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Jazz Country
A Manhattan teen-ager is torn between an opportunity to attend Amherst College and the desire to pursue a career as a jazz musician.
144 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1965
2 people are currently reading
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About the author
Nat Hentoff
119 books41 followersNathan Irving "Nat" Hentoff was a historian, novelist, music critic, and syndicated columnist. As a civil libertarian and free-speech activist, he has been described by the Cato Institute—where he has been a senior fellow since 2009—as "one of the foremost authorities on the First Amendment" to the U.S. Constitution. He was a staff writer for The New Yorker for over 25 years, and was formerly a columnist for The Village Voice for over 50 years, in addition to Legal Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, and The Progressive, among others. Since 2014, he has been a regular contributor to the conservative Christian website WorldNetDaily, often in collaboration with his son Nick Hentoff.
Hentoff was a Fulbright Fellow at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1950 and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in education in 1972. The American Bar Association bestowed the Silver Gavel Award in 1980 for his columns on law and criminal justice, and five years later his undergraduate alma mater, Northeastern University, awarded him an honorary Doctorate of Law degree. While working at the Village Voice in 1995, the National Press Foundation granted him the W.M. Kiplinger Distinguished Contributions to Journalism Award. He was a 1999 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Commentary, "for his passionate columns championing free expression and individual rights," which was won by Maureen Dowd. In 2004 he became the first non-musician to be named an NEA Jazz Master by the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts.
Hentoff lectured at many colleges, universities, law schools, elementary, middle and high schools, and has taught courses in journalism and the U.S. Constitution at Princeton University and New York University. He serves on the Board of Advisors of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (F.I.R.E.) and is on the steering committee of the Reporters' Committee for the Freedom of the Press.
Hentoff was a Fulbright Fellow at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1950 and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in education in 1972. The American Bar Association bestowed the Silver Gavel Award in 1980 for his columns on law and criminal justice, and five years later his undergraduate alma mater, Northeastern University, awarded him an honorary Doctorate of Law degree. While working at the Village Voice in 1995, the National Press Foundation granted him the W.M. Kiplinger Distinguished Contributions to Journalism Award. He was a 1999 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Commentary, "for his passionate columns championing free expression and individual rights," which was won by Maureen Dowd. In 2004 he became the first non-musician to be named an NEA Jazz Master by the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts.
Hentoff lectured at many colleges, universities, law schools, elementary, middle and high schools, and has taught courses in journalism and the U.S. Constitution at Princeton University and New York University. He serves on the Board of Advisors of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (F.I.R.E.) and is on the steering committee of the Reporters' Committee for the Freedom of the Press.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
March 21, 2018
I loved this. While it was the obligatory coming of age story, it encompassed such a deep understanding of what it means to make music that, for me, it transcended the young adult fiction label it was marketed under. Fabulous. A quick, wonderful read. What could be better?
August 19, 2008
I think this is supposed to be written for children. I kind of got that impression when I read it in the 6th grade....
I have nothing but respect for the learned and humane Mr. Hentoff, but though the topic was interersting I couldn't get past the language which seemed a little below my pay scale
I have nothing but respect for the learned and humane Mr. Hentoff, but though the topic was interersting I couldn't get past the language which seemed a little below my pay scale
September 27, 2023
من قراءات أيام حرب الخرطوم
July 15, 2025
quite a big fan of this one i will consume jazz media anytime anywhere
December 24, 2016
This review also appears on my blog, Read-at-Home Mom.
Sixteen-year-old Tom Curtis loves jazz, and he is desperate to find a way to get "inside" the primarily black community surrounding his beloved music. When he meets Moses Godfrey, one of the performers whom he admires, Tom realizes that he has yet to experience enough of life to really express complex emotions in his music. Still, he spends time with Godfrey and his band, soaking up what they have to offer him while deciding whether to attend college or pursue music as a full-time career.
Published in 1965, this book is very much a reflection of the times. Civil rights issues are as important to the story as jazz music itself, and there is lots of commentary on the different attitudes different groups took toward being black in America and fighting for the rights of African-Americans. For example, Godfrey and his own son have a conflict between them because Godfrey believes his son would prefer to be white. There is an incident (which today would be called a hate crime) in which Godfrey is attacked by a group of white kids in a park, who leave him alone only when they realize he is famous. Tom, too, faces the difficulty of understanding why the people he admires are so ostracized even within their own city, and he comments more than once on how unfairly black people are treated in situations where no police officer would think twice about his actions. Certainly, these issues are still relevant today, but the way they are presented here - and Hentoff's use of the then-preferred term Negro - leaves no doubt that the setting is the sixties.
