PHILIP LARKIN’S
JAZZ
CRITIC
Philip Larkin was not only a very successful poet, but also a gifted Jazz
critic. Jazz music was the one thing that
stayed
with him throughout
his
'You
automatically
stop
life, and had a place in his heart reserved for no other thing, or woman.
thinking about anything else
and listen': Phillip Larkin in 1966
CRITICS OF THE CRITIC
•
Larkin ignored jazz’s development after the bebop revolution of the late
Forties. Bop is “nervous and hostile (something that they can’t steal
because they can’t play it) music, at odds with the generous spirit of its
predecessors”.
• Didn’t acknowledge the fact that music and style changes, and that in the
early twenties, Jazz itself was slated with similar terms to the ones Larkin
himself used to dismiss Modern Jazz - “jerky”, “unnatural”, “fevered”,
“cacophonous”.
• He was no expert.
REFERENCE BACK
That was a pretty one, I heard you call
From the unsatisfactory hall
To the unsatisfactory room where I
Played record after record, idly,
Wasting my time at home, that you
Looked so much forward to.
Oliver's Riverside Blues, it was. And now
I shall, I suppose, always remember how
The flock of notes those antique Negroes blew
Our of Chicago air into
A huge remembering pre-electric horn
The year after I was born
Three decades later made this sudden bridge
From your unsatisfactory age
To my unsatisfactory prime.
Truly, though our element is time,
We're not suited to the long perspectives
Open at each instant of our lives.
They link us to our losses: worse,
They show us what we have as it once was,
Blindingly undiminished, just as though
By acting differently we could have kept it so.
LARKIN’S JAZZ
DISC
DISC 21 –- “Oxford”
"I Remember, I Remember"
Disc 3 - All What Jazz
Larkin
spoke
"the
great
white
In 1968,
looking
backtrio
on of
his
life Record
with
jazz,Diary
Larkin
Named
after
AllofWhat
Jazz:
The
eccentrics,
Beiderbecke,
Russell
andhooked
Wildjazz
Bill
“Compilation
of
articles
by
the incomplete.
leading
recalled4 "I
was
in essence
Disc
–
completes
the
Davison
- three
playerscommentary
who achievedofcompletely
reviewer
offers
a lively
the record
on
jazz
before
I
heard
and
"listening
to
for
an
individual styles
-new
and itjazz
seemsrecords
to any,
me that
world and its personalities in the 1960's.”the
that what
got
me
the tonic
rhythm.
unique
qualityaof
each
waswas
the product
of is
hour
with
pint
of
gin
and
conscious
and consummate
That simple
trick ofartistry."
the
the best
forand
a day's
work
I
“I rushed
outremedy
on Monday
bought
Nobody
suspended
that
hadtomade
Knows
The Way I beat,
Feel drank
This
Morning.
know."
Bix
Beiderbecke,
who
himself
death by
F------,
c------,
is a great
theage
slaves
Congo
the
of 28bloody
inshuffle
1931,good!
wasin
a Bechet
cornet
player
who artist.
As created
soon
assolos
heon
starts
playing beauty
you
automatically
of Saturday
surprising
and was stop
Square
nights,
extraordinary
implosion.else
He and
revolutionised
the and
thinking
about anything
listen. Power
something
never
conception
of thethat
jazz solo,
andpalled.
influencedMy
glory.”
transition
to jazz
was
slow."
almost
every white
trumpet
or cornet
player of
his day. He still remains an admired legend, as he
was for Larkin.
FINAL PLAYLIST
King Olivers Jazz Band
Riverside Blues
Disc 1 –
Louis Armstrong
Ain't Misbehavin‘
Disc 2 –
Bix Beiderbecke and His Orchestra
Since My Best Gal Turned Me Down
Disc 3 –
Sidney Bechet
Old Man Blues
Disc 4 - Miff Mole And His Dixieland Orchestra
How Come You Do Me Like You Do