Stanley Crouch

Stanley Crouch (born December 14, 1945, Los Angeles) is an American music critic, syndicated columnist, and novelist perhaps best known for his jazz criticism and his novel Don't the Moon Look Lonesome?

Biography

During the early 1970s, Crouch moved from California to New York City, where he lived along with tenor saxophonist David Murray in a loft above an East Village club called the Tin Palace. While working as a drummer, Crouch conducted the booking for an avant-garde jazz series at the club, as well as organizing occasional concert events at the Ladies' Fort.

Since the early 1980s Crouch has become critical of the more progressive forms of jazz and has been associated with the neo-conservative attitudes of Albert Murray. An ardent proselytizer for the music of Wynton Marsalis, he writes the liner notes for all of the trumpeter's albums. Crouch was summarily dismissed from JazzTimes following his controversial article, "Putting the White Man in Charge", in which he asserted that white critics elevate white jazz musicians beyond their abilities.

Controversy

Crouch has been very critical of his critics and detractors. At the First Annual Jazz Awards, Crouch was invited to present an award, and while reading the nominees made disparaging comments about two of them: trumpeter Dave Douglas and pianist Matthew Shipp. After the show, jazz critic Howard Mandel (not to be confused with "Deal or No Deal" host Howie Mandel), who was largely responsible for creating and organizing the Jazz Awards, confronted Crouch about his earlier comments. After a short argument, Crouch punched Mandel and then was confronted by Shipp, who called Crouch "an Uncle Tom and a fucking loser". However, the two were quickly separated and a brawl was avoided.

In 2004, Crouch approached critic Dale Peck—who had written an unfavorable review of Crouch's first novel Don't the Moon Look Lonesome—in a Greenwich Village restaurant and slapped him in the face warning him, "Don’t you ever do that again. If you do you’ll get much worse." Crouch has also punched jazz writer Russ Musto and Village Voice letters editor Ron Plotkin and put fellow Voice critic Harry Allen in a choke hold, leading to his dismissal.

Opinions

Crouch is a fierce critic of gangsta rap music, primarily its promotion of violence, criminal lifestyles and degrading attitudes toward women. With this viewpoint, he has defended Bill Cosby's remarks (see the Pound Cake Speech) and praised a women's group at Spelman College for speaking out against those same phenomena. Several of his syndicated columns have been dedicated to these subjects recently.

Crouch has sat on a panel of judges for the PEN/Newman's Own Award, a $25,000 award designed to protect speech as it applies to the written word.

His syndicated column for the New York Daily News frequently challenges prominent members of the African American community to help blacks focus on bettering themselves instead of blaming others for their problems. Crouch has criticised, among others, author Alex Haley, the author of The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Roots: The Saga of an American Family, community leader Al Sharpton, Spike Lee, Cornel West, Amiri Baraka and Tupac Shakur, whom he called "scum." Crouch's controversial work has won him critical acclaim. In 2005, he was selected a fellow by the Fletcher Foundation.

Bibliography

Non-fiction

Title
Considering Genius: Writings on Jazz
The Artificial White Man: Essays on Authenticity
All-American Skin Game, or, The Decoy of Race, The: The Long and the Short of It, 1990-1994
-	Reconsidering the Souls of Black Folk with Playthell G. Benjamin	Always in Pursuit: Fresh American Perspectives	In Defence of Taboos Fiction Title Don't the Moon Look Lonesome? Ain't no ambulances for no nigguhs tonight "Reconsiderin the Souls of Black Folk" , Stanley Crouch and Playthell Benjamin==External links== Brief biography Interview with Crouch by Ethan Iverson of The Bad Plus, mostly about "Considering Genius"