This guy’s a real piece of work. Never heard of him before, but nice of a big city daily to give a forum for this jackass:
Crouch was fired from JazzTimes following his controversial article “Putting the White Man in Charge”,[1] in which he asserted that white critics elevate white jazz musicians beyond their abilities.
Controversy
Crouch has reacted violently to critics and detractors. At the First Annual Jazz Awards, Crouch was invited to present an award. While reading the nominees, he made disparaging comments about two of them: trumpeter Dave Douglas and pianist Matthew Shipp. After the show, jazz critic Howard Mandel, who was chiefly responsible for creating and organizing the Jazz Awards, confronted Crouch about his earlier comments. After a short argument, Crouch punched Mandel and then was confronted by Shipp, who called Crouch “an Uncle Tom and a fucking loser”. However, the two were quickly separated and a brawl was avoided.[4]
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Crouch was fired from JazzTimes following his controversial article “Putting the White Man in Charge”,[1] in which he asserted that white critics elevate white jazz musicians beyond their abilities.
Mr. Crouch MUST be totally kidding about this. During the height of popularity of jazz in the first half of the 20th Century, two names are always mentioned as the most famous of jazz musicians: Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong. No white jazz musician in those days came close to being associated with jazz music as these two I mentioned.
Crouch has been doing this for years.
Stanley Crouch is a famous writer and a winner of the MacArthur genius grant. I used to know him.