Nat Hentoff on Jim Hall

Now, A Jazz Moment...

MUSIC: "Body and Soul" CD: Magic Meeting, ArtistShare 0002 (cut 6)

Nat Hentoff: It's an accurate way to describe Jim as a world-class guitarist.

Writer Nat Hentoff first heard NEA Jazz Master Jim Hall back in 1958 - "around the Civil War" as Nat jokes. Though nearly 50 years have passed, Hentoff's opinion of Jim's playing hasn't changed.

Nat Hentoff: He always had this quality of, I would call it, luminescence. It's a thoughtful, luminous kind of playing. But what is most striking about Jim is that he keeps evolving. He keeps challenging himself. So he's continually recording and playing with different kinds of instrumentation. And that is a characteristic that makes his music always acutely contemporary.

MUSIC: up and fades under

This Jazz Moment on guitarist Jim Hall was created by the National Endowment for the Arts

Nat Hentoff on Jim Hall