the first string has been picked and they're in the gymnasium ready and waiting for a pep talk from the coach before a serious practice begins. It's a good sort of hysteria, and too bad it always gets put to wrong uses like athletics and militarism.”
Highly recommended and should not have been forgotten; it reminds me of the Patricia Highsmith's The Price of Salt, another example of a great literary first that has fallen through the cracks.
Coda: I watched the movie (with Kirk Douglas and Doris Day) last night; NOT recommended. In typically Hollywood (especially 1950s) fashion, the race angle is completely left out of the story. The movie seems to get "music"(of my three themes above) correct, and while the details are often wrong, the idea of "firsts" and Rick's need for human connection is conveyed. However, all the relationships are completely wrong. The movie emphasizes the strength of the relationship between Hazard and Rick (because Hazard is Rick's trumpet teacher), but all the other relationships between Rick and the jazz community are lost (Jeff Williams does not appear; Jo Jordan--Smoke's sister has become Rick's white girlfriend, and poor Smoke has been changed into a white piano player). The book is much more progressive and authentic; the movie is yet another example of the (quite literal) whitewashing of race relations in America.
While using language of its time, Baker clearly presents the beauty of jazz along with commentary on the difference between the substance and surface of things. She manages to convey a lot about the importance of relationships (even inappropriate ones) and the way that firsts can influence us for life. Rick (based on real life trumpet player Leon Beiderbecke) was white man and an orphan and while some attribute his floundering and early death to “falling in with a bad crowd”, Baker clearly presents that story in a different angle; Rick's music and the people who helped him learn to channel it were not his failing, but his saviors.
I apologize for the monstrosity of this review, but have divided the rest into categories by subject: firsts, race, and music with my favorite quotes/moments indicated below:
Firsts: Orphaned as a child, Rick is lucky that his aunt and uncle take him in; they feed him and give him a room and expect him to go to the local school. Unfortunately, they provide almost no emotional, mental, or familial support (again, for the time this was likely seen as generous); Rick struggles to find the connections that we all need as humans and eventually is introduced to music (jazz) and the community that makes that music: “Smoke was the first person Rick ever talked to, the first one he ever had anything to say to.” and “This was the first time it had ever been given to Rick to know the pleasure of confidential talk, and it had him glowing.”
Eventually, Rick is an established musician and Baker cements his position obliquely when he learned “the difference between being a success and being kicked out. It left him a little fluttery in the stomach, things like that are so close.....that recognition, that sweet thing, had been given to him because he had been doing some good playing. It's a simple formula: do your best and somebody might like it.” Similarly, once he gets to NY the reunion with Jeff's band is not just a reunion, but a homecoming for Rick.
Later, he meets Amy who, herself, is an oddity (a rich white doctor's daughter hanging out with the jazz crowd). Baker introduces Amy through Smoke's sister and they are in contrast: “the heathen and the English-looking”. Amy, like Rick at this point, is confident in herself; Baker describes her with: “There are various ways of showing off, and one of them is not to show off,” which also clearly applies to Rick's way of playing up to this point in the book. Amy grabs Rick's attention simply through her strength of purpose and thoughts, the same way he grabs the musical world's attention with his purposeful playing.
Rick's first broken heart comes when Amy is “reformed”. She sobers up and starts to spend more time back at school and with “appropriate” others. At this time, she gives Rick another chance to reconnect when she instructs him to bring some of the “boys” to provide some entertainment for “terribly rich, but fun” Jay Baker. When he disappoints her and neglects to perform, the relationship is irretreviably over.
When Smoke is offered lead drummer after the death of a friend, Rick is astonished that Smoke considers not taking the job: “Rick got a gleam in his eye. First time he'd ever seen anything wrong with Smoke. “ Rick quickly backtracks after scolding Smoke and understands the depth of his sorrow (while also encouraging him to take the drum job); but the example is still there of Rick learning how to be a human from his (socially understood to be “less than human”) friends in the jazz community. During the same interaction, Rick “did the best he could, considering that this was the first time he'd ever handled any tenderness directly. His knowledge of the jargon was limited to the lyrics of popular songs. He made it work though, well enough to make Smoke stop crying. Both of them rose from the piano bench recovered, the one reassured and the other exculpated and neither one embarrased”.
Continuing with firsts, Rick later attends the funeral and “removed his hat, an old black crusher he'd come on the night before in his uncle's closet, and which he wore for the single purpose of having something to remove in sign of respect. He'd seen hat holding men in European funeral corteges in news reels; that much he knew about funerals, and no more.” As Rick begins to navigate more complex adult relationships, he is relying more and more on pop culture (song lyrics and news reels) to provide the education he is lacking in social etiquette.
In the end, the last first is Rick's downfall when he reaches too far and the music fails him: “I don't know what that boy thinks a trumpet will do. That note he was going for, that thing he was trying for—there isn't any such thing. Not on a horn.” Unfortunately, no one realizes that he simply flew too close to the sun, the public believes that he was burned out and failed but that is not the truth as Baker conveys it: “he really wasn't slipping, he wasn't played out; he was only getting so good that he couldn't contain it.”
Race: Right from the beginning, Baker manages to express Rick's jealousy of Smoke's family along with his respect for his new friends, and the confusion over his supposed superiority due to the color of his skin: “The more Rick heard, the sadder it made him. He began to think how satisfactory it would be to sleep in the same room with three brothers—all of them good guys—and have three sisters sleeping somewhere in the same house, and a pap to give your money to, and a mother to wake you up for breakfast with the family. And then he'd remember they were just a bunch of coons, but it wouldn't last long; the glow would come back....The good life, even if they were coons. Much better than peanut butter and crackers by yourself all the time, or a can of spagetti, even if you were white, and no place to go”
Additionally, she emphasizes the way that these surface differences create categorical differences that can be tough to navigate (I imagine even more so in the 1930s, when this novel is set and written): “He was going on to say what he really looked like, but think it over, how can a black describe another black to a white?” and emphasizes the ways that assimliation is often more for the ease of dominant groups than for marginalized folks: “The name Yoshio had broken down, as words will, first to Yosho, then to Jojo, an finally to Joe.”
Later she describes groups of folks on the beach and without evoking race (or an identity) specifically, she is able to convey the interchangeability of all people: “The wonderful thing was that a man could leave his base and go down to the sea to swim and cool off, and find his way back, apparently, to the same umbrella and the same people he had left. You wouldn't believe, just to look at all those striped umbrellas and all those bare legs stretched out like spokes in the sand below them, that there could be differentiations, that it would matter much whether a man found his way back to one or to another.”
