Stanley Crouch gets physical

[pryan]

Sam is the man!!!

[Lazaro Vega]

Rivers on Tavis Smiley

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=3090106

[DTMX]

Maybe I'll make that trip to Orlando to see Sam Rivers' big band after all - and shake his hand.

[Rooster_Ties]

OK, everyone here, from this point forth --- if you ever get the chance to meet Sam Rivers in person... ...please thank him for kicking Stanley Crouch's ass.

[Big Wheel]

OK, everyone here, from this point forth --- if you ever get the chance to meet Sam Rivers in person... ...please thank him for kicking Stanley Crouch's ass.

Shouldn't we be doing just the opposite, since that may be the reason Crouch is such a douche? I don't think anyone's very grateful to the admissions director of the art school that turned down Hitler's application...

[Lazaro Vega]

Been reading Ralph Ellison's writings about jazz recently and it seems he's the main critical inspiration for some of the philosophical bent of Murray, Crouch and Co. especially in Ellison's story about Bird and his relation to modernism, audience and aesthetics...

[Larry Kart]

"Been reading Ralph Ellison's writings about jazz recently and it seems he's the main critical inspiration for some of the philosophical bent of Murray, Crouch and Co. especially in Ellison's story about Bird and his relation to modernism, audience and aesthetics..."

Well, yes -- up to a point. But Ellison did write a great novel, compared to which Murray whittled some useful sticks and then cancelled that out times two, while Crouch has all the "philosophical bent" of a sack of shit.

[Simon Weil]

Been reading Ralph Ellison's writings about jazz recently and it seems he's the main critical inspiration for some of the philosophical bent of Murray, Crouch and Co. especially in Ellison's story about Bird and his relation to modernism, audience and aesthetics...

Well...Murray and Ellison were actually contemporaries - and indeed pretty close friends (There's a book of letters between the two, edited by Murray - doesn't have any of the jazz as democracy stuff as far as I can tell). So they probably influenced each other. The thing about Ellison is he never took an overtly political position - in the sense that Murray, Marsalis et al have - of being involved with an ongoing campaign. Thus he always (I am reliably informed) rejected Marsalis's efforts to get him involved (i.e. identified) with the Lincoln Center.

This may just have been that he was canny or it may be something else. I don't think you can doubt he was an influence on these men, but he wasn't schmuck enough to get involved with a political agenda which could easily become a liability in the way people remember his art.

He's also never quite explicit about equating Jazz and Democracy.

Simon Weil

[AllenLowe]

"I don't think anyone's very grateful to the admissions director of the art school that turned down Hitler's application... "

Well, few people know this, but the Fuehrer could paint an entire apartment, 2 coats, in one afternoon - can Stanley Crouch do that?

Edited December 3, 2004 by AllenLowe

[AllenLowe]

All seriousness aside, as Steve Allen used to say, there's no comparison between Ellison and Crouch or Murray, as Larry so eloquently indicated (hey, can we use words like that on this forum?) Ellison was very conservative musically, had problems with bebop and Bird, but was a great writer and critic, neither of which can be said for either Crouch or Murray. I have read things by Crouch that were quite smart and insightful, but he's become more and more blinded by ideology. Murray also has moments of insight but is incurably middlebrow, and has substituted a blues-ideology for any deep understanding of the music -

Edited December 3, 2004 by AllenLowe

[Lazaro Vega]

Allen, Larry, all: Thanks.

What I'm seeing reading Ellison's letters about jazz is his reverance for the blues tradition over the onslaught of modernism (Ray Charles comes up as an innovator he'd prefer in the late 50's early 60's as one example, and the conclusions he comes to about Bird seem to me the same arguments we've been hearing out of New York since Reagan was in office).

It appears, as much as it has been morphed into something else all together (how does Stanley take away the influence of classical music from jazz and get away with it?), that those planks of the current establishement's platform are derived from him.

That had nothing to do with Ellison's art in comparison to the writing ability of the current set of New York journalists and talking heads. He just appeared from his ideas to be their "spiritual"/critical leader.

Edited December 3, 2004 by Lazaro Vega

[AllenLowe]

Ellison was a major influence, indeed, on Crouch and Murray but I would hate to see him suffer guilt by this kind of association. One prime difference is, musically conservative as Ellison was, the essays he wrote about the music he loved (not to mention his poliitical/social essays) were often brilliant and insighful, and true insight is in short supply with Crouch and Murray. I will also admit that I quite liked Ellison's attack on Baraka's Blues People; that book is so rife with outright errors as well as historical distortions that I'm amazed (or maybe I shouldn't be) that it's become such a pet of the academics.