Jazz Country is a novel directed at young people struggling to realize themselves; it is also a gem of a book that talks rare sense about the ambiguities of race, the difficulties of a child's growth, and the ironies of artistic life.
Tom, son of a New York corporation lawyer, plays the trumpet with near single-minded devotion. He is finishing high school and wondering whether to enter college or make a try at being a professional jazz musician. To do the latter means leaving white, middle-class territory for "jazz country," where creativity lives exceptionally close to tragedy and where racial stereotypes dissolve or harden as a profession now comes to terms with whites rather than Negroes. The boy meets up with himself by learning about lives differently lived. He begins to see that he cannot flee his past, even as he does not wish to be confined by its values. Eventually he will at least start at Amherst instead of working full-time in a band; by the time he makes that decision he (and the reader) have seen arrogance unmasked in many places, doubt and suffering revealed in many forms. No race or class has a corner on either virtue or evil.
This is a free excerpt of 201 words. There are 388 words (approx.
1 page at 300 words per page) in the full critical essay.
Read the rest of this Criticism with our Hentoff, Nat(han Irving) 1925–: Critical Essay by Robert Coles Access Pass.
