Stanley Crouch--The Snit at the Knit

[RainyDay]

I received this in an e-mail. I don't know where it was published or if it is a hoax. My apologies if this ground has already been covered. The whole article won't fit in one post so part two follows.

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> The First Annual Jazz Awards: Roses and Brickbats
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>
> "Can't we all get along?"
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> Snit At The Knit
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> It was a shot heard 'round the world of jazz, that's for sure. When Stanley Crouch punched Howard Mandel at the party following the First Annual Jazz Awards, it quickly became the talk of the town, juicy fodder for the jazz gossip mill. The snit at the Knit.
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> But the real story is the Awards themselves. Their very existence is a tiny miracle all its own.
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> What Took So Long?
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> For years, many in the jazz community have wondered, why no Jazz Awards Show? The music and its creators certainly warrant a celebration of this nature. Why is such a creative and dynamic medium denied this validation? Two reasons. The people with money and power, the wealthy white men who control major
label recording, distribution and festivals worldwide, they can only agree on one thing. That they all want, and desperately need, more money and power. Under the guise of "helping jazz," they line their pockets and their stomachs, generation after generation. For years, these big shots of the jazz industry have tried to put on an awards show and failed. Somehow, their egos got in the way.
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> The other obstacle and one that remains a real stumbling block to greater public acceptance of this music is the long running debate, what is jazz? When Bird and Dizzy first arrived, that wasn't jazz. In the early 60s, some felt Coltrane was anti-jazz. Then came the debate about the avant garde. As long as I can remember, this in-fighting has plagued the music.
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> Paging Jerry Springer
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> Today that conflict, like most others in our tabloid society, can easily result in violence. What was once public discourse now more closely resembles an episode of the Jerry Springer Show. In fact, the only thing that was missing from the Knitting Factory at 1:45 am on last Tuesday morning was Mr. Springer himself.
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> The First Annual Jazz Awards happened because Michael Dorf, of Knitting Factory fame, and Howard Mandel, President of the Jazz Journalists Assocation, made them happen. Dorf wanted to do the awards last year during the first Texaco Festival. A squabble with George Wein put the kibosh on that. Michael conceived the event as bringing together the jazz industry and to finance it, needed their financial cooperation. This year, even though most of the industry didn't come through with anything more than lip service, Dorf persevered and the First Annual Jazz Awards became a reality although Alice Tully Hall was barely half
full for the event, billed as benefit for "Music Cares," and the "Jazz
Foundation of America."
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> On With The Show!
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> The production itself was flawed, overlong, and in need of a smoother format but these are minor quibbles. The bottom line here is that the First Annual Jazz Awards were big fun and should be an annual event televised for jazz fans worldwide.
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> There were twenty three categories (plus three categories for Excellence in Jazz Journalism, announced earlier at the Iridium party). Two awards in each category, one from the industry, and one from the journalists. Add to that, musical numbers from Geri Allen with Wallace Roney, a duo of Alice and Ravi Coltrane, Dave Douglas, Joe Henderson, Joe Lovano, and the Mingus Big
Band.
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> During the standing ovations for presenters Horace Silver, Elvin Jones and Milt Jackson, the true nature of the event revealed itself. Aside from the JazzTimes convention and annual IAJE conference, there really aren't any occasions that bring together the jazz community en masse, in celebration of our existence and the joy of the music that unites us no matter how great our differences. We needed this.
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> When Don Byron accepted his award for Best Other Reed Instrumentalist from the industry, he said that "I came here prepared to feel how corny this was going to be but now I feel myself very touched and really, kind of humbled."
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> The Plot Thickens
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> Of course a moment in the spotlight at an awards show can be very intoxicating, especially for someone with an agenda. When Sue Mingus accepted the awards for triple-winning Mingus Big Band (journalists' choice for Best Artist Or Band In Performance, and picked by both voting groups for Best Big Band), she took potshots at Lincoln Center. At first she commented how glad she was to have the Mingus Big Band playing the music of Charles Mingus at Lincoln Center. How Mingus' music hadn't been performed there since "Epitaph," in 1989. And when she won the second award, she declared, "who needs Lincoln Center!"
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> When queried about Ms. Mingus' comments, Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rob Gibson replied via email that the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra was playing Mingus on their current tour and that "the LCJO has played Mingus' music on several tours throughout the years though it's true that we only did one evening of his music since we became a year-round entity in 1991, and we've never really played it as well as the Mingus Big Band does.J@LC loves Sue Mingus and supports her and the work she does on behalf of her late great husband.

