Considering Genius: Writings on Jazz

I come to Mr. Crouch's book not from the rarified precincts of jazz criticism but as a fan of his regular contributions to the New York Daily News. There, his pragmatic, humorous and always challenging responses and constructive criticisms to the world situation have always made him a "must read" upon receipt of the paper. He call 'em as he sees 'em without the ideological smokescreen that makes so much of the editorial page repugnant. So when I discovered that he is frequently regarded as "controversial" in the jazz press I was puzzled. It would seem to me that an intellectual provacateur of his magnitude would be welcomed. And upon reading this eminently enjoyable and at the same time profound series of meditations on the state of jazz in the world, I can only say that the same generosity of spirit that informs his Op-Ed pieces is manifest in his placing of the music and the people who make it in a context that centers them in our American Experience. This book really does straddle many of the idealogical hurdles that have been placed in our way, and that still keep the majority of Americans from truly embracing what it is that jazz, in Mr. Crouch's eloquent purview, truly represents. In his prose and in his ideas, Mr. Crouch is a true American original. I have already ordered several copies for friends who were wondering what they would read this summer. The search is over.

Let me say this: I can say that I have learned something important from every one of Stanley Crouch's books. Mr. Crouch is an iconoclast. His books are always full of surprises and ideas whether you agree with him or not. I thought his classic jazz novel Don't The Moon Look Lonesome was insightful and, in fact, was going to shock the world because it had so much untold truth going on between its covers. Mr. Crouch's book, The Artificial White Man, keep it going. In his new book, Considering Genius, Mr. Crouch continues to prove that he is one of the few public intellectuals you can always count on to make you think, laugh, and just set your brain on fire. He is a fine writer and really demonstrates his gifts in he essay form, making him one of the supreme poets of the English language. He proves that in this book just like he did in all the others. I recommend Considering Genius highly. Once you start reading it, you will not be able to put I down. I loved the book.

Stanley Crouch's fascinating collection of essays on jazz and jazz musicians is welcome and overdue. It is great to have all these pieces in one place. Crouch presents a passionate defense of blues and swing, African-American invented elements of the music that are essential to its definition. (Anything else is some sort of improvised European music.) To claim that Crouch's point of view is race-based or racialized is actually the rascist position since it once again would deprive African-Americans of yet another art form they created. If somebody wouldn't think of putting on something other than a Japanese No play and yet insist on calling it a No play, why would someone do that to jazz? This stems from a deeply ingrained reluctance to take African-Americans seriously - and Crouch will have none of it. Crouch's stylistic approach, in the tradition of belle lettres, that of the informative, discursive, and humanistic essay, is far superior to many "critical" academic treatments of such a hip and swinging subject which always resists them. This book is not burdened with musicological analysis or faux-critical theory. It is rather the hard-won and well considered insights of a writer who's been on the scene he's covering for four decades. Some of these pieces are available elsewhere (for example, 'Body and Soul', his brilliant and stylistically unique account of his visit to the 1982 Umbria Jazz Festival, was included in his first book 'Notes of a Hanging Judge' [1990]). But his remarkable essay on Ben Webster is not, to my knowledge, found anywhere else. His take-down of Miles Davis may be somewhere else, but good thing its here too. It can't be reprinted enough. His intellectual nuclear devastation of Amiri Baraka/Leroi Jones is in here too. Not all the pieces are iconoclastic of course. His celebrations of Duke Ellington and Mahalia Jackson are uplifting. His pieces for the Jazz Times, which ultimately got him fired from that erroneously titled publication, are included as well. They are inspiring in their own way, if you are inclined to the point of view that jazz means something definite and has a tradition (like any other art form!), that it came from an African-American cultural context, and that it should swing. (That does not, of course, mean that whites cannot play the music how it is supposed to sound. Crouch celebrates those who can and do.) The book is not all recycled pieces. It contains a long autobiographical forward, which reads well and is entertaining, chronicling Crouch's history with the music, from his first encounters with it in a burger joint in LA in the 1950s to Rudy Giuliani's office in the 1990s, where Crouch convinced him to have the city support the creation of building that houses Jazz@Lincoln Center. The long epilogue considers the young Sicilian saxophonist Cafiso, among other things. In any case, it is an essential book that helps explain 'the soul part' of the body and soul of jazz.

I learned a great deal about jazz and jazz musicians. This guy doesn't sugar-coat anything! The wonderful index was an immense help, especially later when I was trying to remember some of the many names.