Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

David and Art - Spreading the Word

Sofie Hernandez-Simeonidis

Writing about the arts so that more people can get into them is a great way to have spent a life.

Last week I took a little time to note the passing of Wall Street Journal theater critic, author, playwright and musician Terry Teachout. He left behind a record of writing and speaking on behalf of the arts: particularly theater, but more broadly, all the arts. If you followed his columns, if you read his books, if you listened to his podcast, you realize he approached art in its totality as something wondrous—something above the material plane on which we all live day-to-day. For Terry, to talk about art was a chance to turn more people on to something that could enrich their lives.

In addition to his wide-ranging reviews and essays, he wrote biographies of dancer and choreographer George Balanchine, journalist H. L. Mencken, and two absolute titans of American music and culture: Duke Ellington, and Louis Armstrong. He was working on the Armstrong biography when we met for the first time and it was clear to me as we talked about it, he was determined to give readers not only the story of Armstrong’s life, but an appreciation of his centrality to American culture. The book, which would eventually be called Pops, does this well. I’ve assigned it to American history classes and students liked it. Terry’s being a musician helped him provide even more insight into how groundbreaking Armstrong was. If you’re looking for a book to read right now, try that one.

He turned that book into a wonderfully intimate stage play called “Satchmo at the Waldorf” which opened in Orlando, Florida in 2011. Once, in 2014 when I was in New York, it was running off-Broadway at the Westside Theater on 43rd Street. I got tickets. He took me to dinner before the show and then escorted me to—and into—the theater. I never felt so much like one of the cool kids as I did right then.

When he came to Waco a few years ago I picked him up at the airport and we drove around talking, catching up, and finally we decided we were hungry. We both wanted Mexican food and so we wound up at La Fiesta, of all places. It was busy and we had to wait outside for a table. He was right at home. Of his life in Manhattan, he once said that he was only “a small-town boy, uprooted and repotted, and nothing much has changed about me except the place where I happen to live.” He was pretty much a local everywhere he went, and this was crucial in how he understood art and culture.

When his mother died in 2012, he wrote movingly about her passing. When my mom died in 2015, and then when my dad died a year ago, he was one of the first people I contacted each time. To his friends he was a constant source of support and wise advice. And that’s

what he was as a critic too. The art world will miss one of its most dedicated supporters. And I will miss my friend.

David Smith, host of David and Art, is an American historian with broad interests in his field. He’s been at Baylor University since 2002 teaching classes in American history, military history, and cultural history. For eight years he wrote an arts and culture column for the Waco Tribune-Herald, and his writings on history, art, and culture have appeared in other newspapers from the Wall Street Journal to the Dallas Morning News.