Just so that I have something to report, I will tell you that I read this book. Or most of it. I liked Hajdu's
Positively 4th Street enough to pick this up from the bookstore some weeks back, even though it's just sort of a collection of reviews of books or records that Hajdu wrote for various magazines. The reviews make enough moves towards cultural criticism, towards something to say about the artists or writers or musicians these pieces profile, to make it relatively legit to refer to these pieces of writing as "essays."
Hajdu is more interested in jazz than I am, or at least writing for an audience more interested in jazz, so I skipped over some pieces late in the book because I'd put in the work in earlier pieces and learned things about Billy Eckstine and Wynton Marsalis. He has interesting takes on certain people -- lauding Bobby Darin, for example, and getting Woody Guthrie right as a person whose chief talent was a kind of punk anti-authoritarian. He also makes good fun of prententious old Sting, and writes about the everyman qualities and transgender proclivities of the under-appreciated Elmer Fudd. So, sometimes, a pretty fun book.
It's important to know that Hajdu is a fan of "grown-ups" as in many of these pieces he utilizes a recuring cannard that a particular thing (rock n' roll, the comics form, Bugs Bunny) are adolescent in nature and design, and that adult responses (the late-period pop of Elvis Costello or Bobby Darin, the journalistic qualities of the comics work of Joe Sacco or Marjane Satrapi, Mr. Fudd) are as worthy or perhaps worthier than the juvenilia that inspired or kickstarted them. I'm not totally convinced, but then again I have never learned to put away childish things. I go back and forth on whether
King of America is a better record than
My Aim Is True, whether
Maus is all that much greater than
The Killing Joke, and whether or not I mind other guys dancing with my girl. Are the kids alright?
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