And yet, Baker continues to emphasize that there are distinctions between people; not just with regard to their musical capabilities, but also their minds and thoughts. Amy's status as psychology student allows her to articulate “that is what matters, or thinking; the mind, in any event, is what matters.” Unfortunately, we continue to evaluate each other based on surface characteristics, but Amy knows: “The surface is forever a hoax, a commonplace, uninteresting thing for kids to waste time on.”
Particularly for Rick, he knows that he has received love, respect, and musical instruction from the black community (and not really from his white kin); he feels himself to be an outsider still with regard to the musicians (he is not yet practiced enough to develop his own sound) and because of his race: “Rick was quiet a moment. He got hit in the chest with the same feeling he had the day they smoked cigars and he asked Smoke to take him to hear Jeff play---the feeling of not belonging where you want to belong.”
Eventually, through the music, Rick earns his place: “He'd got so used to being with negros that it no longer bothered him when people gave him funny looks. He'd come to take such glances for granted, as do all those who are stuck with some outward peculiarity.” His place is due to his work as a musician and also his respect for his fellow humans, regardless of identity (theirs or his own): “'That's a funny thing. You'd think any white man could learn to play as well as a negro.' He paused and thought it over, and then went on in a voice of a peculiarly different quality: 'Well, I think a white man could do it, all right, if he'd only try hard enough to.'” Despite jazz being black music and black musicians having this assumed superiority, the racism of the era still requires that they been seen as inferior humans, except in very exceptional cases: “Jeff Williams, it was easy to see, was in the eyes of Lee Valentine a musician, not a negro.”
Ironically, in a call back to slavery itself, Rick is bought and sold throughout to different orchestras and band leaders. In fact, near the end of the novel, Rick attempts to refuse to leave CA for NY and discovers “he had become, overnight, the property of Lee Valentine.”
Music: For Rick, the music was everything. Like any true artist, he lost himself in time when he was playing. Baker makes the case that: “He expected too much from it and he came to it with too great a need. And what he expected he never quite found.”
Baker's description of jazz and the relationship between the music and the musicians (both independently and collectively) is almost magical; it springs into being fully formed like the Greek Gods being birthed from Zeus's head: “Feeling ran high, and happy inspiration followed happy inspiration to produce counterpoint that you'd swear somebody had sat down and worked out note by note on nice clean manuscript paper. But nobody had; it came into the heads of four men and out again by way of three horns and one piano.”
Initially, upon first discovering his talent, Rick was driven: “he worked with an intensity that you don't find in every fifteen-year-old boy; that you don't find, in fact, in anybody but the off-center ones, these ones who have to work whether they like it or not, and not for economic reasons either....He didn't reason but he had a good set of right instincts which accomplished reason's purpose admirably.”
In describing the emotional component and ambiance created by the music, Baker provides one of the better examples of collective effervesence I have come across in literature: “there had developed a real excitement, something like the spirit that goes into a football squad after the first string has been picked and they're in the gymnasium ready and waiting for a pep talk from the coach before a serious practice begins. It's a good sort of hysteria, and too bad it always gets put to wrong uses like athletics and militarism.”
Highly recommended and should not have been forgotten; it reminds me of the Patricia Highsmith's The Price of Salt, another example of a great literary first that has fallen through the cracks.
Coda: I watched the movie (with Kirk Douglas and Doris Day) last night; NOT recommended. In typically Hollywood (especially 1950s) fashion, the race angle is completely left out of the story. The movie seems to get "music"(of my three themes above) correct, and while the details are often wrong, the idea of "firsts" and Rick's need for human connection is conveyed. However, all the relationships are completely wrong. The movie emphasizes the strength of the relationship between Hazard and Rick (because Hazard is Rick's trumpet teacher), but all the other relationships between Rick and the jazz community are lost (Jeff Williams does not appear; Jo Jordan--Smoke's sister has become Rick's white girlfriend, and poor Smoke has been changed into a white piano player). The book is much more progressive and authentic; the movie is yet another example of the (quite literal) whitewashing of race relations in America.
June 19, 2019
"Rick was a marked man; a lifelong sucker for syncopation."
If you're not a fan of jazz, you will probably like this a lot less than if you were. "Horn" follows precocious white boy Rick Martin through his shitty childhood in lower-class L.A. in the 1910s and his rise as an astonishing trumpeter during the Roaring Twenties. Interestingly, the book is as much a dense psychological study of the artist's travails as it is a story of a poor white kid mixing it big in jazz troupes that were largely African-American. That actually doesn't matter at all, since the color of his skin doesn't mean shit to his teachers and peers he just simply respect him for his talent and friendship. So, it's much more about the music, the people Martin meets, and the troubled medical student he eventually falls in love with. It's a fine and dandy book with some nice narrative hooks by Baker and a language all its own.
If you're not a fan of jazz, you will probably like this a lot less than if you were. "Horn" follows precocious white boy Rick Martin through his shitty childhood in lower-class L.A. in the 1910s and his rise as an astonishing trumpeter during the Roaring Twenties. Interestingly, the book is as much a dense psychological study of the artist's travails as it is a story of a poor white kid mixing it big in jazz troupes that were largely African-American. That actually doesn't matter at all, since the color of his skin doesn't mean shit to his teachers and peers he just simply respect him for his talent and friendship. So, it's much more about the music, the people Martin meets, and the troubled medical student he eventually falls in love with. It's a fine and dandy book with some nice narrative hooks by Baker and a language all its own.
December 24, 2023
I wavered between four and five stars on this one, but what the hell. I want more people to read Dorothy Baker, and stars are free. Consider it a strong 4.5 if you must--if I have any quibble with it, it's that it's too short, its protagonist's slide too precipitous. I say too precipitous but I mean it in narrative time, not in real time; I just want to know more of what's going on in his head as it happens.
Anyway, it's just a beautiful book--some of the best writing about music I've ever read, up there with James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues" when it comes to evoking in words the feeling one gets listening to truly transcendent music. And Baker also captures the feeling one gets creating that kind of music, the compulsion that drives the artists who do it.
