[78-L] Terry Teachout

[Geoffrey Wheeler]

After reading comments on Terry Teachout’s Armstrong book, I will get a 
copy. I am particularly interested in what he might have to say about 
Armstrong’s 1947 Boston Symphony Hall Concert and the Armstrong-Goodman 
“tour,” including the Boston Symphony Hall concert. I attended both. 
The Armstrong Boston concert was the first one I attended. I was 11 at 
the time. Jazz ran in the family. My older brother attended Goodman’s 
May 1, 1938 concert at Boston Symphony Hall. I still have the program, 
and have published the complete  text by Irving Kolodin in the IAJRC 
Journal. Kolodin also wrote the text for the January 16, 1938 Carnegie 
Hall Concert program. The program advertising and performance schedules 
are reproduced in the book “Benny Goodman: The Famous 1938 Carnegie 
Hall Jazz Concert” by Jon Hancok. The book is excellent!  I have only 
read two journalistic pieces by Teachout: his review of Sudhalter’s 
“Lost Chords...” and his “Is Jazz Dying?” article in the online Wall 
Street Journal (August 2009). His “jazz dying” piece seems to have 
shaken the trees of a number of jazz journalists who may have perceived 
a threat to their livelihoods. I seldom read articles on jazz in the 
popular press, including magazines. I usually don’t relate to what they 
have to say. The material is usually so cursory I ask myself “what’s 
the point!”
Geoffrey Wheeler