Considering Genius by Stanley Crouch

[Lois Gilbert]

The case for a jazz connection
Stanley Crouch writes with authority on the 'rich thick soup' that is American culture.
BY SANFORD PINSKER


CONSIDERING GENIUS: Writings on Jazz.

Stanley Crouch. Basic. 359 pages. $26.

Stanley Crouch is an essayist, novelist, co-founder of Jazz at Lincoln Center and a columnist for The New York Daily News, but just as these wide-ranging descriptions do not capture his enormous energy, the same is true of efforts to predict what he will say about the cultural topic at hand.

Crouch is much more than the ''baddest'' black intellectual alive. He is the most independent public intellectual of any color to roll in contemporary America. What Crouch understands -- and what all too many black tribalists miss -- is that ''America is a land of synthesis in which every ethnic or religious group tends, over time, to become part of every other.'' American culture, at its best, is less a melting pot than it is a ``rich thick soup in which every ingredient both maintains its taste and also takes on the taste of everything else.''

Jazz is a perfect emblem of this dynamic at work, and, as he makes clear in these essays, it's why the riffs he heard as a child -- Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Fats Waller -- stayed with him during the turbulent days of the Black Panther movement. As the prologue to Considering Genuis makes clear, he had a dalliance with radical black politics but his heart wasn't in it.

By contrast, Nat Hentoff's essays taught him how to ''hear'' and, more important, how to write about jazz. Later, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and Albert Murray's work turned Crouch into an intellectual who could distinguish between people speaking rot -- whatever their color -- and those who understood how deeply connected jazz was to the larger American culture.

The 29 essays in Considering Genius focus on jazz, including such stars as Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Wallace Roney and Wynton Marsalis. Crouch is at the top of his game as he balances the drive for innovation in each of his subjects with the larger ramifications of the work.

Considering Genius is a potpourri. Long essays on the careers of Ellington or Davis share space with liner notes, book reviews, a eulogy and ruminations on such weighty matters as the Constitution and our culture. One thing is by now abundantly clear: Crouch writes with equal measures of authority and verve.

Those in the anti-Crouch camp will not likely change their minds when they read such sentences as the following: '' . . . the Negro community, which has produced as extraordinary number of artists, has little or no value for art and will always, like most communities, drop to its knees before entertainment clichés or trends.'' In the 1950s, rock and roll almost put jazz musicians out of work, and even though jazz clubs now flourish in large cities such as New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago, gangsta rappers are what fills the concert halls and sells CDs. Crouch's collection asks us to consider genius rather than settle for so much crap. In this effort, possibly a doomed one, all of us should wish him -- and jazz -- well.

Sanford Pinsker is an emeritus professor at Franklin and Marshall College. He lives in South Florida.


http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald...printstory.jsp

[RainyDay]

Originally Posted by Lois Gilbert

Those in the anti-Crouch camp will not likely change their minds when they read such sentences as the following: '' . . . the Negro community, which has produced as extraordinary number of artists, has little or no value for art and will always, like most communities, drop to its knees before entertainment clichés or trends.'' In the 1950s, rock and roll almost put jazz musicians out of work, and even though jazz clubs now flourish in large cities such as New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago, gangsta rappers are what fills the concert halls and sells CDs. Crouch's collection asks us to consider genius rather than settle for so much crap. In this effort, possibly a doomed one, all of us should wish him -- and jazz -- well.

Except white people are the reason for the healthy economic state of hip-hop and rap music. Most of this music is consumed by people outside of the black community. Apparently Mr. Crouch isn't watching his MTV to look at the astonishing array of what mainstream America drops to its knees for.

Didn't someone post an article here about how the international hip-hop community reamed US hip-hop for having no meaning beyond sex and gangsterism? This meaningless art form as presented in the US is brought to you by blacks and is consumed primarily by non-blacks.

By the way, how is it that the most avid supporters of eai just looooove rap music?

[BaconFat]

I really do feel we need many more books on the music and the musicians. But
not from hypocritical self important narrow minded butt sucking idiots like the
auto contradictory Stanley "Here To Save You Negoes" Crouch.

[mke]

Rainy Day,

Are you saying that young Black Americans buy Mos Def rather than 50 Cent?

[Jon Abbey]

Originally Posted by RainyDay

By the way, how is it that the most avid supporters of eai just looooove rap music?

do you ever have any idea what you're actually talking about, or do you just post here to let off steam?

[Lois Gilbert]

Originally Posted by BaconFat

I really do feel we need many more books on the music and the musicians. But not from hypocritical self important narrow minded butt sucking idiots like the auto contradictory Stanley "Here To Save You Negoes" Crouch.

