'Or Does It Come in Like Honey?'

On this date, February 11, in 1961, Philip Larkin published his first jazz review for The Daily Telegraph. The Beats postured when it came to jazz. They heard unhinged improvisation, not the years of disciplined woodshedding that preceded it and permitted musicians to improvise – to compose in real time -- and often make it look effortless. Larkin was no slumming hipster. Like his pal Kingsley Amis, he came to jazz early, with a sort of cultish enthusiasm, and remained faithful to the giants he loved as a boy and young man, especially Armstrong and Bechet.

  

His writing on jazz is as pithy and memorable as his poetry. His standards are just as high. When Ben Webster accompanies Art Tatum on Rodger and Hart’s “Have You Met Miss Jones?” Larkin, sounding like Whitney Balliett (a critic he admired), says the tenor player is “breathing out melodies with accomplished negligence.” Jimmy Rushing's "invigorating" voice is like "pouring sunshine." Armstrong was “the Shakespeare of jazz.” Here Larkin distills what jazz means to him:

“Men whose first coronary is coming like Christmas; who drift, loaded helplessly with commitments and obligations and necessary observances, into the darkening avenues of age and incapacity, deserted by everything that once made life sweet. These I have tried to remind of the excitement of jazz and tell where it may still be found.”

Larkin’s jazz writing for the Telegraph is collected in All What Jazz: A Record Diary, 1961-1971 (1971), of which Clive James rightly claimed “no wittier book of criticism has ever been written.” Note that James does not say “jazz criticism.” In his combative introduction to the book, Larkin mourns the impact Modernism had on all the arts (Pound, Picasso, Parker), “not because they are new, but because they are irresponsible exploitations of technique in contradiction of human life as we know it.” I read Larkin’s jazz writing not as inerrant gospel. A good critic, even when he’s wrong, is interestingly wrong. His misjudgments, as much as his righteous hosannas, can teach us something. I like my critics ardent and knowledgeable. And a critic should always write well. Who would trust the judgment of a critic who can’t write? More of Larkin’s music writing is collected in Jazz Writings: Essays and Reviews 1940-1984 (2004). Looking back on his decade of music reviews for the Telegraph, Larkin writes:

“I tried in writing them to be fair and conscientious, and there were many times when I substituted ‘challenging’ for ‘insolent,’ ‘adventurous’ for ‘excruciating,’ and ‘colourful’ for ‘viciously absurd’ in a thoroughly professional manner. Although my critical principle has been Eddie Condon’s ‘As it enters the ear, does it come in like broken glass or does it come in like honey?’ I've generally remembered that mine was not the only ear in the world. Above all, I hope they suggest I love jazz.”