From a musical standpoint, this book is a great crash course in jazz appreciation. Though Moses Godfrey is fictitious, many of the other musicians mentioned throughout the text are real. There are also a lot of details about the poor conditions many jazz musicians lived in, which sheds some light on the reality of "making it" in the music business during this time period. For teenagers like Tom, who might have unrealistic expectations of fame and fortune, this information is certainly eye-opening and it grounds dreams of becoming a jazz musician in the harsh realities faced by many people who sacrifice everything for their love of music.
Though Jazz Country is still likely to appeal to even contemporary fans of jazz, it is not surprising to me that not many libraries have it in their children's or teen collections anymore. Without an appreciation for its historical relevance, readers could easily dismiss the book as dated, and choose something with a more interesting cover to read instead. Interestingly, though, many of the questions the book explores - whether to follow a dream, how to decide what to do after high school, and how to look past differences in order to find commonalities - are timeless, and if they looked past the cover and the sixties references, today's teens might find more in common with Tom than they imagined.
I enjoyed this book and will be on the lookout for Nat Hentoff's other YA novels, which include Does This School Have Capital Punishment? (1982) and The Day They Came To Arrest The Book (1983).
Sixteen-year-old Tom Curtis loves jazz, and he is desperate to find a way to get "inside" the primarily black community surrounding his beloved music. When he meets Moses Godfrey, one of the performers whom he admires, Tom realizes that he has yet to experience enough of life to really express complex emotions in his music. Still, he spends time with Godfrey and his band, soaking up what they have to offer him while deciding whether to attend college or pursue music as a full-time career.
Published in 1965, this book is very much a reflection of the times. Civil rights issues are as important to the story as jazz music itself, and there is lots of commentary on the different attitudes different groups took toward being black in America and fighting for the rights of African-Americans. For example, Godfrey and his own son have a conflict between them because Godfrey believes his son would prefer to be white. There is an incident (which today would be called a hate crime) in which Godfrey is attacked by a group of white kids in a park, who leave him alone only when they realize he is famous. Tom, too, faces the difficulty of understanding why the people he admires are so ostracized even within their own city, and he comments more than once on how unfairly black people are treated in situations where no police officer would think twice about his actions. Certainly, these issues are still relevant today, but the way they are presented here - and Hentoff's use of the then-preferred term Negro - leaves no doubt that the setting is the sixties.
From a musical standpoint, this book is a great crash course in jazz appreciation. Though Moses Godfrey is fictitious, many of the other musicians mentioned throughout the text are real. There are also a lot of details about the poor conditions many jazz musicians lived in, which sheds some light on the reality of "making it" in the music business during this time period. For teenagers like Tom, who might have unrealistic expectations of fame and fortune, this information is certainly eye-opening and it grounds dreams of becoming a jazz musician in the harsh realities faced by many people who sacrifice everything for their love of music.
Though Jazz Country is still likely to appeal to even contemporary fans of jazz, it is not surprising to me that not many libraries have it in their children's or teen collections anymore. Without an appreciation for its historical relevance, readers could easily dismiss the book as dated, and choose something with a more interesting cover to read instead. Interestingly, though, many of the questions the book explores - whether to follow a dream, how to decide what to do after high school, and how to look past differences in order to find commonalities - are timeless, and if they looked past the cover and the sixties references, today's teens might find more in common with Tom than they imagined.
I enjoyed this book and will be on the lookout for Nat Hentoff's other YA novels, which include Does This School Have Capital Punishment? (1982) and The Day They Came To Arrest The Book (1983).
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March 12, 2009JF-Hen
January 9, 2017
Read this a long time ago as a kid, probably in middle school, and it resurfaced in my memory due to the recent death of Nat Hentoff. Fantastic novel.
January 10, 2017
RIP Nat Hentoff. Just remembered that this book had a big impact on me as a kid, including issues of race and artists' livelihoods.
August 9, 2017
This book is well written and deals with the themes of maturation, racism, problem solving, etc. One of the highlights of the book is the relationship which the main character has with his father. The father comes through as a real, understanding person who, even though he wants his son to continue school, is willing to allow him to make his own decision and then supports him in that decision.
I read this book and wrote the review in the mid-70s when I was taking an adolescent lit. class.
I read this book and wrote the review in the mid-70s when I was taking an adolescent lit. class.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews