My enthusiasm over the release of The New Friends of Rhythm: 1939-1947 Performances (about which you can read more in the Top Five section of the right-hand column) has spilled over into a “Sightings” column for Saturday’s The Wall Street Journal. In it I fill in the background of this fascinating group, which briefly became so popular that it got written up in Time. Then I take a broader look at the larger phenomenon of jazzing-the-classics recordings, and offer some speculations on what its decline tells us about the shaky state of classical music in America.
To find out more–including what Ayn Rand, of all people, had to say about jazzed-up classics–pick up a copy of the Saturday Journal and turn to the newly re-christened “Weekend Journal.” I’ll be there.
UPDATE: Subscribers to the Online Journal can read this column by going here.
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
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