> Mingus lives!"
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> What would the buddha-like bassist have to say about that?
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> The Real Fireworks Begin!
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> More awards and performances and then Stanley Crouch arrived on stage to present the Improviser of the Year awards. Unlike the other presenters who stuck to the script, Crouch delivered his own intro, a discourse on how jazz was the music for adults. Although this was not an evening for sermons, at least Rev. Crouch had something valid to offer here. But then, he ran
amok.
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>
(to be continued)...

[RainyDay]

He read the industry nominees, Kenny Barron, Chick Corea, Joe Lovano, Joe Henderson and Sonny Rollins, without comment. However, when it came to the journalists' nominees, Mr. Crouch seemed to forget his manners. Joe Lovano, Sonny Rollins, Wayne Shorter and James Carter elicited no reaction but when he read Dave Douglas' name, he paused, dramatically and commented how it was "an interesting choice." As if the trumpeter didn't belong in such elite company. When he read pianist Matt Shipp's name, and that of his record label, Hat Art, from Switzerland, Crouch said, "well, I guess you have to record whoever you can get."
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> Shipp, would would later figure in the "Snit at the Knit" reports that "when he said that, I was in shock. I was going to stand up and say something right there but Lewis Nash was sitting next to me and he touched me on the arm and suggested I shouldn't."
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> Boston Globe jazz writer Bob Blumenthal also felt that introductions at the event weren't the occasion to editorialize on the nominations. We all could have made snide remarks about one or more person in any category of the nominees and winners that didn't fit our particular taste, that's what makes horseracing."
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> Shipp found it difficult to understand "how somebody who's in the position that he is in, would do that. He works for Lincoln Center, he has the MacArthur Grant, a column in the Daily News, he's on tv, he makes a lot of money, and here I am, I'm just starting to get some attention paid to my work and he gets up there and gives me a black eye."
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> Where's the Party?
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> The show went on, and on, until about midnight, when some of the participants finally made their way to the Knitting Factory for a post-awards party. A sprinkling of writers, musicians and other celebrants were present when "the incident" took place. I spoke with the three principals as well several others who were ringside, just to get the story straight. Although we spoke by telephone, Mr. Crouch chose not to comment "on the record."
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> Fasten Your Seat Belts.
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> Shortly after Mr. Crouch arrived after a late dinner at a nearby
restaurant, he got into a heated discussion with Howard Mandel, who had labored long and hard, without financial compensation, to make the Awards a reality. Following his earlier dismissal of the artiistry of Douglas and Shipp, Crouch reportedly told Mandel, Bob Blumenthal and Ravi Coltrane, that the jazz journalists have it all wrong. For Crouch, Dave Douglas' "blips and blaps" are not avant garde, Albert Ayler started playing that music in 1964 and that the harmonic language of the players based at the Knitting
Factory goes back to Ornette.
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> Mandel agreed but offered that what journalists wrote about was the refinement of that tradition. Crouch mentioned the "exhalted harmonic language that Wayne Shorter has developed" and Mandel pointed out that Dave Douglas has recently released an entire album of Wayne Shorter material, chiding Crouch for not listening to the music he was deriding.
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> Then, the intensity of their conflict escalated.
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> "You can't talk to me like that."
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> "I'm just trying to get you to take responsibility for what you said on stage."
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> "I didn't say anything on stage."
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> "Sure you did, everybody knew what you were saying on stage, everybody."
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> And then Crouch punched Mandel in the face, but thankfully, it was something less than a crippling blow. Yet Mandel's glass fell to the floor and shattered.
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> "I think he pulled the punch a little bit," Mandel later explained. "I was not hurt just stunned that he'd done that. On the other hand, I know that he 's done that to people before. I just shrugged it off and walked away."
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> In retrospect, Mandel feels that "I can't be angry at Stanley, I've known him for a long time. I think he's silly in a lot of ways but he's also brilliant in some ways. I'll cut him some slack for his brilliance, but no, I don't think that that's acceptable behavior, I don't condone it."

