Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Nat Hentoff is a guy who has long fascinated me. He's a man whose life has been intrinsically linked with so many things that I am passionate about. He was one of Lenny Bruce's best friends. He has, for more than 40 years, been a jazz producer and jazz critic and friend to nearly every major figure in that genre. And he's a true civil libertarian, one who manages to transcend political divisions and defend the right to speak out no matter how ugly he finds the speech.
Once in a while he takes a position that I find baffling; his stance on the Terri Schiavo case seemed entirely contrary to principle, though I don't doubt that to him it was a matter of weighing competing principles. He is nothing if not an iconoclast. But I can easily forgive those few disagreements because Hentoff, like me a self-educated lover of constitutional law, has probably done as much to teach people about the importance of the Bill of Rights as any man alive.
But in his latest column in the Village Voice he is saying goodbye to an old friend. In my own brief obituary to Max Roach, the greatest jazz drummer in history (I doubt there's even a close second), I mentioned Roach's powerful album about the struggle for civil rights, We Insist! Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite; Nat Hentoff was the producer of that album, which he describes in the article:
I was privileged, to say the least, to produce the incandescent Freedom Now Suite performances for the Candid label. By "produce," I mean only that I wrote down the length of each section and made sure Max was present to decide on the final cut. It was his byline, not mine.
When I first became interested in jazz in high school, one of the things that struck me was the relationship between jazz and culture, particularly how jazz embodies the ideals of freedom and democracy. A jazz band is a microcosm of a free society, each individual having his own voice and allowing the other musicians to have theirs while managing to make it all sound coherent and beautiful. Or as Sam Smith so eloquently put it:
The essence of jazz is the same as that of democracy: the greatest amount of individual freedom consistent with a healthy community. Each musician is allowed extraordinary liberty during a solo and then is expected to conscientiously back up the other musicians in turn. The two most exciting moments in jazz are during flights of individual virtuosity and when the entire musical group seems to become one. The genius of jazz (and democracy) is that the same people are willing and able to do both.
Art Blakey, another jazz drumming legend who, like Roach, took so many younger musicians under his wing and taught them about the soul of jazz, about what the music meant rather than merely what notes to play, was known to say to his young charges over and over again: "No America, no jazz."
Jazz is the quintessential American art form, the soundtrack of what Martin Luther King called "America's unfinished revolution", and Max Roach was the man keeping the beat during freedom's march for nearly 70 years. Everyone who cares about freedom and equality, whether they know it or not, has been marching to Max's drum all along.
Comments
I have a deep admiration for Hentoff and I was thrilled to find a hardcover copy of his book on the 1st amendment on sale at my local library for a dollar recently. I wish we had more op-ed writers in this nation who have the respect for our Constitution that Hentoff does - if we did we might not have gotten into the present situation.
Yet I also find his position on euthanasia and abortion ... well ... somewhat dogmatic.
Posted by: Hume's Ghost | September 6, 2007 12:33 PM
Doesn't Hentoff call himself an absolutist pro-lifer, just as he's a free speech absolutist; he opposes capital punishment, abortion, and euthanasia, right?
Posted by: Jim Lippard | September 6, 2007 5:13 PM
Yes. Hentoff tends toward absolutist positions on both free speech and life issues. His views are very similar to mine, although he gets there by a natural rights theory whereas I get there through a socioeconomic model. Obviously, I think he's pretty consistent intellectually.
Posted by: kehrsam | September 6, 2007 7:36 PM
I am obviously a near-absolutist on free speech. But I am pro-choice on abortion and very strongly in favor of both active and passive voluntary euthanasia. On the death penalty, I am opposed to it, but on pragmatic grounds rather than moral grounds. I don't have a moral problem with the death penalty, but I don't believe our legal system - any legal system - is foolproof enough to risk an irreversible punishment. Too many innocent people have been convicted falsely of capital crimes to have any faith in that option.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | September 6, 2007 7:44 PM
What bothered me about Hentoff's position in regard to Schiavo was not so much his stance as his not being able to acknowledge the facts of the issue.
I expect to hear Sean Hannity saying that Schiavo is cognizant and not in a p.v.s. while questioning the motives of the husband and all that, but I expect beter out of Hentoff.
Posted by: Hume's Ghost | September 7, 2007 4:06 PM