Stanley Crouch, combative writer, intellectual and authority on jazz, dies at 74
Source: Washington Post
Stanley Crouch, a cultural critic whose contrarian and trenchant writings exploring music, politics, race and literature made him a prominent and often controversial figure in American arts and letters, died Sept. 16 at a New York hospital. He was 74. His wife, Gloria Nixon-Crouch, announced the death in a statement, but did not cite a specific cause.
Mr. Crouch was an actor, playwright, jazz drummer and college professor — without benefit of a college degree — before he emerged in the late 1970s as one of the country’s most original, contentious and (sometimes literally) combative writers. He was a bare-knuckled literary provocateur — erudite and fearless (some would say reckless) — while reveling in his often truculent takedowns, often of works by other African American artists and intellectuals.
Mr. Crouch was a passionate champion of jazz as perhaps the pinnacle of artistic expression in this country and was just as ardent in denouncing rap music as “either an infantile self-celebration or anarchic glamorization of criminal behavior.” His bold declarations escalated to a fistfight with another writer at the Village Voice, prompting Mr. Crouch’s firing from the weekly newspaper in 1988, reportedly after similar bullying incidents.
He also wrote for the New York Daily News, the Root, the Daily Beast and the New Republic, among other outlets, and was the recipient of a MacArthur “genius” grant. He published a novel and an acclaimed biography of saxophonist Charlie Parker and published learned essays on writers Thomas Mann, William Faulkner and Saul Bellow.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/stanley-crouch-combative-writer-intellectual-and-authority-on-jazz-dies-at-74/2020/09/16/41de7ef2-f84d-11ea-89e3-4b9efa36dc64_story.html
Wow. Hadn't heard his name mentioned in a long time... A jazz officiando. R.I.P.
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