Stanley Lawrence Crouch (December 14, 1945 – September 16, 2020)
was an American poet, music and cultural critic, syndicated columnist, novelist, and biographer. He was known for his
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...
criticism and his 2000 novel ''Don't the Moon Look Lonesome?''
Biography
Stanley Lawrence Crouch was born in Los Angeles, the son of James and Emma Bea (Ford) Crouch.
He was raised by his mother. In
Ken Burns
Kenneth Lauren Burns (born July 29, 1953) is an American filmmaker known for his documentary films and television series, many of which chronicle American history and culture. His work is often produced in association with WETA-TV and/or th ...
' 2005 television documentary ''
Unforgivable Blackness'', Crouch said that his father was a "criminal" and that he once met the boxer
Jack Johnson. As a child he was a voracious reader, having read the complete works of
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century f ...
,
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has pr ...
,
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age—a term he popularize ...
, and many of the other classics of American literature by the time he finished high school. His mother told him of the experiences of her youth in
east Texas
East Texas is a broadly defined cultural, geographic, and ecological region in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Texas that comprises most of 41 counties. It is primarily divided into Northeast and Southeast Texas. Most of the region co ...
and the black culture of the southern
midwest
The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of ...
, including the
Kansas City jazz
Kansas City jazz is a style of jazz that developed in Kansas City, Missouri during the 1920s and 1930s, which marked the transition from the structured big band style to the much more improvisational style of bebop. The hard-swinging, bluesy tra ...
scene. He became an enthusiast for jazz in both the aesthetic and historical senses. He graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in Los Angeles in 1963. After high school, he attended junior colleges and became active in the
civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...
, working for the
Student Nonviolent Co-ordinating Committee. He was also involved in artistic and educational projects centered on the African-American community of Los Angeles, soon gaining recognition for his poetry. In 1968, he became poet-in-residence at
Pitzer College
Pitzer College is a private liberal arts college in Claremont, California. One of the Claremont Colleges, the college has a curricular emphasis on the social sciences, behavioral sciences, international programs, and media studies. Pitzer is k ...
, then taught theatre and literature at
Pomona College
Pomona College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Claremont, California. It was established in 1887 by a group of Congregationalists who wanted to recreate a "college of the New England type" in Southern California. In 1925, it became t ...
until 1975. The
Watts riots were a pivotal event in his early development as a thinker on racial issues. A quote from the rioting, "Ain't no ambulances for no nigguhs tonight", was used as a title for a polemical speech that advocated black nationalist ideas, released as a recording in 1969; it was also used for a 1972 collection of his poems.
Crouch was then active as a jazz drummer. Together with
David Murray, he formed the group Black Music Infinity. In 1975, he sought to further his endeavors with a move from California to New York City, where he shared a loft with Murray above an
East Village club called the
Tin Palace. He was a drummer for Murray and with other musicians of the underground New York
loft jazz Loft jazz (or the loft scene or loft era) was a cultural phenomenon that occurred in New York City during the mid-1970s. Gary Giddins described it as follows: " new coterie of avant-garde musicians took much of the jazz world by surprise... ey inte ...
scene. While working as a drummer, Crouch conducted the booking for an
avant-garde jazz
Avant-garde jazz (also known as avant-jazz and experimental jazz) is a style of music and improvisation that combines avant-garde art music and composition with jazz. It originated in the early 1950s and developed through to the late 1960s. Ori ...
series at the club, as well as organizing occasional concert events at the
Ladies' Fort. By his own admission he was not a good drummer, saying "The problem was that I couldn't really play. Since I was doing this avant-garde stuff, I didn't have to be all that good, but I was a real knucklehead."
Crouch befriended
Ralph Ellison
Ralph Waldo Ellison (March 1, 1913 – April 16, 1994) was an American writer, literary critic, and scholar best known for his novel ''Invisible Man'', which won the National Book Award in 1953. He also wrote '' Shadow and Act'' (1964), a collec ...
and
Albert Murray, who influenced his thinking in a direction less centered on race. He stated with regard to Murray's influence, "I saw how important it is to free yourself from ideology. When you look at things solely in terms of race or class, you miss what is really going on."
He made a final, public break with black nationalist ideology in 1979, in an exchange with
Amiri Baraka
Amiri Baraka (born Everett Leroy Jones; October 7, 1934 – January 9, 2014), previously known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka, was an American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays and music criticism. He was the author of numerous bo ...
in the ''
Village Voice
''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the cr ...
''. He was also emerging as a public critic of recent cultural and artistic trends that he saw as empty, phony, or corrupt. His targets included the fusion and avant-garde movements in jazz (including his own participation in the latter) and literature that he saw as hiding their lack of merit behind racial posturing. As a writer for the ''Voice'' from 1980 to 1988, he was known for his blunt criticisms of his targets and tendency to excoriate their participants. It was during this period that he became a friend and intellectual mentor to
Wynton Marsalis
Wynton Learson Marsalis (born October 18, 1961) is an American trumpeter, composer, teacher, and artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. He has promoted classical and jazz music, often to young audiences. Marsalis has won nine Grammy Award ...
, and an advocate of the
neotraditionalist movement that he saw as reviving the core values of jazz.
In 1987, he became an artistic consultant for the
Jazz at Lincoln Center
Jazz at Lincoln Center is part of Lincoln Center in New York City. The organization was founded in 1987 and opened at Time Warner Center in October 2004. Wynton Marsalis is the artistic director and the leader of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orches ...
program, joined by Marsalis, who later became artistic director, in 1991.
After his stint at the ''Voice'', Crouch published ''Notes of a Hanging Judge: Essays and Reviews, 1979–1989'', which was selected by ''The
Encyclopædia Britannica
The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various t ...
Yearbook'' as the best book of essays published in 1990.
That was followed by receipt of a
Whiting Award
The Whiting Award is an American award presented annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry
Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and ...
in 1991, and a
MacArthur Foundation
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is a private foundation that makes grants and impact investments to support non-profit organizations in approximately 50 countries around the world. It has an endowment of $7.0 billion and p ...
"genius" grant and the Jean Stein Award from the
American Academy of Arts and Letters
The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqu ...
in 1993.
Crouch continued to be an active author, producing works of fiction and nonfiction, articles for periodicals and newspaper columns. He was a columnist for the ''
New York Daily News
The New York ''Daily News'', officially titled the ''Daily News'', is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, NJ. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in ...
'' and a syndicated columnist. He also participated as a source in documentaries and as a guest in televised discussions. During the 2000s he was a featured commentator on ''
Ken Burns' Jazz'' (2001) and ''
Unforgivable Blackness'' (2005), on the life of the boxer
Jack Johnson. He also published the novel ''Don't The Moon Look Lonesome?'' (2000), a collection of his reviews and writings on jazz, ''Considering Genius'' (2007), and a biography of the jazz musician
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker Jr. (August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955), nicknamed "Bird" or "Yardbird", was an American jazz saxophonist, band leader and composer. Parker was a highly influential soloist and leading figure in the development of bebop, a form ...
, ''Kansas City Lightning'' (2013).
Crouch became less of a public figure due to declining health during his last decade. He died on September 16, 2020, at
Calvary Hospital in New York City. The cause of death was a "long, unspecified illness," though he also struggled with a bout of
COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quick ...
in the spring. He was 74.
Personal life
Crouch lived in
Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.
Opinions
As a political thinker, Crouch was initially drawn to, then became disillusioned with, the
Black Power movement of the late 1960s. His critiques of his former co-thinkers, whom he refers to as a "lost generation", are collected in ''Notes of a Hanging Judge: Essays and Reviews, 1979–1989'' and ''The All-American Skin Game, or, The Decoy of Race: The Long and the Short of It, 1990–1994''. He identified the embrace of racial essentialism among African-American leaders and intellectuals as a diversion from issues more central to the betterment of African Americans and society as a whole. In the 1990s, he upset many political thinkers when he declared himself a "radical pragmatist". He explained, "I affirm whatever I think has the best chance of working, of being both inspirational and unsentimental, of reasoning across the categories of false division and beyond the decoy of race".
