For JazzBeat 30, Tom Reney pays tribute to Nat Hentoff, who died on January 7 at 91. The Boston-born journalist wrote primarily on First Amendment issues for the Village Voice for 50 years, but was also a renowned jazz critic and historian. In the early 1960s, Hentoff produced an outstanding series of albums for Candid Records by Charles Mingus, Clark Terry, Abbey Lincoln, and blues greats Otis Spann, Memphis Slim, and Lightnin’ Hopkins. Tom’s memorial includes excerpts from some of these, and an overview of Hentoff’s devotion to jazz and principles of free speech.