The protagonist is the gifted Rick Martin, kicking around LA and then New York in the 1920s. Essentially orphaned, left to his own devices, he teaches himself piano, falls in with a group of rising young Black jazz musicians (Rick himself is white), learns the trumpet, and rockets to stardom. Rick never quite fits in wherever he goes; he's the darling of the swing-band scene, but their whitewashed, tame take on the music grates on him, and he's always drawn powerfully back to the Black source. He tries to put together an integrated band to play real music, but the booming recording industry refuses to make room for that. He falls quickly and madly in love with a damaged, bisexual medical student, and they marry, but her mercurial swings of focus are too disorienting for him--Rick and the marriage crumble at the same time.
I've now read three of Dorothy Baker's four novels, and she is most definitely a problematic fave. The shimmering, brilliant Cassandra at the Wedding might very well be one of the thirty books in my top ten of all time. But then there is her strange little morality tale, Trio --mind-blowingly gorgeous and incisive writing, but its mad lesbian antagonist is so outrageously cruel, manipulative, and antipathetic that it's hard not to throw the book repeatedly across the room. Young Man with a Horn, though, is a book that will stay with me a long time.
Anyway, it's just a beautiful book--some of the best writing about music I've ever read, up there with James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues" when it comes to evoking in words the feeling one gets listening to truly transcendent music. And Baker also captures the feeling one gets creating that kind of music, the compulsion that drives the artists who do it.
The protagonist is the gifted Rick Martin, kicking around LA and then New York in the 1920s. Essentially orphaned, left to his own devices, he teaches himself piano, falls in with a group of rising young Black jazz musicians (Rick himself is white), learns the trumpet, and rockets to stardom. Rick never quite fits in wherever he goes; he's the darling of the swing-band scene, but their whitewashed, tame take on the music grates on him, and he's always drawn powerfully back to the Black source. He tries to put together an integrated band to play real music, but the booming recording industry refuses to make room for that. He falls quickly and madly in love with a damaged, bisexual medical student, and they marry, but her mercurial swings of focus are too disorienting for him--Rick and the marriage crumble at the same time.
I've now read three of Dorothy Baker's four novels, and she is most definitely a problematic fave. The shimmering, brilliant Cassandra at the Wedding might very well be one of the thirty books in my top ten of all time. But then there is her strange little morality tale, Trio --mind-blowingly gorgeous and incisive writing, but its mad lesbian antagonist is so outrageously cruel, manipulative, and antipathetic that it's hard not to throw the book repeatedly across the room. Young Man with a Horn, though, is a book that will stay with me a long time.
March 22, 2016
Non sono proprio tre stelle. Mi aspettavo più atmosfera jazzistica, mentre é incentrato solo sulla storia personale, di formazione più che altro, di Rick Martin.
November 29, 2017
Dorothy Baker's first novel follows the short life of Rick Martin, a virtuoso jazz musician at a time when jazz was not taken seriously. Rick Martin is white, but most of his friend and fellow musicians are black: Martin intuitively understand that black musicians play the best and most innovative jazz, and this allows him to move beyond the prejudices and racism of the 1920s. The novel is narrated by an unnamed man, a friend and admirer of Rick, although the focus is exclusively on Rick's life. Baker's main interest is in music: in the development of a musician and the single-minded obsession of someone who is a passionate and talented artist. The story itself does not feel new -- we are all familiar with stories about talented people who drink themselves to death -- but Baker's writing is fresh and insightful. We care about Rick, and the people in his life, particularly his best and oldest friend, Smoke Jordan, a black jazz musician who introduced Rick to jazz clubs. Although the narratives suffers from 1930s racist language and attitudes, Young Man with a Horn is full of measured and nuanced portrayals of black characters, which allows the novel to feel modern and gives the jazz world depth and insight. Although it is not a novel about racism, an examination of racist attitudes is constantly in the background of the text. For the most part, though, this is a novel about the transformative power of music and is a celebration of jazz.
I did not find it is revolutionary or full of emotion as Baker's last novel, Cassandra at the Wedding which was written twenty years after Young Man with a Horn, but in both she creates an authentic and compelling narrative voice, and both feel unique. She is an astonishingly talented writer.
I did not find it is revolutionary or full of emotion as Baker's last novel, Cassandra at the Wedding which was written twenty years after Young Man with a Horn, but in both she creates an authentic and compelling narrative voice, and both feel unique. She is an astonishingly talented writer.
May 23, 2015
Underrated, arguably the first Jazz novel in America ever.
Subtle, tough-minded, racially wise, and stylistically concise to the point of terse, which is kind of the problem for me. I'd have appreciated it if Baker had cut loose to describe Rick Martin and the band's cutting loose. I appreciate the power of understatement, but if you're writing about early 30's jazz, why not go all out? Make it sing on the page. Oh, write that thing!
Here's a couplea clips from the tragic, brilliant Bix Beiderbecke, the inspiration (though NOT the basis) for Baker's protagonist:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ue9i...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW7YY...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2_Ai...
So if you're going to write about the guy who made this glorious music (none other than Satchmo himself said, re Bix, "those pretty notes just went right through me") you may as well swing in a mid-tempo kinda way, even if it's only on the page.
November 12, 2012
Young Man with a Horn takes a long hard look at the individual whose life is controlled around art, and then of course must suffer for it, in a very American way. What makes it good, is it acknowledges this, and even admits that writing is not necessarily the best form of art that creates a national culture. In this case, and Baker I think is saying in America's case, it is jazz.
Which is pretty cool for a reader who isn't really that in to jazz. In fact, I hadn't heard of Bix Beiderbecke before but I'm definitely a fan now. And whether jazz is the epitome of American culture or not—though I think there's a strong argument to say it is music, in all its C20th forms—it also gives Baker some serious advantages when writing this book. One is she can tackle race in a new way for a white person writing in 1938, that jazz is great and American and new and creative and improvisational and from the heart and can be felt; and while jazz is definitely black originally and maybe at its heart, it also crosses the racial divide, both for audience and artist. And secondly jazz provides a new language, not just musically, but linguistically. Mostly through African-Americans but also a new America language sprouting out of early jazz. And since this book is about young jazz musicians, she's aloud to let it rip.
