E-mail a friendStanley Crouch
airdate June 29, 2006
Columnist, novelist, essayist, critic and television commentator, Stanley Crouch wears many hats. A jazz enthusiast, he's also artistic consultant at New York's Lincoln Center and co-founder of the Jazz at Lincoln Center department. His books include Notes of a Hanging Judge, The All-American Skins Game, The Artificial White Man and the novel Don't the Moon Look Lonesome and. His latest, Considering Genius: Writings on Jazz is a collection of essays on the music and performers of the jazz world.
Stanley Crouch
Tavis: Stanley Crouch is a widely-read columnist, author, and social critic whose latest book focuses on one of his favorite subjects, perhaps his favorite, jazz. His numerous essays about music are the subject of his new book, 'Considering Genius, Writings on Jazz.' He is also the co-founder of Jazz at Lincoln Center. He joins us tonight from where else, New York City. Stanley, it's always nice to have you on this program, man.
Stanley Crouch: It's always nice to be on here.
Tavis: Let me start, before I get to the book, and first of all, I love the title. 'Considering Genius.' I thought it was a book about you at first, when I heard the title. (Laughs)
Crouch: No, it's about you. It was about you.
Tavis: We'll come back to that in just a moment. That said, speaking of your considered genius, there are a couple of columns you've written of late that really got my attention. I want to give you a chance to expound on it right quick. The first one, in no particular order, this fascinating and perhaps piece that angers some, which would not be uncommon for you, about summer vacation, and how it is that our system of schooling for young people is outdated.
And you say that there's something wrong with us being the only country that allows young people to lollygag, your word, for three months in the summer. Explain what you were trying to say in that piece.
Crouch: Well, the first thing is, we're the only country in the industrial world that does that. Nobody else has vacations as long as American kids do. And I think that what has happened is that such an enormous amount of money is now made from entertainment parks, through movies, and other things that are supposed - oh, summer camps. Things that are supposed to be entertaining and make kids feel as though they have a right to do nothing for three months. I don't believe it.
Tavis: The other comment that got my attention, you've written extensively, I should say, somewhat extensively, on Katrina. You've had some fascinating things to say. Your piece not long ago, though, about the fraud of Katrina, and these 7,000 Katrina victims who may be indicted for defrauding the government of well over a billion dollars, you say that you were not at all surprised by the level of fraud related to this hurricane. Tell me why you feel that way, and what that piece was about.
Crouch: Well, the basic thing that I'm saying is that it has nothing to do with the bulk of people who were victims of Katrina. It's just that any time you lay money on the table, whatever the cause is, somebody's gonna figure out how to try to steal some of it.
Tavis: Isn't that, though, absolutely untenable, unacceptable, around a tragedy like Katrina?
Crouch: Well, the problem is that the impulse to steal, the impulse of greed, the impulse to run a game is something that transcends whatever the issue is. Whether it's death, whether it's natural disaster, whether it's racism, whether it's sexism, whether it's any kind of a cause, will attract con artists, unfortunately.
And the thing is, it's that the cause cannot - the people involved who understand the importance of whatever the cause is, they have to make sure that the con men, the con artists, do not come to define the cause.
Tavis: I guess the question, before I move on, though, is whether or not you think they - not whether or not. They do, in fact, learn this stuff from somewhere. One could argue that we live in a culture, from government on down, or across the board, where people see all kinds of folk in high places, no less, behaving in similar fashion.
Crouch: Well, the thing is, as far as we know in terms of human history, there've always been crooks. And crooks are attracted by whatever they can profit from. And what we see today, of course, that's good is that whether it's Abramoff or other very highly placed executives who once upon a time seemed invincible to investigation and prison terms and stuff, we see them getting pulled down and exposed as the dogs that they are, and put in the dog pound. That is, the penitentiary.
Tavis: (Laughs) Stanley Crouch. Nobody turns a phrase like Stanley. That said, let me jump now to this book 'Considering Genius, Writings on Jazz.' I intimated a moment ago that perhaps jazz is your favorite of all the subjects that you write about. Am I right or wrong about that?
Crouch: Well, it's definitely one of them. You could be right, though.
Tavis: Yeah. (Laughs) Thank you, Stanley, I appreciate it. Tell me, then, why and how jazz made such an impact on you at an early age, and how young were you when you got turned on by this music?
Crouch: Well, I talk about it in an introduction in the book, in which I attempt to tell people how I was attracted to the music, and the various people in my neighborhood that I ran around with, and whose houses I went over to listen to music. And sometimes, they would refer me to other people in other neighborhoods, and I would go seek them out. Sometimes for records, sometimes for information about musicians, etcetera.