You have no idea what you are talking about. There is no substance in this posting. Why don't you start a dialogue and read the book before you make such inane comments. I've read it... have you? Have you ever read any Crouch? Including his columns in the Daily News on John Hicks. Come back and post when you have something to say.

[RainyDay]

Originally Posted by mke

Rainy Day,

Are you saying that young Black Americans buy Mos Def rather than 50 Cent?

No. I'm saying that rap and hip-hop are lucrative because the consumers are not just in the urban core (that's code for young black Americans). Stanley seems to think only black people's tastes are shallow and he is apparently not aware of how shallow US culture is in general. If white kids (and Asian kids, and Latino kids) weren't buying rap music, there would be a huge drop in the return on investment.

I've heard only little bits of Mos Def's music. I'm more familiar with his film work. If he's less hard core than 50 Cent than I would guess young people would prefer him over Mos Def in order to get their fantasy gangster on. I've heard 50 Cent and know about his glorious gangster background and he pretty much makes me sick.

And by the way, I'm not anti-Crouch. I think he says some things that are thought-provoking some of which I agree with and some I do not. Sometimes he's full of it, in my opinion. I wonder if he tries to be provocative and controversial to spark discussion. I know I miss him at JazzTimes. His take on hip hop is one I generally agree with. It is minstrel music for a slave mentality. Maybe his point above is only as it relates to blacks and not everyone else.

[Lois Gilbert]

Originally Posted by RainyDay

Except white people are the reason for the healthy economic state of hip-hop and rap music. Most of this music is consumed by people outside of the black community. Apparently Mr. Crouch isn't watching his MTV to look at the astonishing array of what mainstream America drops to its knees for.

Didn't someone post an article here about how the international hip-hop community reamed US hip-hop for having no meaning beyond sex and gangsterism? This meaningless art form as presented in the US is brought to you by blacks and is consumed primarily by non-blacks.

By the way, how is it that the most avid supporters of eai just looooove rap music?

Rainy I tend to agree with you but Considering Genius is not geared to whites or blacks. The reviewer I cited took an essay out of context. I think your point is good one.

Words like pimp and ho are commonplace among all teen agers now. I asked my Hispanic son what the word pimp meant. He knew what he meant, but said, " it doesn't mean that now. You're not hip." That attitude is prevalent - IMO it's not what the consumers are buying, it's what is being fed to them by the white entertainment machine and the black artists creating the bling for themselves and their powers. They are appealing to the lowest common denominator and what Stanley is saying in this particular essay is you have this wonderous music - don't settle for less otherwise our culture is doomed.

[Uli]

Is everybody crazy?

I am neither particualarly pro or con Stanley Crouch and believe that his book mite be an interesting read. but to call him " much more than the ''baddest'' black intellectual alive. He is the most independent public intellectual of any color to roll in contemporary America" is a stretch by my imagination as well. The writer of this a professor emeritus, on what?marketing?

[Tom Storer]

Originally Posted by RainyDay

Stanley seems to think only black people's tastes are shallow and he is apparently not aware of how shallow US culture is in general.

But he's quoted as saying, "the Negro community, which has produced an extraordinary number of artists, has little or no value for art and will always, like most communities, drop to its knees before entertainment clichés or trends." I read this as "black people's tastes are as shallow as everyone else's."

[relyles]

Originally Posted by mke

Rainy Day,

Are you saying that young Black Americans buy Mos Def rather than 50 Cent?

I certainly prefer Mos to the nickel.

[Paul B]

Crouch is no Gary Giddens or Ralph Gleason, and is certainly no Whitney Balliett.

I generally have no interest in what he says about music, though occassionally his ideas on other topics (as in his NY Daily News columns) are valid. His statement that "the Negro community, which has produced as extraordinary number of artists, has little or no value for art and will always, like most communities, drop to its knees before entertainment clichés or trends" seems over the top...I have no idea upon what he could base such as notion. If he's saying rap is not as sophisticated a music as jazz, well, he's right, but he should just come out and say it.

Bye-ya

[Tom Storer]

Originally Posted by Paul B

His statement that "the Negro community, which has produced as extraordinary number of artists, has little or no value for art and will always, like most communities, drop to its knees before entertainment clichés or trends" seems over the top...I have no idea upon what he could base such as notion.