The other theme, of artist controlled by his art and unable to fit into the real world and therefore must suffer and die, is not new at all, think of Vincent van Gough and Caravaggio, etc. But I think Baker does a good job with it here since it is an original American artist, partially because of his art. Russell Martin has talent, he doesn't study music, doesn't have to go to college, doesn't need to know the history of classical music or politics of the day. He can just pick up the chorus and verses, and then when its his turn turn them into something new every night of the week. He doesn't need to explain it, the audience recognizes the standards he's playing, but they also know that he is going to make it his own. And even he doesn't know how yet. This is a pretty good point on inspiration I think. And its hard to see the contemporary set of young authors writing fiction about young authors trying to become young authors has much to say about their inspiration. (Perhaps I'm being too harsh). But Martin doesn't have an answer either, he just is and the music flows through him and changes as it does. I recently went to hear Tom McCarthy talk about his idea of literature and this is pretty similar to what he thinks. Artists aren't coming up with new ideas, they are picking up on universal themes and changing them in their own expression and form. Russell Martin, Bix Beiderbecke, and Dorothy Baker all do that as well.
Which is pretty cool for a reader who isn't really that in to jazz. In fact, I hadn't heard of Bix Beiderbecke before but I'm definitely a fan now. And whether jazz is the epitome of American culture or not—though I think there's a strong argument to say it is music, in all its C20th forms—it also gives Baker some serious advantages when writing this book. One is she can tackle race in a new way for a white person writing in 1938, that jazz is great and American and new and creative and improvisational and from the heart and can be felt; and while jazz is definitely black originally and maybe at its heart, it also crosses the racial divide, both for audience and artist. And secondly jazz provides a new language, not just musically, but linguistically. Mostly through African-Americans but also a new America language sprouting out of early jazz. And since this book is about young jazz musicians, she's aloud to let it rip.
The other theme, of artist controlled by his art and unable to fit into the real world and therefore must suffer and die, is not new at all, think of Vincent van Gough and Caravaggio, etc. But I think Baker does a good job with it here since it is an original American artist, partially because of his art. Russell Martin has talent, he doesn't study music, doesn't have to go to college, doesn't need to know the history of classical music or politics of the day. He can just pick up the chorus and verses, and then when its his turn turn them into something new every night of the week. He doesn't need to explain it, the audience recognizes the standards he's playing, but they also know that he is going to make it his own. And even he doesn't know how yet. This is a pretty good point on inspiration I think. And its hard to see the contemporary set of young authors writing fiction about young authors trying to become young authors has much to say about their inspiration. (Perhaps I'm being too harsh). But Martin doesn't have an answer either, he just is and the music flows through him and changes as it does. I recently went to hear Tom McCarthy talk about his idea of literature and this is pretty similar to what he thinks. Artists aren't coming up with new ideas, they are picking up on universal themes and changing them in their own expression and form. Russell Martin, Bix Beiderbecke, and Dorothy Baker all do that as well.
December 14, 2022
really outstanding. My entire book club loved it, and we had a great discussion. Some of the best music (jazz) writing I've read, wonderful dialogue, and some very deft-touch writing on race, talent, and human connection.
Read
January 17, 2020Erstveröffentlicht bereits 1938, jetzt "wiederentdeckt" und seinem verdientem Ruhm zugeführt.
Mir ist der Titel in der Buchhaltung direkt ins Auge gefallen, "Ich mag mich irren, aber ich finde dich fabelhaft", das hat so etwas traurig hoffnungsvolles. Und das ist das Buch auch. Rick Martin lebt für die Musik, sie ist alles was zählt - und er hat Talent. Er will alles schaffen, er will nicht leben, er will nur spielen. Jedoch geht er am Ende an dieser bedingungslosen Leidenschaft, die alles andere auffrisst zu Grunde.
Die Musik ist in diesem Buch so wundervoll beschrieben, dass ich sie fast hören konnte. Die Geschichte ist kurz und intensiv, so wie das Leben des Protagonisten.
Mir ist der Titel in der Buchhaltung direkt ins Auge gefallen, "Ich mag mich irren, aber ich finde dich fabelhaft", das hat so etwas traurig hoffnungsvolles. Und das ist das Buch auch. Rick Martin lebt für die Musik, sie ist alles was zählt - und er hat Talent. Er will alles schaffen, er will nicht leben, er will nur spielen. Jedoch geht er am Ende an dieser bedingungslosen Leidenschaft, die alles andere auffrisst zu Grunde.
Die Musik ist in diesem Buch so wundervoll beschrieben, dass ich sie fast hören konnte. Die Geschichte ist kurz und intensiv, so wie das Leben des Protagonisten.
May 15, 2016
Raggiungere quella nota, simbolo della perfezione, una nota che non esiste, che non può essere suonata con la tromba. Rick Martin si avvicina così al burrone, prima dello schianto finale.
Una vita brillante, con un talento, che lo conduce alla deriva.
Una vita brillante, con un talento, che lo conduce alla deriva.
December 8, 2022
What a marvelous book. Jazz, race, alcoholism and some of the best, leanest writing I've ever encountered about music.
Skip the movie altogether, despite Hoagie Carmichael. If there was ever a story that didn't need redemption, this was it.
April 2, 2016
Disappointing. I didn't quite buy into the tone, and a bit hollywoodish. It could be it was just me, though.
May 1, 2024
This is my 2nd book by author Dorothy Baker. I read and loved her 1962 novel Cassandra at the Wedding featuring a title character that GR describes as “conniving, self-aware, pitiful, frenzied, absurd and heartbroken.” As stated in my review, “we get the inside story on the motivations behind the actions of this complicated young woman since, except for one chapter, Cass narrates the story. And such an interesting narrative voice she provides.” It was easily a 5-star book to me.
This novel, published 24 years earlier in 1938, is quite different from “Cassandra” and almost as good. It’s the story of young Rick Martin, and how he became an extremely skilled jazz trumpeter. It traces his life from his early teenage days until his demise at an early age. It tells about how Rick first became enchanted by jazz, how both his obsession, innate musical sense and dexterity and obsession with both playing better and learning more about the music drove him to become extremely skilled at his craft.
The setting is the 1920 to 1930 jazz scene, first in Los Angeles and later in New York. Baker is skilled at portraying the prohibition era speakeasy and jazz scene and crafted a dynamic and intriguing title character. She also boldly and defectively addresses the racial issues involved in the black and whilte musicians making jazz music. But what she most excelled at here is in portraying the actual music making. Somehow, she described the playing in a manner that enabled me to visualize the interplay of the musicians and feel the energy they both put into the music and evoked in their listeners. I could feel the excitement that Rick’s innovative soling created. That is quite a skill, especially for someone who, as far as I know, is not a skilled musician or music scholar. Of course, my lack of musical ability or knowledge probably made it easier for Baker to grab me with her creative music playing descriptions.
