To the Editor:

Terry Teachout’s writings on music are of such high quality that it is all too easy to take for granted his skillful effort to introduce a note of professionalism into the examination of jazz music and history [“Jazz & Its Explainers,” February]. His dissection of the ten-part PBS series by Ken Burns and Geoffrey Ward and of the book based on that presumptive cultural event merits reading by all those who wonder why the useful literature on jazz occupies such a small shelf.

One irritant that Mr. Teachout might have added about the series and not a few other ostensible hagiographic and historical writings on jazz is the fixation on the issue of drugs. Not a few fine artists are mentioned in passing for their presumed habits with hardly a peep about their contributions to jazz as such.

Since Mr. Teachout does point to the small shelf of good books on jazz, it might be useful to extend the accolades to the even smaller list of publishers and editors with a commitment to and feeling for jazz as an art form with a history of its own. I have in mind Sheldon Meyer, whose work over roughly 40 years at Oxford University Press set a standard of editorial integrity that stands in stark contrast to the commercial chatter that Mr. Teachout criticizes.

Irving Louis
Horowitz

Rutgers University
New Brunswick, New Jersey

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