Why The Hate For Stanley Crouch?

[128Bit_Encryption]

I’ve been preoccupied (my mother broke her arm yesterday) and only just read about the widely reported skirmish in which Stanley Crouch took a slap at Dale Peck.
I'm no admirer of Dale Peck, so this is presumably where I should toss off some witty plague-on-both-your-houses crack. Unfortunately, I don’t think what Crouch did is even slightly amusing. I think it’s disgusting—though not exactly surprising. As owners of A Terry Teachout Reader are well aware, I think Crouch is a musical ignoramus with an embarrassingly purple prose style. Among other repellent things, he flirts avidly with reverse racism in his jazz criticism. He's more than happy to play the race card whenever it suits his interests (as he has done with me), though he writes contemptuously of others who do the same thing. Some, I’m told, find him a charming rascal, but I’m not nearly enough of a hypocrite to be charmed by people who make nicey-nice in private after they insult you in public. I didn’t think my opinion of him could sink much lower. I was mistaken.
I decided some time ago to have nothing more to do with Stanley Crouch. Since then, I’ve declined invitations to appear with him in public and on radio, nor will I knowingly participate in any published symposium in which he takes part. As far as I’m concerned, he’s an unperson. And instead of tittering over his latest escapade, I think the rest of the literary world would now do well to do likewise.

T. Teachout

Recently, I was reading a blistering commentary about Stanley Crouch by a writer named Terry Teachout. He writes about literature and the arts for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Baltimore Sun, the National Review, and the Washington Post. Anyway, I was reading a blog about his take on the incident involving Stanley and Dale Peck which happened a while ago. One thing that struck me was the very acerbic tone and hostility of Teachouts assessment of Stanley. A while ago there were some threads on this board that was nothing short of a Crouch hate fest. I have also read some other extremely derisive comments about him at posting site by some young black writers. Why is it that so many people seem to enjoy taking these vicious shots at bro Stanley? Why all the hate?

[Al Andalous]

His propensity for assaulting his colleagues (and others), for one? I haven't read him much at all, but I gather he has a pretty fundamentalist view of what jazz should be, one that lots of people find too stifling.

[kh1958]

His liner notes on Marsalis recordings are so fawning and overly praising that they are ludicrous. I can't even imagine any genuine jazz great allowing such writing on one of their recordings.

[RainyDay]

This issue tends to fall along color lines. I find Crouch amusing and often tiresome but I can't get all bent out of shape about him. He likes to hit people which is pretty ignorant but that doesn't have much to do with his point of view. I admire Crouch for saying out loud to a mixed audience what a lot of black folks would like to say out loud. That includes his strong commentary about rap music.

I disagree with him as much as I agree with him but I find him to be a breath of fresh air on occasion. His CSPAN interview was a complete embarrassment and as far as I can tell, it was never run again, which is good because it should never see the light of day. As for the Marsalis connection, I wish people could give it a rest. Crouch has had more things to say about jazz that have nothing to do with Marsalis. Yes, he has a narrow perspective on jazz. So do disciples of AG who eschew mainstream jazz. So do folks who think Miles' career tanked with Bitches Brew. Get over it.

How many folks feel about Crouch is how I feel about Nat Hentoff who is as loathesome as they get, in my opinion. Nat is the darling of the jazz community. He makes me gag.

[Chuck Nessa]

The guy (SC) is both artistically and professionally dishonest. Some people just get tired of him and strike out at him. His violence is just the icing on the cake.

[gregk]

Originally Posted by Chris A

I totally disagree with that, but I would love to hear you expand on it.

As for Wynton, one cannot discuss Stanley without mentioning Wynton--he himself has seen to that.

The C-Span interview was indeed embarrassing, so was his novel, so are his liner notes for Wynton, so was his appearance on the Burns series, ditto Tavis Smiley's annual panel discussion, and so--more often than not--is his NY Daily News column. The fact that he is a black man who publicly expresses a dislike for rap music does not make him unique, nor is it, IMO, something to admire. In fact, I cannot think of anything to admire in today's Stanley Crouch. There was a time when he was tolerable--I even wrote a letter to the Village Voice commending him for what I thought was a courageous review of a PBS series on Africa. Now I am not so sure that it wasn't more an attempt to generate controversy.

Chris, do you know him personally? I'm just wondering if you are judging him based on his personality or his public writings, or both.

[Hardbop]

Originally Posted by David Gitin

...and at a jazz award show where he was to announce Matthew Shipp as a winner, he dissed him while MS sat, furious, in the audience, wanting to deck Crouch, whom Amiri Baraka battled on the pages of the Village Voice as "crouch-man"...

I thought it was Dave Douglas that the Stan-ser dissed at the awards show? Was it Shipp or Howard Mandel who threw the drink at Stanley at the after show party or was it Stanley who threw the drink at Shipp. And someone threw a punch at someone; I know Stanley, Shipp and Mandel were involved, but I can no longer remember who did what to whom.