Basically, Baker is just a skilled writer. She’s not florid or experimental; it’s how she sets up scenes, phrases her character insights and crafts dialogue. She varies her sentence construction and makes creative turns of the phrase.
I thought Barker’s characterization was not quite as good as in “Cassandra.” Part of that may have been because the troubled but creative narrator Cassandra painted more vivid character portraits than this book’s neutral third-party narrator. I also thought that Baker could have fleshed out the stories of some of the supporting characters. This story also lacked the dramatic tension of “Cassandra.” With “Cassandra” I had no idea what would happen next while “Horn” tells a more predictable story, even having a 4-page prologue outlining the basics of Rick Martin’s story that will be fleshed out in the following 180 pages.
Despite these characterization and storyline weaknesses, I will still rate this as 5 stars. Baker’s superb writing abilities more than compensate for these comparatively minor deficiencies. Her writing talents and perceptive insights elevate what could have been a generic tale of the rise and fall of a talented artist into a classic tale instead. 5 stars.
This novel, published 24 years earlier in 1938, is quite different from “Cassandra” and almost as good. It’s the story of young Rick Martin, and how he became an extremely skilled jazz trumpeter. It traces his life from his early teenage days until his demise at an early age. It tells about how Rick first became enchanted by jazz, how both his obsession, innate musical sense and dexterity and obsession with both playing better and learning more about the music drove him to become extremely skilled at his craft.
The setting is the 1920 to 1930 jazz scene, first in Los Angeles and later in New York. Baker is skilled at portraying the prohibition era speakeasy and jazz scene and crafted a dynamic and intriguing title character. She also boldly and defectively addresses the racial issues involved in the black and whilte musicians making jazz music. But what she most excelled at here is in portraying the actual music making. Somehow, she described the playing in a manner that enabled me to visualize the interplay of the musicians and feel the energy they both put into the music and evoked in their listeners. I could feel the excitement that Rick’s innovative soling created. That is quite a skill, especially for someone who, as far as I know, is not a skilled musician or music scholar. Of course, my lack of musical ability or knowledge probably made it easier for Baker to grab me with her creative music playing descriptions.
Basically, Baker is just a skilled writer. She’s not florid or experimental; it’s how she sets up scenes, phrases her character insights and crafts dialogue. She varies her sentence construction and makes creative turns of the phrase.
I thought Barker’s characterization was not quite as good as in “Cassandra.” Part of that may have been because the troubled but creative narrator Cassandra painted more vivid character portraits than this book’s neutral third-party narrator. I also thought that Baker could have fleshed out the stories of some of the supporting characters. This story also lacked the dramatic tension of “Cassandra.” With “Cassandra” I had no idea what would happen next while “Horn” tells a more predictable story, even having a 4-page prologue outlining the basics of Rick Martin’s story that will be fleshed out in the following 180 pages.
Despite these characterization and storyline weaknesses, I will still rate this as 5 stars. Baker’s superb writing abilities more than compensate for these comparatively minor deficiencies. Her writing talents and perceptive insights elevate what could have been a generic tale of the rise and fall of a talented artist into a classic tale instead. 5 stars.
January 1, 2023
A great note to end the year on— short, sweet, and cooly clever and well-observed in that 1930s-40s way. I don’t know what it is but there’s something in the popular fiction and journalism of the time that is straightforward and direct but also very perceptive. I guess it’s hemingway and fitzgerald’s influence? Really good on the feeling of loving music and playing music with others, though when a decline-and-fall narrative gets shoehorned in in the last 50 pages or so it feels sort of perfunctory. This probably could have been a picaresque novel about being a jazz musician without a tragic end and I would have enjoyed it as much. But I guess jazz musicians do have a tendency to die young. I thought the way race was handled in this was interesting. It’s definitely “progressive for its time” but segregation is mostly accepted as a fact of life by the characters and by baker. And then obviously there’s the whole fantasy of being the white kid who’s just so good at jazz that everyone accepts him. Anyway I highly recommend this if you like jazz because I kept having to pause and take a walk around and listen to my favorite pianists and horn players as the book would remind me of how much I loved them. Also a nice portrait of LA in the 20s and 30s. DB is a good observer of human nature and I’m sure Cassandra at the Wedding is good on this front too even though it’s about academics (boring) and not jazz musicians (cool).
Read
February 1, 2017Hoo! Excellent! Wait, this is the same Baker who wrote the likewise excellent but otherwise in tone, structure, character and story entirely dissimilar Cassandra at the Wedding? Weird! Weird world! You haven’t even written one stellar novel, and she wrote two! WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR LIFE?
Right, well, basically every jazz cliché was, so I gather, created in this book, so much so that later generations (this came out in 38) of Jazz aficionados were prone to look back on it with some contempt. Which is too bad, because it’s the rare sort of book which inspired a lot of imitators but still holds its original power. Baker understands jazz as an art form, writes about it intelligently, but more than that she understands what it is to be driven by the act of creation beyond the capacity of the human organism, to focus the entirety of your existence on the single, pointless activity of art, art for its own sake, art for its creators sake, art irrelevant to the audience. I’ll admit I’m just pretentious enough to feel like it had some relevance to my own life and trade.
Also, that’s a hell of a last line. Damn, but this woman could write.
Right, well, basically every jazz cliché was, so I gather, created in this book, so much so that later generations (this came out in 38) of Jazz aficionados were prone to look back on it with some contempt. Which is too bad, because it’s the rare sort of book which inspired a lot of imitators but still holds its original power. Baker understands jazz as an art form, writes about it intelligently, but more than that she understands what it is to be driven by the act of creation beyond the capacity of the human organism, to focus the entirety of your existence on the single, pointless activity of art, art for its own sake, art for its creators sake, art irrelevant to the audience. I’ll admit I’m just pretentious enough to feel like it had some relevance to my own life and trade.
Also, that’s a hell of a last line. Damn, but this woman could write.
April 13, 2020
Anyone who knows anything about jazz knows that most of the musicians lived extremely hard lives, often died very young, and dealt with heavy substance abuse.
This semi biographical novel lays it all out in under 200 pages. I would have appreciated a bit more insight into the music itself but as a personal story, it works well.
This semi biographical novel lays it all out in under 200 pages. I would have appreciated a bit more insight into the music itself but as a personal story, it works well.
February 12, 2019
Deze roman is als een dubbele espresso: mijn hart gaat er sneller van kloppen.
