Music lovers will appreciate the film’s soundtrack, which is made up of seminal selections by some of jazz’s greatest artists. Margot Hentoff says of her husband, who is approaching 90, “He reads and he writes. That’s all that he does.” Hentoff himself says, “I write to write.”
Famed jazz historian and author Ashley Kahn explains how, and why, jazz translates so well in non-western countries such as Japan.
The Common Reader, a publication of Washington University in St. Louis, offers the best in reviews, articles and creative non-fiction engaging the essential debates and issues of our time.
The real Elvis is American, remember, and America is a consumer society. The desires we project, the stuff we buy—that is what feels real to us. It lets us have any Elvis we want. He left plenty of kitsch in his wake, plenty of pseudo-religion, plenty of Elvis jokes—but he was not, is not, a joke. He lived our contradictions, released our inhibitions, and lost himself in the process.
