January 8, 2017 at 5:10 a.m.
| Updated January 8, 2017 at 5:15 a.m.
by
Associated Press
FILE - In this Friday, Jan. 13, 2006 file photo, Jazz legends pose for a group portrait of National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters of the past and present, in New York. At foreground right is writer Nat Hentoff. His son, Tom Hentoff, said his father died on Saturday, Jan. 7, 2017, from natural causes at his Greenwich Village apartment. He was 91. Also in the photo are, from left, front row: Clark Terry, Frank Foster, James Moody, Chico Hamilton, Roy Haynes and jazz writer Nat Hentoff; middle row: John Levy, Nancy Wilson, Chick Corea, Barry Harris, Tony Bennett, Jim Hall, Slide Hampton and David Baker; top row: Ron Carter, Bob Brookmeyer, Ray Barretto, Buddy DeFranco, Paquito D'Rivera, McCoy Tyner and Freddie Hubbard. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)
NEW YORK (AP) - Free-thinking author and columnist Nat Hentoff has died.
His son, Tom Hentoff, said his father died on Saturday from natural causes at his Manhattan apartment. He was 91.
Hentoff was a Village Voice contributor and columnist for 50 years and also wrote for The New Yorker, The New York Times, Down Beat and the Wall Street Journal. His more than 25 books included jazz and First Amendment works, novels and memoirs.
A bearded, scholarly figure, Hentoff was as likely to write a column about fiddler Bob Wills as a dissection of the Patriot Act, and to have his name appear in the liberal Voice as the conservative Washington Times.