April 9, 2019
A beautifully written love letter to jazz music.
December 9, 2024
the good thing is to lead a devoted life !!!!
July 3, 2025
4.
It’s not this book, it’s me. Well written and I can see how this may have felt at the time, but this just wasn’t in my wheelhouse. Not a jazz head.
It’s not this book, it’s me. Well written and I can see how this may have felt at the time, but this just wasn’t in my wheelhouse. Not a jazz head.
May 26, 2018
The voice comes at you strong, confident, individual:
In a six page prologue Martin's entire story is told from birth to death; this corresponds to a jazz band opening with a straightforward presentation of a song, without variation or improvisation, letting the listener get to know the melody and the chords. Then musicianship is brought to bear, and we learn what can be made of this basic story.
There's a lot of human story here; Martin is an introvert, slow to make friends and not very good at it, but a few friendships are formed, as close as any human relationship can get, across a racial divide, where the bond of kindred souls making and hearing music with a rare depth of understanding makes any social stigma seem irrelevant.
And it is music making that Baker tells about in telling Rick Martin's story, evoking its creation, sound, and effect as well as any novelist ever has.
But there's something beneath all this that is unquestionably there but elusive - we get a taste when Martin contemplates the stars or regains his sense of purpose and identity by leaving his sleeping bandmates in the morning to walk to the ocean and watch the waves and the ships - something mythic in Martin's story, the pursuit of an ideal which is also a fate, a man setting his frail mortal self against the eternal and infinite and, of course, failing, but attaining glory in the struggle; it shows kinship to the tales of Achilles or King Arthur.
This novel is so good, I hate to give it only four stars, but there is a flaw in its structure, not a minor one to my mind. The flaw occurs in the prologue, but is not fully evident until one has finished reading the novel. The prologue is told in the first person, and we are given to understand that the narrator is one of the few individuals who could claim to be an intimate of Rick Martin:
What I'm going to do is write off the story of Rick Martin's life, now taht it's all over, now that Rick is washed up and gone, as they say, to his rest. (1)Rick Martin is a white jazz trumpeter, whose meteoric career takes him to the top of his profession in New York City leading to a precipitous and somewhat enigmatic fall, as Martin walks away from his headlining job with a major band.
And that split a combination that had seemed as solid as the earth. Phil Morrison's Orchestra with Rick Martin, first trumpet. Mention Morrison's Orchestra in those days and you immediately thought of Rick martin. Mention Rick Martin and you thought of his horn in Morrison's records. It had lasted five years, and that's long. (234)
In a six page prologue Martin's entire story is told from birth to death; this corresponds to a jazz band opening with a straightforward presentation of a song, without variation or improvisation, letting the listener get to know the melody and the chords. Then musicianship is brought to bear, and we learn what can be made of this basic story.
There's a lot of human story here; Martin is an introvert, slow to make friends and not very good at it, but a few friendships are formed, as close as any human relationship can get, across a racial divide, where the bond of kindred souls making and hearing music with a rare depth of understanding makes any social stigma seem irrelevant.
And it is music making that Baker tells about in telling Rick Martin's story, evoking its creation, sound, and effect as well as any novelist ever has.
Somebody said, 'Well, are we going to play?' and again Jeff turned to Rick and said, 'What'll it be?' and Rick pulled out his second choice: 'Would you wanta play "Dead man Blues" all together the way you were doing it Saturday night?'
'Dead Man,'said Jeff, and banged his heel down twice, one, two, action suited to word.
Jeff led them to it with four bars in the key, and then the three horns came in together, held lightly to a slim melody by three separate leashes. Then Jeff left the rhythm to the drums, and the piano became the fourth voice, and from then on harmony prevailed in strange coherence, each man improvising wildly on his own and the four of them managing to fit it together and tightly. Feeling ran high, and happy inspiration followed happy inspiration to produce counterpoint that you'd swear somebody had sat down and worked out on manuscript paper. But nobody had: it came into the heads of four men and out again by way of three horns and one piano. (61-62)
But there's something beneath all this that is unquestionably there but elusive - we get a taste when Martin contemplates the stars or regains his sense of purpose and identity by leaving his sleeping bandmates in the morning to walk to the ocean and watch the waves and the ships - something mythic in Martin's story, the pursuit of an ideal which is also a fate, a man setting his frail mortal self against the eternal and infinite and, of course, failing, but attaining glory in the struggle; it shows kinship to the tales of Achilles or King Arthur.
This novel is so good, I hate to give it only four stars, but there is a flaw in its structure, not a minor one to my mind. The flaw occurs in the prologue, but is not fully evident until one has finished reading the novel. The prologue is told in the first person, and we are given to understand that the narrator is one of the few individuals who could claim to be an intimate of Rick Martin:
He was mourned, I might add, by almost nobody except me and two negroes, Jeff Williams and Smoke Jordan. There was a woman, Amy North, but there's no telling how she felt about it. I dare say Rick's death was regretted by musicians here and there, but it will only be a question of time until he's forgotten completely. One of these days even his records will be played out and give forth nothing but scratching under a steel needle. When that time comes, Rick Martin will be really dead, dead as a door-nail. I hate to see it happen. (3)We meet Jordan early in the book and Williams not long afterward; Amy North is not introduced until the novel's final section. But who is the fourth mourner, the narrator? Following the passage just quoted, he or she refers to Thomas Mann's Tonio Kröger. Now, other than, possibly, Amy North, none of the characters introduced in the story would seem the type to quote Thomas Mann; there's absolutely no hint of any of them, at least among Martin's intimate circle, showing an interest in even popular literature. This absence struck me like an unresolved dissonance - the only thought that occurs to me, and I don't find it really satisfying, is to posit the prologue as a meta-fictional appearance by Dorothy Baker herself.
August 2, 2016
Dorothy Baker’s Cassandra at the Wedding was one of my reading highlights of 2014 and ever since then I’ve been looking forward to trying her debut, the jazz novel, Young Man with a Horn. I’m glad to say it did not disappoint, far from it. This novel is a modest triumph, finely crafted and deeply felt.
