From the Observer archive, 29 November 1959: how to take pizzazz out of jazz

Benny Green finds little to enjoy at a concert by the oh so elegant and restrained Modern Jazz QuartetThe Modern Jazz Quartet is one of the most astonishing cultural phenomena of the postwar period. For the last five years, four men have sought with painful eagerness to transform the racy art of jazz into something aspiring towards cultural respectability. The photographs on the covers of their bestselling albums show three bearded men and one bespectacled man in morning coats, looking at the ca...

Read full article Share article