Some superb, but not new, writing

books:


	• Considering Genius: Writings on Jazz Stanley Crouch Basic Books, 2006 - 359 pages average customer review:based on 9 reviews
	for more information click here

highly recommended

Tit for tat.

When Amazon sees fit to provide citizen-reviewers with any incentive to critique, I'll consider posting one here.
That's what I learned from this collection of pivotal essays.

Leaning Toward the Elite

Although I am aware of Mr. Crouch writings through the years certain things he says troubles me. I thought long and hard about commenting on this book due to Mr. Crouch's stature as a knowledgeable writer and me being no one important. Nevertheless I feel compelled to make this observation. I found much of what Mr. Crouch had to say in this book very informative. Where he lost me time and time again was in his insistence on puting contemporary jazz down. This especially got to me when he started talking about Wynton Marsalis. This guy rubs me the wrong way. He is a fabulous musician, a good composer (not great)and a good educator. What bugs me the most about both Marsalis and Crouch is their continuous references to other forms of Black music, i.e. contemporary jazz and the musicians who perform this music as "modern day minstrels". I find this very distasteful, illogical and disrespectful. As it appears to me, jazz is dead unless you consider contemporary jazz. There's no one out there showing any other way forward so guys like Wynton just go recreating music based on past styles, past instrumentation, past scores and past attitudes. Let me say that I love jazz of the past. I love learning about my jazz heroes like Miles, Monk, Trane, Horace Silver and scores of others. I appreciate everything Ellington did but my personal taste in jazz pretty much begins with the beboppers. I also love the fusion era and I like much of what is termed "smooth jazz". Now, is contemporary jazz on the same level as what we've heard in the past? In most cases no. However, it doesn't matter if no one is listening. When I say no one I am primarily speaking of Black people. In case you haven't noticed Stanley and Wynton, Black people have moved on musically. If we have learned anything about Black musical history it is that we don't stay in the same place. The music moves forward and that is true in jazz, blues, gospel, R & B, etc. etc. Do I wish that more people today were familiar with Monk, Mingus, Bird? You bet but it's not going to happen. The times are different and there is a different groove in the air. Neither Stanley or Marsalis seem to have any appreciation for funk which just blows me away. Instead, they choose to lump all other entertainment oriented music as "minstrel music". That attitude needs to be checked. Yes Wynton, you can play extremely well and Stanley you can write extremely well but keep this in mind: neither of you have much of a black audience. You have been left behind and basically deemed as irrelevant to today's black music enthusiasts.

for more information click here

Some superb, but not new, writing

Some terrific writing here -- Crouch is a master. This book is a compendium of his colorful short portraits of jazz artists (many of which were, I believe, composed for the Village Voice). What I was expecting however, was an actual "through-composed" book of new writing so I was a bit disappointed. Definitely some worthwhile reading, especially for more learned jazz afficionados. In my opinion, skip the foreward and go straight to portraits.

Solid Writing By Crouch

The author is a columnist,former musician,promoter,commentator and writer. I enjoy his work which is regularly published in the New York Daily News. I have somewhat mixed feelings about his jazz writings. For my personal taste, though he is indeed extremely knowledgeable and has lived the life, I could do without his heavy interspersing of politics with jazz. Which is not to say I don't often agree with his message. This book has lot's of excellent material about such artists as Miles,Bird,Thelonious,Duke,Ahmad Jamal,Coltrane,Ben Webster,Coleman Hawkins,Billy Eckstine,Billy Higgins, Benny Carter,McCoy Tyner and Charles McPherson as well as LeRoi Jones, to name a few. Still, I find much of his writing to be rather ponderous. But, all in all, a quite worthwhile read.

for more information click here

reviews: page 1, 2

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 more than 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.? In Considering Genius, Crouch collects some of his best loved, most influential, and most controversial pieces (published in Jazz Times, The New Yorker, the Village Voice, and elsewhere), together with two new essays. 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.

for more information click here

hot