First published in 1938, Young Man was inspired by the music, but not the life, of Leon (Bix) Beiderbecke, the legendary cornetist and pianist of the Jazz Age. The novel opens with a prologue in which an unnamed narrator, possibly an observer or biographer, offers an overview of the story of Rick Martin’s life. Rick was a jazz musician, a young white guy with a rare talent for creating some of the sweetest, most imaginative music known to man. But we know from the outset that Rick’s life is over, he’s ‘washed up and gone’. His passion for music was so great that he struggled to keep pace with his own ability – here’s how the short prologue ends:
Our man is, I hate to say it, an artist, burdened with that difficult baggage, the soul of an artist. But he hasn’t got the thing that should go with it – and which I suppose seldom does – the ability to keep the body in check while the spirit goes on being what it must be. And he goes to pieces, but not in any small way. He does it so thoroughly that he kills himself doing it. (pg. 12)
The remainder of the novel is divided into four sections, each one covering a key phase in Rick’s story.
Orphaned as a baby, young Rick is raised by his (largely absent) older sister and brother. By the age of fourteen, Rick is skipping school and teaching himself to play the piano at the All Souls’ Mission church in Los Angeles. Around this time, he meets an eighteen-year-old black guy, Smoke Jordan, at the local Pool Hall. Rick is fascinated by Smoke’s natural sense of rhythm; he can see it in the way Smoke moves across the floor as he sweeps up at Gandy’s Pool Hall. At first, Smoke is a little wary of getting too close to Rick, but a lasting friendship soon develops between the pair as they bond over a mutual love of music.
First there was his absorbing interest in the music, and next there was his deep feeling for Smoke Jordan, the only person in the world he knew and loved. Or it may have been first Smoke and then the music. Whichever came first, the two had to be bracketed together. (pg. 38)
This deep relationship between the two young men (one white, one black) is one of the most touching and affectionate features of the novel, it’s beautifully rendered by Baker.
Smoke and Rick spend their nights sitting outside the Cotton Club listening to Jeff Williams and his Four Mutts. This band is hot, the players know what they’re about both collectively and singly, and Rick soaks it all up. Smoke knows the band and one evening the two boys are invited into the Club. Rick is in his in element; he is entranced by the music, not only the piano but the trumpet too. The way Art Hazard plays that horn simply blows him away.
It may have been the gin; something had him fixed up so that he was playing constantly right up to the place where genius and madness grapple before going their separate ways. It was Hazard’s night. (pg.53)
Jeff Williams agrees to teach Rick a thing or two about the piano and Art Hazard does the same with the horn. Rick’s world revolves around the music. He practices piano in the afternoons followed by a couple of hours on the trumpet, and in the evenings he heads to the Cotton Club to hear Jeff’s band. Rick just gets better and better; he’s on his way.
To read the rest of my review, please click here:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2015...
First published in 1938, Young Man was inspired by the music, but not the life, of Leon (Bix) Beiderbecke, the legendary cornetist and pianist of the Jazz Age. The novel opens with a prologue in which an unnamed narrator, possibly an observer or biographer, offers an overview of the story of Rick Martin’s life. Rick was a jazz musician, a young white guy with a rare talent for creating some of the sweetest, most imaginative music known to man. But we know from the outset that Rick’s life is over, he’s ‘washed up and gone’. His passion for music was so great that he struggled to keep pace with his own ability – here’s how the short prologue ends:
Our man is, I hate to say it, an artist, burdened with that difficult baggage, the soul of an artist. But he hasn’t got the thing that should go with it – and which I suppose seldom does – the ability to keep the body in check while the spirit goes on being what it must be. And he goes to pieces, but not in any small way. He does it so thoroughly that he kills himself doing it. (pg. 12)
The remainder of the novel is divided into four sections, each one covering a key phase in Rick’s story.
Orphaned as a baby, young Rick is raised by his (largely absent) older sister and brother. By the age of fourteen, Rick is skipping school and teaching himself to play the piano at the All Souls’ Mission church in Los Angeles. Around this time, he meets an eighteen-year-old black guy, Smoke Jordan, at the local Pool Hall. Rick is fascinated by Smoke’s natural sense of rhythm; he can see it in the way Smoke moves across the floor as he sweeps up at Gandy’s Pool Hall. At first, Smoke is a little wary of getting too close to Rick, but a lasting friendship soon develops between the pair as they bond over a mutual love of music.
First there was his absorbing interest in the music, and next there was his deep feeling for Smoke Jordan, the only person in the world he knew and loved. Or it may have been first Smoke and then the music. Whichever came first, the two had to be bracketed together. (pg. 38)
This deep relationship between the two young men (one white, one black) is one of the most touching and affectionate features of the novel, it’s beautifully rendered by Baker.
Smoke and Rick spend their nights sitting outside the Cotton Club listening to Jeff Williams and his Four Mutts. This band is hot, the players know what they’re about both collectively and singly, and Rick soaks it all up. Smoke knows the band and one evening the two boys are invited into the Club. Rick is in his in element; he is entranced by the music, not only the piano but the trumpet too. The way Art Hazard plays that horn simply blows him away.
It may have been the gin; something had him fixed up so that he was playing constantly right up to the place where genius and madness grapple before going their separate ways. It was Hazard’s night. (pg.53)
Jeff Williams agrees to teach Rick a thing or two about the piano and Art Hazard does the same with the horn. Rick’s world revolves around the music. He practices piano in the afternoons followed by a couple of hours on the trumpet, and in the evenings he heads to the Cotton Club to hear Jeff’s band. Rick just gets better and better; he’s on his way.
To read the rest of my review, please click here:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2015...
January 9, 2017
I had no expectations when I picked this book up. All I knew was that the back cover said it was the "first jazz novel," and that was good enough for me.
It's an odd little number, but manages to reflect the artistic striving that the jazz form embodies. It's incredibly well crafted with moments of raw humanity and feeling, but still manages to convey the idea that that Baker couldn't quite hit that high, previously unheard of note, just as her protagonist falls short of a note that everybody says doesn't exist on a horn.
It's an odd little number, but manages to reflect the artistic striving that the jazz form embodies. It's incredibly well crafted with moments of raw humanity and feeling, but still manages to convey the idea that that Baker couldn't quite hit that high, previously unheard of note, just as her protagonist falls short of a note that everybody says doesn't exist on a horn.
November 5, 2024
Having recently read Baker's 'Cassandra at the Wedding' - resulting with mixed feelings - it's a pleasure to report on this work more favorably.
There are 24 years between publication of the two novels - and a lot can happen in that time. It's a sort of wonder that the two books were written by the same person. They are from polar-opposite worlds. (Baker wrote 5 novels and these two seem to be the only ones in print.)
