cover image The Hip: Hipsters, Jazz, and the Beat Generation

The Hip: Hipsters, Jazz, and the Beat Generation

Roy Carr. Faber & Faber, $14.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-571-13809-8

British music journalists Carr and Dellar (of the New Musical Express team here with Case (Encyclopedia of Jazz to produce a history of hip, tracing ""hipsters, flipsters and finger-poppin' daddies'' from sax great Lester Young's ``first musical portrait of the hipster'' to present-day exponents such as Sade and Tom Waits. Writing with verve, vigor and hip wit, the authors riff on key jazzmen (Miles Davis), fashion trends, the jive jargon of Slim Gaillard, bopsters (Babs Gonzales), artists (David Stone Martin), writers (Cornell Woolrich), vocalists (Lambert, Hendricks and Ross), Harlem hoofers (Chuck Greene) and hip humor (Lord Buckley). The more than 250 illustrations include album covers and ads, and the page designs use cool-blue and lime-green weaving patterns to capture the visual image of hip. This entire packageincluding an accompanying soundtrack available on EMI Recordsis an exhaustive, comprehensive and fitting celebration of the hip style. (March)