Philip Larkin in Oxford - September, 1941

from Letter from Philip Larkin to J B Sutton, 16 Sept 1941, pages 20-21:

Life has been made tolerable again (after your departure) by Brunswick’s release of a ‘New Orleans Album’ to parallel their ‘Chicago Album’. [...] The album is perhaps most valuable in pointing out the difference between New Orleans and Chicago. Or, really, the difference between white & negro – no, that’s not so, remembering Bix and Nichols, but still, put it like this: the Chicagoans are the only gang that play jazz as white people should. Nichols’ parlour-tricks are merely intellectual & Bix’s ‘beauty’ is escapist. No white man can play negro music without a …   more >>
cite as

Philip Larkin, Letter from Philip Larkin to J B Sutton, 16 Sept 1941. In Anthony Thwaite (ed.), Selected Letters of Philip Larkin, 1950-1985 (London, 1992), p. 20-21. https://led.kmi.open.ac.uk/entity/lexp/1388185719055 accessed: 28 March, 2024

location of experience: Oxford

Listeners

Philip Larkin
Academic library, Poet
1922-1985

Listening to

hide composers
jazz
written by Miles Davis, Robert "Bumps" Blackwell
performed by etc, Red Nichols

Experience Information

Date/Time September, 1941
Medium playback
Listening Environment in private, indoors, solitary

Notes

Personnel: Red Nichols, cornetist; Max Kaminsky, trumpeter associated with the Dixieland Revival; Johnny Dodds, New Orleans clarinetist; Coleman Hawkins, tenor saxophonist; Milton ‘Mezz’ Mezzrow, clarinetist; Eddie Condon, banjoist, guitarist and leader of assorted groups; Dave Tough, drummer


Originally submitted by Ivan Hewett on Fri, 27 Dec 2013 23:08:39 +0000