In his syndicated column for the ''New York Daily News'', Crouch frequently criticized prominent African Americans. Crouch was critical of, among others:
Alex Haley
Alexander Murray Palmer Haley (August 11, 1921 – February 10, 1992) was an American writer and the author of the 1976 book '' Roots: The Saga of an American Family.'' ABC adapted the book as a television miniseries of the same name and ...
, the author of ''
The Autobiography of Malcolm X'' and ''
Roots: The Saga of an American Family''; community leader
Al Sharpton
Alfred Charles Sharpton Jr. (born October 3, 1954) is an American civil rights activist, Baptist minister, talk show host and politician. Sharpton is the founder of the National Action Network. In 2004, he was a candidate for the Democrati ...
; filmmaker
Spike Lee
Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee (born March 20, 1957) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. His production company, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, has produced more than 35 films since 1983. He made his directorial debut ...
; scholar
Cornel West
Cornel Ronald West (born June 2, 1953) is an American philosopher, political activist, social critic, actor, and public intellectual. The grandson of a Baptist minister, West focuses on the role of race, gender, and class in American society an ...
, and poet and playwright
Amiri Baraka
Amiri Baraka (born Everett Leroy Jones; October 7, 1934 – January 9, 2014), previously known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka, was an American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays and music criticism. He was the author of numerous bo ...
.
Crouch was also a fierce critic of
gangsta rap
Gangsta rap or gangster rap, initially called reality rap, emerged in the mid- to late 1980s as a controversial hip-hop subgenre whose lyrics assert the culture and values typical of American street gangs and street hustlers. Many gangsta rappe ...
music, asserting that it promotes violence, criminal lifestyles, and degrading attitudes toward women. With this viewpoint, he defended
Bill Cosby
William Henry Cosby Jr. ( ; born July 12, 1937) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and media personality. He made significant contributions to American and African-American culture, and is well known in the United States for his eccentric ...
's "
Pound Cake Speech
The Pound Cake speech was given by Bill Cosby on May 17, 2004, during an NAACP Legal Defense Fund awards ceremony in Washington, D.C., to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the ''Brown v. Board of Education'' Supreme Court decision.
In the sp ...
" and praised a women's group at
Spelman College
Spelman College is a private, historically black, women's liberal arts college in Atlanta, Georgia. It is part of the Atlanta University Center academic consortium in Atlanta. Founded in 1881 as the Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary, Spelman rece ...
for speaking out against rap music.
With regard to rapper
Tupac Shakur
Tupac Amaru Shakur ( ; born Lesane Parish Crooks, June 16, 1971 – September 13, 1996), also known as 2Pac and Makaveli, was an American rapper. He is widely considered one of the most influential rappers of all time. Shakur is among the b ...
he wrote, "what dredged-up scum you are willing to pay for is what scum you get, on or off stage."
From the late 1970s, Crouch was critical of forms of jazz that diverge from what he regarded as its essential core values, similar to the opinions of
Albert Murray on the same topic. In jazz critic Alex Henderson's assessment, Crouch was a "rigid jazz purist" and "a blistering critic of
avant-garde jazz
Avant-garde jazz (also known as avant-jazz and experimental jazz) is a style of music and improvisation that combines avant-garde art music and composition with jazz. It originated in the early 1950s and developed through to the late 1960s. Ori ...
and
fusion
Fusion, or synthesis, is the process of combining two or more distinct entities into a new whole.
Fusion may also refer to:
Science and technology Physics
*Nuclear fusion, multiple atomic nuclei combining to form one or more different atomic nucl ...
". Crouch commented: "We should laugh at those who make artistic claims for fusion."
In ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' Robert Boynton wrote: "Enthusiastic, combative, and never averse to attention, Crouch has a virtually insatiable appetite for controversy."
Boynton also observed: "Few cultural critics have a vision as eclectic and intriguing as Stanley Crouch's. Fewer still actually fight to prove their points."
