New York Turns on the Heat by Wilder Hobson
Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
"Two books turned on the first generation of American jazz fans. One was Hugues Panassie's Le Jazz Hot and the other Fred Ramsey's and Charlie Smith's Jazzmen. Both remain valuable - Le Jazz Hot for its uncanny early insights, and Jazzmen for its enthusiasms and we-were-there immediacy. More, the often extraordinary photographs in Jazzmen became for many of us as real as the subjects." - WHITNEY BALLIETT
"Part history, part romance, this landmark of a jazz book has stood the test of time, not least because It was a labor of love. To read Jazzmen was a moving experience, and I suspect it still has the power to move a new generation of readers."
- DAN MORGENSTERN, DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE OF JAZZ STUDIES, RUTGERS UNIVERSITY
"Required background reading not only for jazz buffs, collectors, reporters, reviewers and historians, but also for all students of contemporary American culture. Especially noteworthy is Roger Pryor Dodge's survey of early jazz criticism. His observations have as much immediacy today as when he first made them nearly forty years ago."
- ALBERT MURRAY, AUTHOR OF STOMPING THE BLUES
As the banner for this Substack platform states, CerraJazz is home to “focused profiles on Jazz and Its Creators while also featuring the work of guest writers and critics on the subject of Jazz.”
I wanted to make this page a place where Jazz fans could find a variety of views on the music along with my own take.
It’s a somewhat unique approach to cultural commentary as these days it seems that all forms of media are about me, me, me, me, me.
Enter this piece by Wilder Hobson who along with Winthrop Sargeant [Jazz-Hot and Hybrid 1938] was one of the earliest Americans to write a book on Jazz when he published American Jazz Music in 1939.
A Yale graduate and a competent trombonist, Hobson went on to write for Time magazine, was on the editorial board of Fortune, became the managing editor of Harper’s Bazaar and later wrote for Newsweek and the Saturday Review.
This short piece on what it was like to experience the famed 52nd Street during its “Swing era” heyday in the 1930s is atmospheric writing at its finest. It puts the reader right there with the sights and sounds of Jazz cabarets before the area became the incubator for modern Jazz in the second half of the 20th century.
From a time when the home for Jazz was dives and dumps, owned and operated by disreputable characters and buying compromised booze was the price patrons paid to gain access to the music.
Written in a tone with a touch of both irony and sarcasm, it was the early Jazz fan’s view of the music at its defiant best, irrespective of the “ … fetid air and sweat, promiscuous body contact, watered whiskey.”
Hobson’s essay can be found in Frederic Ramsey, JR. and Charles Edward Smith, Eds., Jazzmen [1959].
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