Review by New York Times Review
At a jazz club in New York, Wynton Marsalis was nearing the end of a ballad, "I Don't Stand a Ghost of a Chance With You," when someone's cellphone beeped. Hajdu, who was at the show, wrote on notepaper, "MAGIC, RUINED." It was an all-too-familiar experience. Evidently being a music critic and a culture reporter is hard work: he uploads an album onto his iPod, drinks beer at a blues festival and browses in a Midtown comics shop. Yet a certain lack of joie de vivre haunts these essays, as he hammers away at easy targets like Starbucks ("as if money means nothing and the word 'frappuccino' means something"), MySpace ("not quite as democratic as it seems") and suburbia ("a landscape of chain outlets and theme restaurants"). Throughout, he displays boomer bias, which means the prospect of new songs by Joni Mitchell is "cause to let out a hearty crow," while the White Stripes offer "gimmickry." And he's pedantic: about Philip Glass, he writes, "Distinctiveness, which is something different from distinction, tends to lead to recognition." At the club, Marsalis paused after the cellphone rang, then improvised from its tone, winning over the audience and providing a lesson in art and humility. You can be furious at the world because it does not appreciate the music, or you can adapt, beautifully; all too often, Hajdu takes umbrage and stops there.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [January 17, 2010]
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In this rollicking collection of mostly previously published essays, Hadju (The Ten-Cent Plague; Positively 4th Street) combines the cutting candor of Lester Bangs and the measured and judicious cultural learning of Lionel Trilling as he takes aim at subjects ranging widely from jazz, rock and country music and cartoon characters like Elmer Fudd to broader cultural topics such as blogging, MySpace, and remixing. Hadju writes affectionately about the old Warner Brothers cartoons, recalling the respite they provided from the tumult of the 1960s, every night before dinner. In another essay, he uses the release of Joni Mitchell's album, Shine, as an entree into a moving retrospective of her music and a bit of mourning over her recent absence from the music scene. In a superb comparison of the music of Lucinda Williams, Taylor Swift, and Beyonce, he captures Williams as a woman rare among pop stars, possessing unfeathered intelligence, untheatrical carnality, and uncompromising humanity. Hadju's opening essay on jazz great Billy Eckstine is alone worth the price of admission, a poignant portrait of a brilliant musician whose star might have risen even higher had he been born in a different era. Hadju's essays never fail to amuse, please and provoke. (Oct.) Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.
Review by Library Journal Review
In this collection of essays from a variety of sources, including the New Republic, Hajdu (The Ten-Cent Plague) uses his discerning eye to highlight controversial junctures in popular taste. Pieces on music and comic book artists are heavy on background and context and touch on issues of race, aging, authenticity, and technology. Hajdu explores the life of little-known musician Billy Eckstine and includes essays on Elvis Costello, Sting, Ray Charles, Dinah Washington, and Alan Lomax. Verdict This collection from a popular nonfiction writer is recommended for fans and students of music and pop culture writing.-Lani Smith, Ohlone Coll. Lib., Fremont, CA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Hajdu (Journalism/Columbia Univ.; The Ten Cent-Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America, 2008) returns with a graceful collection of essays, most previously published, on a variety of topicsjazz mostly, but also Elmer Fudd, Elvis and others. The author writes with enormous confidence and competence in these pieces, most of which appeared in the New Republic, where he is a music critic. His encyclopedic knowledge of jazz history and musicians never reduces the prose to pedantry, and he is generally compassionatethough occasionally his criticisms are sharp. In Ken Burns's documentary on jazz, for example, Hajdu detects "subtle hints of racism and anti-Semitism," and he feels the music of Philip Glass can be "frigid." Hajdu is harsh when he needs to behe declares that there are "four thousand holes" in a recent biography of John Lennonand is often wry and amusing (see his quotation of Monica Lewinsky's note to President Clinton thanking him for Leaves of Grass). On the whole, the author is an able instructor whose vast knowledge inspires rather than intimidates. He moves easily from essays on celebrities everyone knows (Paul McCartney, Wynton Marsalis) to those known principally to the cognoscenti (Harry Partch, John Zorn). Hajdu includes a lovely essay on the brief life of pianist Michel Petrucciani, whose enormous talent was complemented by his capacious sexual appetite and shortened by bone disease. Among those earning the author's high praise are Susannah McCorkle, Billy Eckstein, Ray Charles and Mos Def. Those stung include Sting, Bobby Darin and Starbucks (whose CDs Hajdu equates with "state-sponsored music"). Occasionally he even chides himself, noting, for example, that as a young man he did not adequately appreciate the cartoons of Jules Feiffer. Hajdu's lengthy piece on Marsalis is a revelation. A gift for readers who enjoy erudition seasoned with lan. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
