You are an authentic primitive

Frank Conroy, dead at 69: "Mr. Conroy, whose one novel, "Body and Soul" (1993), is about a poor boy who grows up to be a famous pianist and composer, compared teaching to playing jazz. You have to be fast, able to think on your feet and able to trust yourself to improvise well within certain strictures, he said.... [A] former student, the novelist Chris Offutt, said: "He emphasized clarity above everything else. But he was also passionate about literature and about reading. He was the boss man, but he had this incredible youthful glee for writing that inspired you to want to write yourself." ... Another symbol that Mr. Conroy was a role model, [Jayne Anne] Phillips said, was that "he lived a big life." He was, Mr. Halberstam recalled, "a very cool guy—a great hipster," adding, "Frank talked a kind of jazz vernacular that would have been an affectation except it was real." Mr. Conroy... though self-taught, a good enough pianist to have jammed with Charles Mingus... Mr. Conroy recalled how he once apologized to Mingus for being a klutz. You are an authentic primitive, Mingus said. That is true. But you also swing.