one of our jazz book reviews podcasts about the Novel The Horn by John Clellon Holmes-born 12th March 1926

Studied at various places Columbia 1943 and post Draft on GI bill and the New School 1949 where he met Jack Kerouac

And remained a life long friend

First Novel published as GO a fictional book based on real characters and considered the first beat novel

The Horn was his second novel and again contains many barely disguised characters

The Protagonist the fictional Tenor Colossus Edgar Pool is know as “ The Horn” a jazz Legend

who took jazz from Swing to Bebop his trajectory, skill and invention. makes him a revered Alpha Male.

The book takes place on the evening of The Horn’s final day as he stumbles through New York after being outplayed [ allegedly for the first time] by a young sax player.

As his friends and lovers search for him they reminisce about his life

It is a classic pean to the talented jazzer who slowly self destructs through drink drugs and sex

It is structured in an attempt to mimic jazz performance practices of the 1940s

Chaptesr are called Choruses or riffs

In the chorus chapters Holmes defines his key characters who talk about "The Horn"

The riff chapters advance the present day the narrative of his final night

The prose itself is dense, rhythmic, and lyrical, with long, flowing sentences that evoke the complexity

and intensity of jazz phrasing, as words are deployed like notes in an extended solo

we discuss the issue of notating jazz in traditional western music notation in this episode

We discusss "Stella by Starlight" a popular jazz standard with music by Victor Young that was drawn from thematic material composed for the main title and soundtrack of the 1944 Paramount Pictures film The Uninvited. Appearing in the film's underscore as well as in source music as an instrumental theme song without lyrics, it was turned over to Ned Washington, who wrote the lyrics for it in 1946.

At one point in the film, the main character, Rick (Ray Milland) tells Stella (Gail Russell) that he is playing a serenade, "To Stella by Starlight".

an Apple Music playlist is here