Bop Apocalypse
Jazz, Race, the Beats, and Drugs

Bop Apocalypse: Jazz, Race, the Beats, and Drugs is a rather large subject, but author Martin Torgoff soft pedals his main thesis — that drugs were an essential ingredient in the creation of bold new music and literature by black musicians and white writers — with a light touch. Instead of weighing......more

40 pages in and if something doesn't change soon I may give up on this book. The writing isn't great and while I haven't made it to the jazz and beat connection, I'm close to done. The writer seems far too interested in supporting his premise--weed is cool and the hip cats all smoke,--rather than cr......more

Winding through the jazz clubs and teahouses of postwar Manhattan, with side trips to New Orleans, Chicago, and California, Martin Torgoff magnificently ties together the jazz and beat scenes through their shared vices, particularly marijuana. It's an incredibly evocative portrait of two distinct mi......more

There is definitely something of interest in this ragbag of junkie anecdotes & cracker-barrel history, but it certainly doesn't come from the author's own imagination, whose waxings-poetic are intrusive & every bit as tiresome as when you're forced to hear them from a real-life dopehound viva voce. I......more