Stanley didn't exactly endear himself to the homosexual community recently after he bitch slapped that gay writer who wrote some real nasty things about Stanley's novel.

[mother of invention]

Stanley is a shameless oppourtunist. He supported Clarence Thomas, I saw him once advocate sterilizing welfare mothers(smacks of naziism?!) and just generally enjoys pissing people off. As you can see it has been a very successful tactic. Allying himself with Wynton Marsalis didn't do him any harm either, although it would seem that he has become a bit too hot to handle for Wyton even. As for him being conservative in his musical interests, he used to book a place in NYC called the Tin Palace that was largely "free" jazz artists, his musical taste seems to follow with his politics. I can only say that he is at least unabashed and unapologetic about his total disregard for anything but promoting himself. And sometimes he even has a valid point it's just kinda hard to filter through the utter crap.

[Tenorman]

You get warned about this type of personality on management courses. The problem is that they do not have, or feel that they do not have the ability to hold their own in a given situation, and have discovered that by acting aggressively and negatively to other people's ideas, they can "win". There are a variety of techniques for dealing with them in meetings, that are fairly effective. The warning usually is that on no account should they be put in charge of any staff, as they will go all out to break them, and will not tolerate ideas from anyone but themselves.. I have had to deal with the "type" a couple of times in my career and it is not pleasant. One I eventually had to fire, after going through all the usual warnings etc. I then had to get my phone monitored, mail checked, and a panic alarm put in the house. Fortunately he didn't follow me to London

[clifton]

The only information I would add is that about 20 years or so ago, Crouch had aligned himself with David Murray in a similar albeit shallower, and far more short-lived, manner to his subsequent alliance with Wynton Marsalis. When Murray first arrived in New York, Crouch even played drums in David's band a few times. For reasons unknown to me, Crouch and Murray had a falling-out, and Murray, to my knowledge, has not commented publicly on the matter.

[maygar]

One can understand why Murray would fall out with Crouch; David has an open mind and an adventurous spirit, Crouch is a closed book and is mean spirited.

[jazzcritic]

128_Bit Encryption wrote:
Recently, I was reading a blistering commentary about Stanley Crouch by a writer named Terry Teachout. He writes about literature and the arts for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Baltimore Sun, the National Review, and the Washington Post. Anyway, I was reading a blog about his take on the incident involving Stanley and Dale Peck which happened a while ago. One thing that struck me was the very acerbic tone and hostility of Teachouts assessment of Stanley. A while ago there were some threads on this board that was nothing short of a Crouch hate fest. I have also read some other extremely derisive comments about him at posting site by some young black writers. Why is it that so many people seem to enjoy taking these vicious shots at bro Stanley? Why all the hate?



Stanley Crouch has set himself up as a self-proclaimed icon in jazz criticism,
yet the inadequacies of his work, his public displays of temper (sorry, disagreeing with another writer never calls for a physical attack) and his convenient playing of the race card when it suits him makes him a laughing stock to many of us. He also was rightly ridiculed by members of the Jazz Journalists Association for bulldozing the JJA president into allowing him time in our 2003 awards show. Not only is Crouch not a member, but he gave us a five minute display of his amateurish drumming. I imagine that the real musicians in the room where wondering who invited him to play.

Crouch only has himself to blame. I may disagree with other writers but I'll try to address my grievances with their work in my reviews instead of launching personal attacks, a tactic that Crouch seems to enjoy.

[Frank Mullen]

I just received (without requesting it) two bits of spam about an outfit called "My Music,Inc" who claim to have a trove of jazz and a bunch of videos which one can freely download if one subscribes to the service. One possible negative of the service is that their inventories apparently differ depending on whether you have a Mac or a Windows machine. As I have a Mac I'd like to have the benefit of anybodys experience with their service, especially for Macs. Thanks, guys.

[Frank Mullen]

Sorry guys, I meant to place that post as a separate thread. I guess I'd better. The URL is the name of the thing: My Music.com Sorry about that.

[maren]

Originally Posted by RainyDay

This issue tends to fall along color lines....
How many folks feel about Crouch is how I feel about Nat Hentoff who is as loathesome as they get, in my opinion. Nat is the darling of the jazz community. He makes me gag.

I too think that how people feel about Crouch tends to fall out along color lines: except I see white people adoring him (McArthur award, syndicated columns in NY Daily News and Jewish World Review, accolades from Saul Bellow, etc.) and black people rolling their eyes (SEE HERE just for starters).

He's deft, I'll grant him that. He knows how to play with the racism of white people who think they aren't racist and that there's no such thing as white privilege. That whole JazzTimes thing -- I thought he was RIGHT about white jazz critics searching for great white hopes -- only thing is, I believe his whole intent was to make things worse for black critics and musicians (e.g., Mark Turner, Don Byron) outside his Lincoln Center fiefdom.

BTW, I can't stand Nat Hentoff either.