Without having read his book, I don't know what larger point Crouch was trying to make, but would you disagree that "most communities" (leaving aside for the time being how one defines a "community") bestow more significant commercial success on entertainment clichés and trends than on sophisticated art? That seems indisputable to me. It's unclear whether he meant to associate the same qualifier, "like most communities," to the comment about "little or no value for art." I'd disagree in any case--it's probably true for a majority of individuals of whatever "community," but not of "communities" in the aggregate.

[walto]

Originally Posted by Uli

Is everybody crazy?

I am neither particualarly pro or con Stanley Crouch and believe that his book mite be an interesting read. but to call him " much more than the ''baddest'' black intellectual alive. He is the most independent public intellectual of any color to roll in contemporary America" is a stretch by my imagination as well. The writer of this a professor emeritus, on what?marketing?

That seemed ridiculous to me too. I found this on a Virginia Quarterly site:

SANFORD PINSKER

Sanford Pinsker, no stranger to our readers, is the author and editor of more than a dozen books, including book-length studies of Philip Roth, Cynthia Ozick, Joseph Heller, and J. D. Salinger. He also has published more than 800 articles, essays, editorials, and book reviews, frequently contributing to Georgia Review, Sewanee Review, and VQR. He recently retired after 37 years of teaching at Franklin and Marshall College. He now lives in south Florida, where he writes about American literature and culture on cloudy days. IMHO, Anybody who'd write a book-length study of Cynthia Ozick is a dope. She deserves nothing more than a couple crisp one-liners.

[Gary Sisco]

The idea that what Crouch will have to say is "unpredictable" is one of the biggest howlers of the century (so far).

The idea that he's a "novelist" is funnier still.

And there was never a "Black Panther movement." BPP was a party, not a movement.

This review is what's called blowing smoke up a writer's ass.

[walto]

The title of the book (or at least one of its meanings, anyhow), is pretty self-congratulatory, no?

[Lois Gilbert]

I have a couple of questions?

Do you know what Stanley means when he uses the term American Negro and why he uses that term specifically as cited by the reviewer of Considering Genius?

What I believe Crouch has meant over the years when he uses this term rather than African American or Black is this is a segment of the population that simply bought into the Amercian machinery. They don't revere the artists and the culture that comes out the African American experience. The people who have not seperates themselves or risen above the drivel that America has tried to force and enforce all of us to swallow - the lowest common denominator. A time within these times, where Blacks, Whites, Latinos and Asian Americans have given into allowing words like pimp and ho to seep into our childrens' vocabulary. Those folks who have settled for mediocrity instead celebrating James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Gordon Parks and the countless artists that would not fall into the trappings that were outlined for them. Malcolm X referred to these same people as the so called American Negro.

The title of the book relates specifically to the content. Read the book before you dismiss it.... If it had the same title, but the byline was Nat Hentoff, I'm sure you wouldn't question it.

Lastly, I have invited Stanley to participate in this thread and on the board, it's up to him.

[walto]

The title of the book relates specifically to the content.

I'm sure I've read a good number of the pieces in this collection, and I think it's abundantly clear what Crouch was up to with the title.

In answer to your question above, Crouch, like Ozick, another of Pinsker's apparent faves, believes that anybody who doesn't share exactly the same pantheon of greats with him, is a big dope, who has eaten a line of insipidity from pop culture (or elsewhere) that the Crouch/Ozick superior mind has enabled them to carefully evade. The difference between these two pundits is, to Crouch's credit, Ozick believes that even those who enjoy writers she likes (like Trollope and Ann Frank) do so for stupid reasons and are big dopes anyhow, while I haven't seen Crouch stoop to insult those who share his love for, e.g., Ellington or Marsalis.

[Gary Sisco]

Lois -- Trying to make change by returning to a past that no longer exists (or never did) is what's called being a reactionary.

On the other hand, Crouch isn't trying to make change. Which is why I mock him by calling him Grouch.

I also frankly have no use for anyone who, more than once, has physically assaulted people for having musical tastes and views he doesn't like.

Not to say a cliche'd list of genius, on the one hand (the past), and an absurd and sycophantic (the present, allegedly) on the other. What else does he have to say? Anything? Talk about a one-note samba.

Cat just doesn't swing, let's face it.

[Tom Storer]

Originally Posted by Lois Gilbert

Do you know what Stanley means when he uses the term American Negro and why he uses that term specifically as cited by the reviewer of Considering Genius?

What I believe Crouch has meant over the years when he uses this term rather than African American or Black is this is a segment of the population that simply bought into the Amercian machinery. That don't revere the artists and the culture that comes out the African American experience. The people who have not seperate themselves or risen above the drivel that America has tried to force and enforce all of us to swallow - the lowest common denominator.

