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Writings on Jazz
Basic Books
July 2006
359 pages
ISBN: 0465015174
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Biography
From the preeminent-and always controversial-jazz critic and
intellectual firebrand Stanley Crouch, the long-awaited
collection of essential essays on the great music and
performers of the jazz world Stanley Crouch-MacArthur "genius" award recipient,
co-founder of Jazz at Lincoln Center, National Book Award
nominee, and perennial bull in the china shop of black
intelligentsia- has been writing about jazz and jazz artists
for over thirty years. His reputation for controversy is
exceeded only by a universal respect for his intellect and
passion. As Gary Giddons notes: "Stanley may be the only jazz writer out there with the kind
of rhinoceros hide necessary to provoke and outrage and then
withstand the fulminations that come back." Now, in a long-awaited collection, Crouch collects fifteen
of his most influential, and most controversial pieces
(published in Jazz Times, The New Yorker, the Village Voice,
and elsewhere), and includes two new essays as well. The
pieces range from the introspective "Jazz Criticism and its
Effect on the Art Form" to a rollicking debate with Amiri
Baraka, to vivid, intimate portraits of the legendary
performers Crouch has known. The first, autobiographical
essay reflects on his life in jazz as a drummer, a promoter,
a critic, and most of all a lover of this quintessentially
American art form. And the closing essay, about a young
Italian saxophonist, expresses undaunted optimism for the
worldwide vibrancy of jazz. Throughout, Crouch's work reminds us not only of why he is
one of the world's most important living jazz critics, but
also of why jazz itself remains, against all odds, an
elemental component of our cultural identity.
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