But it started at home through my mother, who was a big fan of Duke Ellington. And she had Duke Ellington records, and she had records of Louis Armstrong, and she had Fats Waller records, and she loved to play them. They were old records, on 78s, and there were some LPs. And so that was when I became attracted to the music.
Tavis: I love the story you tell in the book, and I've known you for years and didn't know this particular part of your background. While a lot of young people today, and certainly adults, belong to book clubs, you in your youth and your friends started a jazz club.
Crouch: Oh yeah, well, I started it in high school.
Tavis: Yeah.
Crouch: And I got together, and we would play records, and we would talk about them, and try to describe what we thought was going on in the music. And it was a lot of fun, and I think that was the point at which I realized that you could sometimes gather people together, in terms of a feeling that they had for an art.
Tavis: Music appreciation, as you well know, is not a part of the curriculum in schools today as it was back in your time, or for that matter, in my time. Music appreciation not the same as it used to be in the school system. I wonder what you think of that, number one, and number two, what you think the value was in your lifetime of your being exposed to music, particularly jazz, so young.
Crouch: Well the thing is that today, you can't - well, you can explain things that happened in music, or so-called music, by virtue of the fact that people don't get music. When I was going to school, you started getting music in elementary school, in junior high school you got in choirs, in high school you got in choirs. You got in marching bands; you had great band directors who were legendary in your neighborhoods and the city at large, sometimes in the state, and in the entire region of the country.
And part of what 'Considering Genius' is about is about how all of these different things came together to produce these great artists like Armstrong, like Duke Ellington, Ben Webster, Miles Davis. All of these people have in common communities out of which music was very, very important. And I think that many kids today, they don't know what it feels like to actually harmonize a part in a choir, or to sing a harmony part in a choir. And they don't know how to play an instrument. So, we end up with, well, rap.
Tavis: (Laughs) Somehow, I knew you were building up to that point. I knew it was coming, Stanley.
Crouch: Yeah, but it's true. It's true. (Laughs) Scratchers and all of that, that's inventive. That's inventive. But it's an invention that's a reaction to a lack of something. See, I contend that all of those people in rap who are very good at what they do, had they learned how to, if they'd learned something about music, they'd be even better at what they do.
Tavis: Wow.
Crouch: Because they'd be using instruments to do it. They wouldn't be scratching on records, and just figuring out how to splice in other people's performances in what they call sampling. See in jazz, as I point out in 'Considering Genius,' the individual is important. The individual imagination. And all of these people come from an extraordinary tradition of people who wanted to express something that they thought was important emotionally and technically. And they spent time to learn how to play an instrument, and always demanded of them that they be individuals. And that's the most unique thing about jazz.
Tavis: Speaking of individuals, I got just a couple of minutes here left, right quick. Speaking of individuals, you had a list of greats a moment ago here. You left off the list Charles Mingus, which is great for me, 'cause it allows me to set you up to tell the story of your encounter with him, which I found hilarious.
Crouch: Oh, well, in 1964, I first heard Mingus in person in Monterey. I got into a rehearsal that he was having because I climbed over the fence at the fairgrounds. And he was in the process of firing this band that had been hired for him to premiere a piece. And then he started harassing the piano player, Jaki Bayard, who finally couldn't do what Mingus wanted, because Mingus didn't have any notes.
He just told him he wanted, there was a feeling he wanted to have him express. And so then he left, he got up from the piano and left, and Mingus started cursing at him. (Laughs) Then these two White girls who had come in with Charles McPherson and Lonnie Hillyer, they said, hey, Charlie, you're not so great yourself. At which point he said, get these two White heifers out of here. (Laughs)
And so, he was standing there, and he was really in good shape, and he had this pearl necklace on. And this White woman who had given him the necklace said, Charles, you don't have to throw those women out like that. And he said look, you, you can get the hell out of here, too. (Laughs) And snatched the necklace off, wham, and threw it on the floor.
And then I was very happy, because he then said, and you, go get me some wine. Two quarts. And gave me the money, (laughs) and I was glad to leave. And so that was my first encounter with Charles Mingus.
Tavis: There you go.
Crouch: But I have a whole chapter on him in the book.
Tavis: Indeed you do. The book he's referring to is the new book by Stanley Crouch called 'Considering Genius.' It could be about him, but it's not. (Laughs) 'Considering Genius, Writings on Jazz' by the one and the only Stanley Crouch. Stanley, nice to have you on, man.
Crouch: Thank you very, very much, Tavis.
Tavis: It's my pleasure. Up next on this program, singer Linda Ronstadt, and Cajun music artist Ann Savoy. Stay with us.
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