"Stanley likes to stand up and tell it like it really is, and it's a
problem because what he says isn't necessarily how it really is."
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> The Crowd Turns on Crouch.
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> At this point, Matthew Shipp entered the fray: "I got in Stanley's face and told him he was an uncle tom and a loser. He's a clever water boy without any real principles. He just wants power and money, and he's a power hungry freak who likes to start trouble and stir the pot when he really has nothing of value to add to anything or say."
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> Shipp recalls that Crouch then said "What did you say to be me boy?" and he responded "I said you're an uncle tom and a you're a fucking loser. Then he said, cmon little boy, step outside and bring your bottle. Let's step outside right now."
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> Thankfully, Ravi Coltrane and several others separated Crouch and Shipp. "A few minutes later he came over and apologized," Shipp acknowledges, "but I told him that he slapped all independent labels in the face. Verve and Blue Note were independent labels at one time, probably when they were doing their best music. Then he got into his spiel about what constitutes jazz and what doesn't. But that's academic. He's the one who made the fool of himself."
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> "At the event, there were many people from different generations and different camps and whatever anybody felt about some of the other camps, people were going out their way, other than Sue Mingus, people were going out of their way to get through the evening and be cool."
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> Dorf Speaks.
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> Michael Dorf via email: 'Jazz comes in many varieties, it's why I like this art form. Stanley, is a passionate outspoken critic at his base and while I disagree with his opinion, it is one part of flavor of our industry. He was the one who got booed at during the awards and made a fool of himself at the party--it is on him now. As a presenter, he said some great thing about jazz at first, then said silly comments during the presenting. Overall, he did a poor job as a presenter and we will not ask him back for next year.
Everyone else will be asked back."
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> What about Jerry Springer as host for next year's show?
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[Nate Dorward]

This is unsigned?

[moneyp]

I could be flat out wrong, but I don't think this was a big secret. I've heard this story from several different sources, and nobody claimed it MAY have happened.

[gonzo]

didn't this happen 3-4 years ago.

[Chris A]

Originally posted by gonzo
didn't this happen 3-4 years ago.

Yes, it's old news. but some of the details are new to me. I don't know why RD posted it now, but I'm glad she did. Thank you, RD.

[Dr Dave]

It's old, but it's still good. But has Crouch done anything really outrageous lately? Youth wants to know.

[zemry]

Believe it or not, Crouch had something interesting to say in the New York DailyNews. Well thought and articulate.

New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
The UN has a
problem called Libya

Thursday, March 27th, 2003

So, so many contradictions appear before us in our time that it is hard to always follow clearly the line intended to let us know what is going on. There are many who scoff at Operation Iraqi Freedom and decry the U.S. for moving against the wishes of the UN Security Council and of the many nations, few of them democracies, that opposed the invasion and now stand against the war itself.
Yet the moment such people talk as though the UN is a vaunted organization representing the last best hope for international cooperation and humane concern, I wonder what they think of Libya being selected to head the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, especially since Libya has been accused of genocide and allows the traffic of slaves, according to Iabolish, an international anti-slavery organization.

On its Web site, iabolish.com, there is a letter from Tommy Calvert Jr. of the American Anti-Slavery Group, which says in part, "Many of you are aware of the plight of southern Sudanese who are enslaved in Sudan. Most of you are probably not aware that some of these slaves end up in Libya and are sold into bondage."

The letter goes on to say that not only does Libya have a long record of supporting international terrorism, but that it has beaten down its own people through torture, persecution and arbitrary incarceration of people considered a threat to the regime.

The letter goes on to ask, "How can a nation that does not actively prevent the sale of slaves be permitted to chair the UN Commission on Human Rights?"

But the letter answers its own question, citing a New York Times report that Libyan dictator Moammar Khadafy went to his oil revenues to "finance a new body of African fellowship called the African Union. In exchange, he wanted his country to be selected by fellow Africans as their next nominee to be chairman of the rights commission. In the regional rotation of the chairmanship, it was Africa's turn to select."

The letter concludes, "As a result, oil money trumped Africans' human rights concerns."

Whatever hope the UN might provide, it can no more easily wave the bloody shirt or pretend to high moral concerns than anybody else.

As we know, in the last hundred years, Europe sold out the Jews and later sold out Bosnia. According to Iabolish, the European Union is in the process of selling out the female sex slaves of Bosnia and Herzegovina, now that it has taken over the job of preventing these kinds of abuses from the UN.

That's our world, and these are the kind of nations we are so often dealing with, either well or clumsily, courageously or stupidly. If you want to side with those nations that oppose the war in Iraq, don't pretend that they always have high moral records or any real concern for the victims of military or political power.

[Chris A]

This is typical Crouch crap--not a single original thought, just a rehash of old information. Zemry, wasd there really something in that piece that you didn't already know?

[RainyDay]

This is unsigned?

Yes it was unsigned. I don't know who wrote it or where it was published. It was sent to me by a friend who is a musician who received it from someone else.

By the way, I'm not a Crouch basher. He says things about music and politics I sometimes agree with. I thought this was an interesting story. If it's true, it's pretty disgusting.