Let's Take Manhattan

Not to put too fine a point on it, but David Hajdu makes other music writers seem like children. He writes with such unapologetic love for the medium, but concurrently is not afraid to litter the sidewalk with idols when necessary. It's akin to what Pauline Kael did (in her prime, describing McCabe & Mrs. Miller as a "beautiful pipe dream") or James Wood ("I suppose there must be people--as there are people left cold by Mozart or Brahms--who are untouched by such a passage, though I pity them. Bellow had a habit of writing repeatedly about flying, partly, I used to think, because it was the great obvious advantage he had over his dead competitors, those writers who had never seen the world from above the clouds...") does every few weeks.

Here's Hajdu's NYROB piece on Dinah Washington. We hastily add that this is not one of his better pieces, though this is.