The subtitle of Nat Hentoff’s new collection, At the Jazz Band Ball, is Sixty Years on the Jazz Scene. Almost all of the articles have appeared since 2004 in a variety of publications. His wealth of experience ranges from friendships with Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, and John Coltrane to talented young and regional artists not yet broadly known such as vocalist Amanda Carr, saxophonist Hailey Niswanger, violinist Aaron Weinstein, and trumpeter Theo Croker. While he repeats favorite themes and anecdotes in several articles, his palette is broad. He gives women jazz artists their due, slaps Wynton Marsalis on the wrist for the lack of females in the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, encourages the spread of jazz through awareness and education, and touts the work of the Jazz Foundation of America which provides assistance to elderly and needy musicians.

There are extended interviews with bassist Ron Carter, trumpeter Clark Terry, saxophonist Phil Woods, and trumpeter Jon Faddis. He pays tribute to the late bassist/psychologist/activist Art Davis, recognizes the great contributions to the music of composer/arranger/saxophonist Jimmy Heath, and acknowledges the uniqueness of clarinetist Pee Wee Russell.

Throughout the interviews, musicians express their compulsion to play, to interact with each other and the audience, to define their very souls through the music. A favorite anecdote of Hentoff’s exemplifies this dedication. The author once asked Ellington about retiring. The Duke answered with a question--“To what?”

Nat Hentoff is an internationally known jazz critic and the first critic designated a Jazz Master by the NEA. He is a regular contributor to Jazz Times and the Wall Street Journal, the united Media Newspaper Syndicate, and the Cato Institute, where he is a senior fellow. Among his many books are Jazz Country, Jazz Is, The Jazz Life, and Boston Boy: Growing Up with Jazz and Other Rebellious Passions.