Hajdu’s Heroes and Villains balances simplicity and depth

book-cover-heroes-villainsReading David Hajdu‘s Heroes and Villains is enough to make any rational music critic hang up their keyboard and walk away. His work for The New Republic is a true joy to read. Hajdu writes not clinically, but with a matter-of-fact tone that gets to the heart of the subject about which he’s writing. While he avoids overly flowery prose, Hajdu’s words evoke a simple lyrical charm.

Hajdu’s operating voice lends authority and credence to all sides of of a story. He frequently plays the devil’s advocate, as in his profile of jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis. In this piece, he speaks both to Marsalis’ positive uplift of jazz with his work as part of Jazz at Lincoln Center, as well as his contribution to to the genre’s stagnation.

Even his evisceration of “Sting the Lutenist,” wherein he declares the former Gordon Sumner to come off as “haughty and strident,” he still manages to allow that “the prospect of Sting attempting to perform such quiet, delicate music was tantalizing.”

As an added bonus, by collecting pieces written over a period of years means that the reader can glean Hajdu’s overarching themes. In this case, it is his focus on rock as youth, regardless of the age of the actual performer. Even though Chuck Berry’s been playing his songs for well over 50 years at this point, his songs still serve “anathema to everything that Johnny Mercer and his milieu represented — refinement, maturity, professionalism.”

Hajdu’s trumpeting of the “unsung,” such as vocalist Billy Eckstine, is truly what drives this book, however. When speaking of jazz, or any other genre, and the tendency to focus on the “great man” theory of venerating the big names, while ignoring those artists that might have any sort of commercial success, Hajdu’s on the offensive. He points out the fact that Ken Burns ignores Latin jazz pioneers like Xavier Cugat, or that “essential” compilations cut out the performances that might give a view of an artist that’s not the party line. Essentially, anything that might make a performer seem to be something exotic is taboo, and Hajdu makes sure that there is voice given to them.