Word: cognoscenti
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...generation of quibbling, cult-minded, critical cognoscenti has called New Orleans jazz many things, from "a rich and frequently dissonant polyphony" to "this dynamism [which] interprets life at its maximum intensity." But Louis grins wickedly and says: "Man, when you got to ask what is it, you'll never get to know." In his boyhood New Orleans, jazz was simply a story told in strongly rhythmic song, pumped out "from the heart" with a nervous, exciting beat. To Trumpeter Louis, jazz is still storytelling: "I like to tell them things that come naturally...
Christmas will not really arrive for the undergraduate till the day he packs his bag, waits for the wayward cognoscenti to sign out on the trusty sheets at University Hall, and finally sets out on the Yuletide holiday...
...those Martians who know nothing about the Blues, work songs, or folk songs, Josh White can be described simply as a man who can, and did, make "The Green Grass Grew All Around" sound absorbing. The cognoscenti need know no more than that he sang numbers ranging from "Molly Malone" and "On Top of Old Smoky" to "Strange Fruit" and Hard Time Blues." One of the most poised persons in the entertainment world, he handled songs like "John Henry," "The Foggy Foggy Dew," and "The Outskirts of Town" in easygoing style, though he had no microphone. Between his song groups...
...Shoppe is its well-worn sofa. Apparently an ordinary piece of furniture, it has been warmed by the posteriors of the most erudite inmates of the ivy-covered squirrel-cage. This indeterminable-hued divan has sustained the weight of the wearer of the blackest, thickest-rimmed glasses among Cambridge cognoscenti. It has also supported innumerable bodies beneath as many heads holding rimless spectacles, prime among these being Cairnie himself. For sitting comfort, the Grolier ottoman is approached only by the bootblack stand at Felix's Shoe Shine Spa, and there the conversation hardly runs beyond static monosyllables in praise...
...Winterset," a great Broadway success in the past, has strong appeal for Cambridge's socially conscious cognoscenti. The play's most optimistic statement, rendered by the venerable Esdros, played by John Simon proclaims that the best man can expect from this vale of sorrow is to be able o live with courage and die with dignity. Tying up this joyous philosophy in a neat bundle, the final curtain finds the innocent lovers, Mio and Miriamne, bulletriddled and lifeless, while the judge who sentenced the guiltless man to the chair, the real murderer, and a craven coward who shielded the killer...