Five Music Books, Beginning with Stanley Crouch

Reading the news and or the internet always leaves a residue of bad feeling. Thus I've taken to spending more time reading good old hard copies of books, with music being the main topic. Over the next few weeks I'll offer critical rundown of these titles, two of which are Beatles books, two of which are jazz books, and one of which is a Bob Dylan door stopper. I'll cover each in separate posts. Let's begin with Considering Genius: Writings on Jazz by the late Stanley Crouch.

As with all things jazz, you pretty much have to be an initiate or at least a very-interested lover of music in general to go deep into the meaning and history of the music. That said, this is is a stellar collection of essays from the formidable Stanley Crouch, mentor to Wynton Marsalis and holder of no ambivalent opinions. To start, let me note that the writing is absolutely superb: poetic and lucid and passionate. A couple points about his jazz aesthetic. First, he is a disciple of the great black writers Albert Murray and Ralph Ellison when it comes to thinking both about jazz in particular and the black experience in America in general. It is for this reason that Crouch is mistakenly labeled as a "conservative." Why? Because Crouch, like those two literary giants, is not a black separatist and identifies more with America than with Africa, the latter of which was the vogue beginning in the 60s, and continuing through to today. To Murray, Ellison, and Crouch, jazz is American music -- born of the black experience, yes, with all the atrocity that entails, but also with all the triumph as well, a victory embodied so well in the jazz art form. Indeed, reading Crouch, one is reminded that jazz and the people that perform it represent a peerless, and fearless, spiritual and aesthetic achievement which could have happened nowhere else than here in America. Reading this book, I was struck by the grandeur of the art form.

Crouch's other main point, which also gets him labeled a conservative, is that "progress" in jazz, the stretching of the art form, is best and most true when it extends and expands on the core black-derived attributes of the music, such as blues, swing, and daring rhythmic conception. Thus, giants like Monk, Bird, Ellington, and Mingus moved the music forward not by grafting European aesthetics onto jazz, or by seeking a fusion with European forms. For example, when Monk brought dissonance and rhythmic disruption in, it was by intensifying attributes inherent to the American black music tradition. Personally, I love European jazz, and do consider it to be real jazz, not fake jazz, even when there is no blues in it at all. What they do carry forward, perhaps, is the improvisational inclusiveness that exemplifies the jazz spirit. So, while I suppose I "disagree" with Crouch here, I do think he makes a compelling point. A quick note. Crouch by no means thinks that white people can't excel at jazz or that jazz is the property of black folks. On the contrary. But what he does think is that what they are doing is excelling at a black art form.

Aside from these two main aesthetic concerns, Crouch often comes across as a grouch. For example, he is merciless in his hatred for Miles's late 60s turn to electronic jazz "fusion," bringing in elements of rock and funk and African percussion. This goes against the consensus that this was Miles's last great feat of aesthetic shape-shifting, changing the whole direction of the music for yet another time. In a way, I feel that this direction was, or at least could be, better for Miles's playing, since it allowed him to play with space more and return to more incisive phrasing, especially on 1971's Jack Johnson. But still, Crouch has a point. As Miles continued with this style for the rest of his life, his playing could sometimes come across as pointless, with too much reliance on vamping from the band. Ultimately, I am in no way offended by Crouch's stance here. He's from the school where it's better to say what you have to say, and to say it forcefully and eloquently, than it is to dither or equivocate. 

Of special note is his extended essay on attending the venerable Umbria Jazz Festival, in Italy. In it, he shifts between meditations on the Renaissance and appreciations of the festival's jazz performers, drawing connections and resonances where one might never have thought to look -- or listen. It's a stupendous piece of art writing, and shows that for all his pugnaciousness, Crouch was always motivated by love and an unshakeable belief in the exquisite glory of jazz as an art form with global reach. I share his belief. Or rather, my prior belief was strengthened by this moving, thought-provoking collection.