Have you asked him? I've never had the impression that he uses "American Negro" in a derogatory way at all. I read it as an implied rejection of Black nationalism.

[Gary Sisco]

I have a Rasta friend who says he's tired of people telling him what he is (nigger, Ne-grah, Negro, black, Afro-American, African-American, and so forth). He particular objects to the last two because he's not American but Jamaican.

So now he decides for himself and his decision is to call himself a man.

[Paul B]

If it had the same title, but the byline was Nat Hentoff, I'm sure you wouldn't question it.

You are right about that, but that would only be true in my case because I find Hentoff to be a much more perceptive writer about jazz.

As for Crouch's point (which you summarize), most of this country--regardless of social class or ethnicity--settles for mediocrity in matters of culture. The phenomenon is not new, and isn't worthy of the sort of "analysis" that Crouch brings to the table. It's time to realize that most people will never really appreciate great art (or at least will not make it an integral part of their lives) and move on.

[BaconFat]

Lois, you seem to taking my comment about Stanley personally. If he is a
friend of yours I will say no offense to you intended. I have told Cassandra
Wilson that I think her buddy Wynton Marsalis is often WRONG too. But back
to Stanley,yes I've read his work, his books, his columns in the Daily News,
the Village Voice,JazzTimes (from where he was fired), his liner notes on varius jazz albums and have sometimes found myself agreeing with him on
certain things. I've read his little novel...no comment on that...In fact I've been aware of just who Stanley Crouch is since he was trying to be a drummer and hip black poet in the early seventies. I even have him on vinyl
on a Motown album rappin about a Pimp's Last Mack:A Death Request so I
don't need a primer on Stan. I know well his tunnel vision view of Jazz in
American Culture and I can see he hasn't learned anything new in the last 15
years. Sorry if he's your hero or dear friend but I can't pretend to have any
special admiration for him.

[Lilsis]

Originally Posted by Lois Gilbert

You have no idea what you are talking about. There is no substance in this posting. Why don't you start a dialogue and read the book before you make such inane comments. I've read it... have you? Have you ever read any Crouch? Including his columns in the Daily News on John Hicks. Come back and post when you have something to say.

AMEN!! I saw this thread and was thinking the same thing. However, some of what the reviewer stated is clearly off balance, it still remains that Stanley's dedication to the jazz genre and its perpetuation is REAL. Just "Keep'n it real".

[Gary Sisco]

It's no more real than that of those he's smacked in the head because he doesn't share their tastes. So what? His behavior is as thuggish as the *depictions* of behavior he so objects to in *some* hip hop. I personally object more to actual thuggish behavior.

[Lilsis]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

It's no more real than that of those he's smacked in the head because he doesn't share their tastes. So what? His behavior is as thuggish as the *depictions* of behavior he so objects to in *some* hip hop. I personally object more to actual thuggish behavior.

Is that literal or physical??? (the smacking, that is)

[Gary Sisco]

Literal, in public, and more than once.

[BaconFat]

Stanley gets on his Daily News soapbox and attacks people especially those
within his own race for behavior he has often exhibited himself. He critcizes
black people who "play the race card" but when his little novel didn't fly off
the shelves he said it was because he was a negro author. He constantly
belittles any form of music expression outside of his selected visions of jazz
as ludicrous though we know many of the musicians he's lauded have illustrated time and time again that it's a viewpoint like Stan's that has no basis in fact. He mocks the thuggery of some hiphop artists whether it is
only in fictionalized songs of actual incidents yet when he's critcized himself
in public for something he punches you in the face. I can't believe so many
people are so blind to his hipocrisy.

[Gary Sisco]

Was that a pun?

Good one, if so.

[Noj]

Originally Posted by Stanley Crouch

'' . . . the Negro community, which has produced as extraordinary number of artists, has little or no value for art and will always, like most communities, drop to its knees before entertainment clichés or trends.''

I think where this sort of thinking runs into problems is it generalizes so widely that it insults those who do not kneel before such "entertainment clichés or trends." I also believe that involving race in the discussion is not necessary - taste is color blind. White people might provide the majority of the money which finances gangster rap but it's only because they have the majority of the money in general. We are dealing with matters of intelligence and freedom of choice and the lowest common denominator which is pop culture and trends. There are people who enjoy music based on its merits as music--true fans of music, by far the minority. Then there are people who listen to music based on its popularity and the scene which surrounds it--fans of pop culture, sheep who do not listen so much as look for approval of their tunes from their peers.