Here’s a review from the very excellent Journal of Jazz Studies. Along with Teachout’s “Pops” I can also highly recommend Ricky Riccardi’s What a Wonderful World: The Magic of Louis Armstrong’s Later Years since together one gets a fuller and more rounded picture of America’s greatest art form and greatest artist. Both Teachout and Riccardi are masterful in marshaling the research into a coherent story and both writers refute the prevailing tripe that “Pops” was an uncle Tom. I look forward to seeing the review in JJS of Riccardi’s work. Here is a nice discussion with the very versatile Teachout (also author of The Skeptic: A Life of H. L. Mencken) – as a self-avowed political conservative it is interesting to hear Terry’s thoughts on the arts and ideology:
Aside from the pure aesthetic pleasure I get from Jazz the theoretical relevance of my interest is twofold:
(1) Sociologically speaking, Jazz as a spontaneous order;
(2) The conservational nature of the music itself.
These topics speak to my interest in emergent order (Hayek) and conversation (Oakeshott). But this is a project slowly fermenting with the hope that I can write once the decks are cleared.
manwithoutqualities 