What impresses most with 'Young Man...' (often cited as 'the first jazz novel') is the author's intense feeling for music. It's actually like she gets inside it, describing a realm that can defy description; that can only be 'communicated' by being heard. In the jazz performance sections, I felt transported.
I've seen the Kirk Douglas / Lauren Bacall / Doris Day film version a few times. It would be easy (and tempting) to say that (as is so often the case) the film simply gets things all wrong. What's more accurate is that 'it does and it doesn't'.
Aside from the fact that the film more or less jettisons the novel's first third (or more) - all of the specifics of protagonist Rick Martin's very-young years - it also doesn't have much time for his growing bond with the black musicians whose band he joins.
However, the film retains the overall essence of the book, I suppose. ~ even if it changes a few characters from black folk to white (not all that inexplicably; it's just dumb).
I'd always suspected that the vagueness of Bacall's character's bisexuality had something to do with Hollywood censorship (of the period). But Amy is just as ambiguous in the book:
There may be those who think that Baker's study of shattered talent is a veiled biography of cornet player Bix Beiderbecke but that was not her intention. Baker was inspired to chronicle her imagined understanding of the shooting-star life of a wunderkind:
There are 24 years between publication of the two novels - and a lot can happen in that time. It's a sort of wonder that the two books were written by the same person. They are from polar-opposite worlds. (Baker wrote 5 novels and these two seem to be the only ones in print.)
What impresses most with 'Young Man...' (often cited as 'the first jazz novel') is the author's intense feeling for music. It's actually like she gets inside it, describing a realm that can defy description; that can only be 'communicated' by being heard. In the jazz performance sections, I felt transported.
I've seen the Kirk Douglas / Lauren Bacall / Doris Day film version a few times. It would be easy (and tempting) to say that (as is so often the case) the film simply gets things all wrong. What's more accurate is that 'it does and it doesn't'.
Aside from the fact that the film more or less jettisons the novel's first third (or more) - all of the specifics of protagonist Rick Martin's very-young years - it also doesn't have much time for his growing bond with the black musicians whose band he joins.
However, the film retains the overall essence of the book, I suppose. ~ even if it changes a few characters from black folk to white (not all that inexplicably; it's just dumb).
I'd always suspected that the vagueness of Bacall's character's bisexuality had something to do with Hollywood censorship (of the period). But Amy is just as ambiguous in the book:
'It's true, though,' she said, when she had drunk from the flask; 'there's nothing in the world so beautiful and so astonishing as the spectacle of a really disordered mind. Unless,' she said after a minute, 'unless it's Josephine.'Personally, I find the second half of the book (re: the doomed marriage) less compelling, if still well-observed and well-written. It's a bit too 'cherchez la femme' - and that tends to work better for me in out-and-out noir.
There may be those who think that Baker's study of shattered talent is a veiled biography of cornet player Bix Beiderbecke but that was not her intention. Baker was inspired to chronicle her imagined understanding of the shooting-star life of a wunderkind:
He just appeared and took his rightful place and stayed in it. There was a lot of excitement about it at first; there was the shock of discovering him, hearing him for the first time, telling somebody else to go hear him. And then in a year, or make it two, everybody had heard him, and he had become a mark to shoot at, a standard to measure by. When he was twenty-four he was head man in the trumpet-playing business in this country, which is to say the world.Baker tells this artist's story with the appropriate, devoted passion of a jazz fan.
May 8, 2016
Young Man with a Horn. The novel catapulted Baker into the literary limelight – and for many years it remained her best known work having been made into a film starring Doris Day, Kirk Douglas and Lauren Bacall. I read her later novel Cassandra at the Wedding (1962) a few months ago – and loved it. Cassandra at the wedding remains my favourite of the two – but Young Man with a Horn is a brilliantly assured novel, wonderfully atmospheric, it simply oozes jazz. Although not in any way biographical, the novel is said to have been inspired by the life of legendary horn player Bix Beiderbecke.
“Our man is, I hate to say it, an artist, burdened with that difficult baggage, the soul of an artist. But he hasn’t got the thing that should go with it – and which I suppose seldom does – the ability to keep the body in check while the spirit goes on being what it must be. And he goes to pieces, but not in any small way. He does it so thoroughly that he kills himself doing it.”
The young man in question is Rick Martin – who we are introduced to by an unnamed narrator. From the prologue we know that Rick has already come to a sad end – and that the story of his all too short life is being told by someone who witnessed his rise and fall.
Full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2016/...
“Our man is, I hate to say it, an artist, burdened with that difficult baggage, the soul of an artist. But he hasn’t got the thing that should go with it – and which I suppose seldom does – the ability to keep the body in check while the spirit goes on being what it must be. And he goes to pieces, but not in any small way. He does it so thoroughly that he kills himself doing it.”
The young man in question is Rick Martin – who we are introduced to by an unnamed narrator. From the prologue we know that Rick has already come to a sad end – and that the story of his all too short life is being told by someone who witnessed his rise and fall.
Full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2016/...
April 16, 2015
Among this book's distinctions are that it is the very first jazz novel, as well as one of the rare novels up until then by a white author to portray black people as just people, without misspelled dialect or caricatured actions, and without trying to make a political point. It also alludes to drugs and homosexuality in a straightforward, matter-of-fact way that was revolutionary for the time.
On top of all that, it is a very good novel. A young white man from a troubled background finds friendship and his calling as a musician among the black jazz scene in Los Angeles and New York. The struggle he goes through to root himself as a man and realize himself as an artist without thinking in lofty terms of art, is deeply felt on every page.
Although later authors found better ways to use language to express the feel of jazz, Baker has a ventriloquist's ability to portray the banter of musicians: the reader can hear each voice, practically see each character sitting, slouching, polishing their instrument.
For such a short novel, I felt that a couple chapters went a bit long onto other tangents, yet the writing is consistently good. Recommended to anyone who enjoys stories involving music and musicians.
On top of all that, it is a very good novel. A young white man from a troubled background finds friendship and his calling as a musician among the black jazz scene in Los Angeles and New York. The struggle he goes through to root himself as a man and realize himself as an artist without thinking in lofty terms of art, is deeply felt on every page.
Although later authors found better ways to use language to express the feel of jazz, Baker has a ventriloquist's ability to portray the banter of musicians: the reader can hear each voice, practically see each character sitting, slouching, polishing their instrument.
For such a short novel, I felt that a couple chapters went a bit long onto other tangents, yet the writing is consistently good. Recommended to anyone who enjoys stories involving music and musicians.
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