HENTOFF, NAT

HENTOFF, NAT (1925– ), U.S. music critic, journalist, novelist, author. The roots of Hentoff's dazzlingly variegated career are to be found in his boyhood in Depression-era Boston. The son of Russian Jewish immigrants, he grew up in the predominately Catholic city in the era of Father Coughlin, the virulently antisemitic "radio priest," whose broadcasts were followed avidly by Hentoff's neighbors. As a result, he was exposed early and often to antisemitism. Yet at the same time, commuting from the Jewish enclave of Roxbury to school at the famous Boston Latin, he heard and fell in love with jazz and was equally intoxicated by the city's fabulous libraries. This combination would lead him to a lifelong passion for social justice, a deep commitment to freedom of expression and the wonders of the written word, and a profound attachment to the music of America's dispossessed, both black and white. By his own amused recollection, Hentoff was much too young for admission to the city's liquor-serving jazz clubs, but managed to sneak in anyway to hear the music. It was the beginning of a much-requited love affair, as jazz criticism became the launching pad for his writing career. He would work variously as a critic, disk jockey and columnist (later New York editor) for Down Beat. He was, typically, fired by the magazine in 1957 after he lobbied aggressively for them to hire African-American writers. He then wound up at the nascent Village Voice, where he agreed to work for free if they would let him write about anything but jazz. He remained at the weekly from then on, writing on education, race, and civil liberties. He also wrote regular columns on civil liberties for publications as radically different as The Progressive and the Wall Street Journal. Hentoff's interest in race and jazz led him to yet another career path as a frequently honored author of books for young adults. In 1960 he wrote his first YA novel, Jazz Country, and followed it with several more, including This School Is Driving Me Crazy (1976) and The Day They Came to Arrest the Book (1982). He also wrote adult fiction, non-fiction, and a charming memoir, Boston Boy (1986). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Biography Resource Center, "Nat Hentoff," at: www.galenet.com\>\> . (George Robinson (2nd ed.)