Boston Boy: Growing up with Jazz and Other Rebellious Passions [Paperback]

Nat Hentoff (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 096796752X | ISBN-13: 978-0967967523 | Publication Date: December 1, 2001 | Edition: 2

Boston Boy is Nat Hentoff's memoir of growing up in the Roxbury section of Boston in the 1930s and 1940s. He grapples with Judaism and anti-Semitism. He develops a passion for outspoken journalism and First Amendment freedom of speech. And he discovers his love of jazz music as he follows, and is befriended by, the great jazz musicians of the day, including Duke Ellington and Lester Young among others.

"This memoir of [Hentoff's] youth should be appreciated not only by adults who grew up through the fires of their own youthful rebellion, but by those restless young people who are now bringing their own views and questions to the world they are inheriting. They could learn from this example that rebels can be gentle as well as enraged and compassionate in their commitment." -- New York Times Book Review

"Nat Hentoff knows jazz. And it comes alive in this wonderful, touching memoir." -- Ken Burns, creator of the PBS series Jazz

"[A] charmingly bittersweet memoir." -- The Boston Globe

"This is a touching book about a painful, wonderful time in Boston…I loved it." -- Anthony Lewis

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

There are well-etched scenes, amusing episodes and even some surprises in this evocative memoir of growing up Jewish in the Boston of the 1930s and '40s. From the moment he eats a salami sandwich on Yom Kippur in defiance of his Orthodox neighbors, to organizing a union among the boys in a candy store, and later earning his stripes as a journalist, the author deftly recalls the events and people that influenced him. Hentoff, known variously for his Village Voice column, his novels and books about politics, civil liberties and jazz, here looks at his youth and the forces that shaped his views as a staunch libertarian, including a crusading woman publisher and the jazzmen he came to admire. Told with frankness and gently self-deprecating wit, Hentoff's recollections pleasantly define a very particular place in time and how that place formed this interesting man.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Nat Hentoff is a long-time civil rights commentator and a prolific author and journalist whose weekly columns are published in The Village Voice and The Washington Times. He's worked as a columnist for the Washington Post and as a reporter for The New Yorker.

Product Details

• Paperback: 212 pages
• Publisher: Paul Dry Books; 2 edition (December 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 096796752X
• ISBN-13: 978-0967967523
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #697,466 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Boston Jazz and the South End, July 21, 2008

By 

Eden Page (Boston, Ma) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Boston Boy: Growing up with Jazz and Other Rebellious Passions (Paperback)

Once, jazz was a real and pervasive presence in Boston and in the dim and scruffy clubs of the South End, this American Music-par-excellence thrilled thousands of afficionados, while yet rarely affording its dedicated and colorful creators a living.
It was the Twenties and the Jazz Age; it was the Thirties and the age of the Big Bands; it was the wartime Forties, the age of The Savoy on Mass Ave and of Sidney Bechet; it was the baby-boom Fifties and the age of Storeyville in Kenmore Square...
There were Big Bands and great ballrooms but there were, as well, many talented smaller bands, playing inspired improvised jazz and struggling to survive as they enthralled more limited audiences in more limited venues.
Nat Hentoff eloquently reminisces about a time when the soulful sound of trumpet and clarinet, piano and bass - pained, glorious, yearning, introspective, challenging, alien even - could inadvertently reach out of the smoky, dark, cave-like clubs of Washington and Columbus Avenues, and so mesmerize a young boy that it could change his life.
Nat Henhoff blends this tale of a city, its cultural glories and its social sins, with the story of the music, light and dark, somber and witty, pure and besmirched - the faithful mirror of the human soul.
He leaves one desolate that - much too soon! - things changed, and he leaves one wondering why Boston let it happen; why the city - host to The Berklee College of Music and the New England Conservatory, the Symphony as well as The Boston Pops - couldn't swiftly rally to support and, in time, to save a once-thriving Jazz community...
Oh, economics and changing taste are the answer, of course, but one is left wishing that Boston had been able to sustain its local jazz scene and, failing that, wishing that it should presently choose, at the least and at last, to honor it with a South End Jazz Museum.
Many of the greatest Jazz Musicians played there once and their presence or passage should not be forgotten.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Boston Boy, July 1, 2008

By 

Edwin D. Lawson (Fredonia, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Boston Boy: Growing up with Jazz and Other Rebellious Passions (Paperback)

It's great to see a book like this. As another Boston boy, I had many similar experiences that have been hard and perhaps confusing to explain to someone who grew up in another time and place.
My wife feels that she understands me better now after reading Boston Boy. We are giving copies to our sons.
The book for me is nostalgic, poignant, and somewhat reassuring. Helps to understand that generation, that time, and that place. We made it in spite of the bastards.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A terrific, short read, November 30, 2002

By 

Louis Gudema (Newton, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Boston Boy: Growing up with Jazz and Other Rebellious Passions (Paperback)

Nat Hentoff, who later became famous as a writer about jazz and civil liberties, describes his "coming of age" and discovery of jazz in the Boston of the 1940s. A very enjoyable read.