the program The Scope of Jazz on WBAI-FM in New York City. He went on to write many books on jazz and politics. In 1952, Hentoff joined Down Beat magazine as a columnist. The following year, he moved to New York to become the city's editor of the magazine. He was fired in 1957, he alleged, because he attempted to hire an African-American writer. Hentoff co-wrote Hear Me Talkin' to Ya: The Story of Jazz by the Men Who Made It (1955) with Nat Shapiro. The book includes interviews with jazz musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie and Duke Ellington. Hentoff co-founded The Jazz Review in 1958, a magazine that he co-edited with Martin Williams until 1961. In 1960 he served as artists and repertoire (A&R) director for the short-lived jazz label Candid Records, which released albums by Charles Mingus, Cecil Taylor, and Max Roach. Around the same time, Hentoff began freelance writing for Esquire, Playboy, Harper's, New York Herald Tribune, Commonweal, and The Reporter. From 1958 to 2009, he wrote weekly columns on education, civil liberties, politics, and capital punishment for The Village Voice. He also wrote for The New Yorker (1960–1986), The Washington Post (1984–2000), and The Washington Times. He worked with the Jazz Foundation of America to help American jazz and blues musicians in need. He wrote many articles for The Wall Street Journal and The Village Voice to draw attention to the plight of America's pioneering jazz and blues musicians. Beginning in February 2008, Hentoff was a weekly contributing columnist at WorldNetDaily. In January 2009, The Village Voice, which had published his commentary and criticism for fifty years, announced that he had been laid off. He then went on to write for United Features, Jewish World Review, and The Wall Street Journal. He joined the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, as a senior fellow in February 2009. In 2013, The Pleasures of Being Out of Step, a biographical film about Hentoff, explored his career in jazz and as a First Amendment advocate. The independent documentary, produced and directed by David L. Lewis, won the Grand Jury prize in the Metropolis competition at the DOC NYC festival and played in theaters across the country. Political views, commentary, and activism Hentoff espoused generally liberal views on domestic policy and civil liberties, but in the 1980s, he began articulating more socially conservative positions especially in regard to medical ethics