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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

TT: Touched by a meme

June 26, 2007 by Terry Teachout

Mr. Parabasis has tagged me:

• Name your area of expertise/interest. That’s a tough one. Some would argue that I have no area of expertise! On reflection, though, I’d have to say that it’s criticism in general (though there was a time when I would have said music).

• How did you become interested in it? The first critics to whose work I paid serious attention were the ones who were reviewing records for Stereo Review and High Fidelity (both defunct, alas) back in the early Seventies. The first full-fledged Big Name in criticism whom I read closely and attentively was Edmund Wilson, whose Classics and Commercials and The Bit Between My Teeth made a lasting impression on me a couple of years after that.

• How did you learn how to do it? At first by imitating Wilson, and I also learned a lot from Whitney Balliett and Virgil Thomson a little later on. Mainly, though, I learned by doing. I started covering classical music and jazz for the Kansas City Star in 1977, when I was still an undergraduate. Writing short reviews on tight deadlines for a big-city newspaper is a good way–maybe the best way–for a young critic to learn the basics of his trade.

• Who has been your biggest influence? Fairfield Porter, I hope! Some other critics who’ve left their marks on me are Edwin Denby, Otis Ferguson, Clement Greenberg, Randall Jarrell, H.L. Mencken, and George Orwell.

• What would you teach people about it? I’ve taught numerous classes and seminars in criticism, and I always give my students the following pieces of advice:

Always treat artists with respect. Most of them know how to do something you can’t do.

Don’t be afraid to be wrong.

Don’t be afraid to be enthusiastic!

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Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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