The horn

J. Holmes

This book is considred the definitive jazz novel of the Beat Generation. The fictious caracter Edgar Pool out of KayCee (Kansas City, that is) is simply called "The Horn," and, man, he could really blow. His deeds on the sax and his misdeeds on and off the bandstand made him a legend in his lifetime. The Horn was so hip that he just did not care. He had had all the booze, all the drugs, all the women. And he could blow his horn so marvelously that, through him, jazz achieved a new dimension. But he wound up broke, sodden drunk, embittered, soon he would be dead. In The Horn Holmes tries to suggest the forces that destroyed Edgar Pool. He does not succeed, but in failing he has still written the most interesting novel about the U.S. jazz world.