“A stylish butcher of sacred cows” (Salon), and self-described “radical-pragmatist” Stanley Crouch (1945–2020) was a columnist, novelist, essayist, and television commentator. A cofounder of Jazz at Lincoln Center, he is the author of eight critically acclaimed books. Glenn Mott edited Crouch’s “American Perspectives” columns for over a decade. A staff writer at The New Yorker, Jelani Cobb was a former student of Stanley Crouch. Wynton Marsalis is an internationally acclaimed musician, composer, bandleader, and educator. He is the artistic director of Jazz at the Lincoln Center.
"Stanley Crouch’s development as a critic is on full display in
this standout collection of 58 essays, described by Mott in his
preface as a sort of 'intellectual autobiography.' 'Diminuendo and
Crescendo in Dues' is a stunning account of Duke Ellington playing
at Disneyland in 1973, while “The King of Constant Repudiation”
delivers a takedown of what Crouch considered phony activism: he
writes of critic LeRoi Jones that 'he has almost completely
traded-in a brilliant and complex talent for the most obvious
hand-me-down ideas, which he projects in second-rate pool hall
braggadocio.' Nor did Crouch sympathize with hollow notions of
machismo—he writes in 'Miles Davis, Romantic Hero' about finding in
Davis’s performances 'public visions of tenderness that were,
finally, absolute rejections of everything silly about the version
of masculinity that might hobble men in either the white or the
Black world.' Most of all, it is Crouch’s abiding humanism that
comes through, casting a critical eye on 'those ‘race men,’ Black
or white, who think they love Black people but only as receptacles
for theories that use data to remove the mystery from life.' This
is an essential collection for fans of Crouch’s writing, or anyone
interested in the art of cultural criticism."
*Publishers Weekly, starred review*
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