Sat, 02 Sep 2006
Jazz
Stanley Crouch, Considering genius,
Basic Civitas Books
I saw Miles Davis play at the Village Vanguard in NYC
when I was quite small. There I was in blazer and
tie and with my step-sister in tow. They drew the
line at her, who must have looked about ten years
old at the time, and sent her back to the Waldorf.
The place was only moderately full, with mostly
black men. I settled at the bar with a beer and
listened to the great man's phrasings which often
brought loud exclamations from the crowd - Oh Yeah!
Yeah! The people were really nice to me. This was
before the days of the Black Power movement. The
price of acceptance there, at that time, was just that you were
interested. You dug Miles? You were a friend.
I'm not a jazz expert. At the time I followed West
Coast Cool, a mainly white-man's game of soothing
fluffiness mostly with names like Stan Getz, Gerry
Mulligan, and Dave Brubeck. Not that I cared what
colour their skins were.
Let's join this wonderful book now. The author is
a black American who was around for early Miles and
has been around since. He starts by giving us an
overview and then talks in some detail about the
likes of Miles Davis and the earlier Charlie 'Bird'
Parker.
Along the way he also lays out what being Black
meant. While most white writers tend to make a hash
of this, for various reasons including odious
political correctness (and in the UK today, not
adhering to that line could see a visit from the
thought police), Stanley Crouch isn't afraid to
say unpalatable truths about his own people where
relevant. The arrogant racists of the Black Power
movement get a good serve here. In fact, those
people almost killed off jazz as a moderately
popular music genre.
Not that they are the only villains here but the
main point off the thing, the heart, soul, and
the joy, is the music itself which is lovingly
described, and the people who played it too.
(Baron K)
[]
permanent link
| 
pre Dec 04 reviews are here