Crouch was fired from ''
JazzTimes
''JazzTimes'' is an American magazine devoted to jazz. Published 10 times a year, it was founded in Washington, D.C. in 1970 by Ira Sabin as the newsletter ''Radio Free Jazz'' to complement his record store.
Coverage
After a decade of growt ...
'' following his controversial article "Putting the White Man in Charge" in which he stated that, since the 1960s, "white musicians who can play are too frequently elevated far beyond their abilities in order to allow white writers to make themselves feel more comfortable about being in the role of evaluating an art from which they feel substantially alienated."
Association with Wynton Marsalis and Ken Burns
Trumpeter
Wynton Marsalis
Wynton Learson Marsalis (born October 18, 1961) is an American trumpeter, composer, teacher, and artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. He has promoted classical and jazz music, often to young audiences. Marsalis has won nine Grammy Award ...
called Crouch "my best friend in the world" and "mentor".
The two met after Marsalis, at the age of 17, settled in New York City to attend the
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School ( ) is a Private university, private performing arts music school, conservatory in New York City. Established in 1905, the school trains about 850 undergraduate and graduate students in dance, drama, and music. It is widely ...
.
The two shared a close relationship,
Crouch having written
liner notes
Liner notes (also sleeve notes or album notes) are the writings found on the sleeves of LP record albums and in booklets that come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or the equivalent packaging for cassettes.
Origin
Liner notes are des ...
for Marsalis' albums since his debut album in 1982.
When Marsalis served as "Senior Creative Consultant" for
Ken Burns
Kenneth Lauren Burns (born July 29, 1953) is an American filmmaker known for his documentary films and television series, many of which chronicle American history and culture. His work is often produced in association with WETA-TV and/or th ...
' 2001 documentary ''
Jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...
'', Crouch served on the film's advisory board and appears extensively. Some jazz critics and aficionados cited the participation of Marsalis and Crouch specifically as reasons for what they believed to be the film's undue focus on
traditional
A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays or ...
and
straight-ahead jazz.
After ''Jazz'', Crouch appeared in other Burns films, including the DVD for the 2002 remastered version of ''
The Civil War'' and the 2004 documentary ''
Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson''.
Awards, honors, distinctions
*In 2004, Crouch was invited to 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.
*In 2005, he was selected as one of the inaugural fellows by the
Fletcher Foundation
The Fletcher Foundation was a nonprofit foundation that supported civil rights, education, and environmental education. The foundation supported efforts to develop a more just society with more equal opportunities for more of the population prima ...
, which awards annual fellowships to people working on issues of race and
civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life ...
and directed by Professor
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr. (born September 16, 1950) is an American literary critic, professor, historian, and filmmaker, who serves as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African Ame ...
of
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...
.
*In 2005, Crouch was named Man Of The Year by
Patrick Lynch of the
Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York for being "as bold in his support for New York City police officers as he is in his condemnation of the city’s “cheapskate” attitude in compensating the men and women who risk their lives every day to keep New York City safe and civil", which awards annual awards to men who perform acts of political allyship towards policing as a construct and has been presided over by Patrick J. Lynch since 1999.
*Crouch served as president of the
Louis Armstrong
Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops", was an American trumpeter and Singing, vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and se ...
Educational Foundation from 2009 on.
*In 2016, Crouch was awarded the
Windham–Campbell Literature Prize (nonfiction).
*Crouch was a member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...
.
Bibliography
Non-fiction
Fiction
Notes
References
External links
*
*
''In Depth'' interview with CrouchProfile at The Whiting Foundation*
Brief biographyDTM interview ''
Publishers Weekly
''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of ...
''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crouch, Stanley
1945 births
2020 deaths
20th-century African-American writers
20th-century American essayists
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American novelists
21st-century African-American writers
21st-century American male writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American novelists
60 Minutes correspondents
African-American novelists
American columnists
American male non-fiction writers
American male novelists
American music critics
American music journalists
Harper's Magazine people
Jazz writers
MacArthur Fellows
Novelists from New York (state)
People from Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn
Pomona College faculty
Radical centrist writers
Writers from Brooklyn
Writers from Los Angeles