Library Journal recently praised John Gennari’s Blowin’ Hot and Cool: Jazz and Its Critics: "Gennari…performs something magical: he manages to make the role and history of the jazz critic interesting. Finely written [and] thought-provoking.… This is an essential purchase for any comprehensive jazz collection. Highly recommended."
In the illustrious and richly documented history of American jazz, no figure has been more controversial than the jazz critic. Jazz critics can be revered or reviled—often both—but they should not be ignored. And while the tradition of jazz has been covered from seemingly every angle, nobody has ever turned the pen back on itself to chronicle the many writers who have helped define how we listen to and how we understand jazz. That is, of course, until now. In Blowin’ Hot and Cool, John Gennari provides a definitive history of jazz criticism from the 1920s to the present.
Read an excerpt and a soundtrack for the book.