Stanley Crouch
Jazz critic & essayist
Stanley Crouch has performed in many roles, among them musician, jazz critic, social critic, poet, essayist, and novelist. The first book Crouch published was a volume of poetry entitled Ain't No Ambulances for No Nigguhs Tonight. Following the 1972 collection, Crouch applied his style outside the bounds of poetry and music, discussing a variety of topics in a bold manner.
In his 1990 omnibus, Notes of a Hanging Judge, Crouch explores a variety of subjects ranging from feminism, black power, and the Third World to boxing, popular culture, and the movies of Spike Lee. Like Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray, two other writers with roots in jazz, Crouch uses music, according to American Spectator contributor Martha Bayles, "as a vantage point to scrutinize the rest of the world." Crouch is a severe critic of political and cultural leaders who view black Americans as the helpless victims of racist oppression. The "hanging judge" in his book title is the freebooter Henry Morgan, "who sent many of his former pirate buddies to the gallows, certain that they deserved what they got." Crouch, who was once a black nationalist, blames the excesses of the movement and its prominent leaders for the collapse of the civil rights struggle. He scorns black proponents of separatism, anti-Semitism, and what he sees as selfish opportunism. He considers jazz to be the musical expression of a traditional "heroic optimism" among black Americans, and he praises the historic willingness of blacks "to take the field, to do battle, and to struggle up from the sink holes of self-pity." His prescription for African American progress rejects the idea of African innocence or superiority and proclaims the need for personal responsibility, education, and reasoned debate.
In 2000 Crouch's writing was published, along with the work of others, in The Reading Room: Writing of the Moment, edited by Barbara Probst; and in Police Brutality, edited by Jill Nelson. As well as contributing to anthologies and various periodicals such as New Yorker and Esquire, Crouch has been a columnist for Los Angeles Free Press, Cricket, New York Daily News, and SoHo Weekly News. In addition, he has been contributing editor for New Republic.
Interested in booking Stanley Crouch to speak at your next event?
In his 1990 omnibus, Notes of a Hanging Judge, Crouch explores a variety of subjects ranging from feminism, black power, and the Third World to boxing, popular culture, and the movies of Spike Lee. Like Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray, two other writers with roots in jazz, Crouch uses music, according to American Spectator contributor Martha Bayles, "as a vantage point to scrutinize the rest of the world." Crouch is a severe critic of political and cultural leaders who view black Americans as the helpless victims of racist oppression. The "hanging judge" in his book title is the freebooter Henry Morgan, "who sent many of his former pirate buddies to the gallows, certain that they deserved what they got." Crouch, who was once a black nationalist, blames the excesses of the movement and its prominent leaders for the collapse of the civil rights struggle. He scorns black proponents of separatism, anti-Semitism, and what he sees as selfish opportunism. He considers jazz to be the musical expression of a traditional "heroic optimism" among black Americans, and he praises the historic willingness of blacks "to take the field, to do battle, and to struggle up from the sink holes of self-pity." His prescription for African American progress rejects the idea of African innocence or superiority and proclaims the need for personal responsibility, education, and reasoned debate.
In 2000 Crouch's writing was published, along with the work of others, in The Reading Room: Writing of the Moment, edited by Barbara Probst; and in Police Brutality, edited by Jill Nelson. As well as contributing to anthologies and various periodicals such as New Yorker and Esquire, Crouch has been a columnist for Los Angeles Free Press, Cricket, New York Daily News, and SoHo Weekly News. In addition, he has been contributing editor for New Republic.
Interested in booking Stanley Crouch to speak at your next event?
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