miscellaneous

RIP Eric Hobsbawm (1917 – 2012)

The historian and intellectual Eric Hobsbawm died earlier today at the age of 95.

His writings about jazz – both in his own name and under the name of Francis Newton – made a substantial contribution over many years to keeping the flame alive.

He wrote about this in a short memoir in 2010 for the London Review of Books. It is a touching piece, chronicling the joys which the association with jazz brought him. In sadness. RIP.

Categories: miscellaneous

3 replies »

  1. Tony Dudley-Evans writes:

    I would like to pay tribute to Eric Hobsbawn whose pieces I used to read in the New Statesman.

    His book The Jazz Scene has a very comprehensive and fascinating description of the jazz audience of the 1960s. I recently re-read it and was very interested in how different today's audience is.

    I also enjoyed his autobiography, which includes a wonderful description of his upbringing in Vienna immediately after The First World War.

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