Stanley Crouch Parker biography reviewed

[JSngry]

Avoid the strictly/directly personal attacky stuff, please, some (from multiple posters) of which has just been removed. Passions will rise, but let's not let them flare, ok? Save that for the gigs and/or the face-to-face (which tempting as it is to perceive as such, this forum is not).

[Larry Kart]

Avoid the strictly/directly personal attacky stuff, please, some (from multiple posters) of which has just been removed. Passions will rise, but let's not let them flare, ok? Save that for the gigs and/or the face-to-face (which tempting as it is to perceive as such, this forum is not).

I agree with what Jim says and add: Stop this stuff or this thread almost certainly will be closed.

Further, no matter how strongly one feels about these matters (or any matter), please take a step back and ask whether what one wants to say in one's next post adds anything to what one has said in previous posts. Even if overt name-calling is not involved, insistent repetition of the same points typically leads to flare ups and then to flames.

[fasstrack]

Some reading material: http://www.amazon.com/Black-Antisemitism-Jewish-Racism-Baldwin/dp/0805202803

[gmonahan]

Well, this thread has certainly meandered rather far from Crouch's book, hasn't it?! I picked up a copy of Priestley's Chasin' the Bird and have been reading it. The interpretations are pretty solid, but unlike what I've read people say about Crouch's book, the problem with this one (for me) is that it seems too brief. Nice discography at the end, though!

Is there a good cd source for the stuff Bird recorded that was eventually released on Roulette?

gregmo

[fasstrack]

Some more food for thought, or wood for the fire. A 1967 essay by James Baldwin, which is at least honest:http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/29/specials/baldwin-antisem.html

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Good piece that.

MG

[medjuck]

Crouch on Jews and anti-semitism.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vickie-karp/third-screen-an-interview_b_161472.html

[AllenLowe]

way better than his jazz writing.

[fasstrack]

After reading the Huffington piece contrasted with comments reported here one might well ask: will the real Stanley Crouch please stand up?

[AllenLowe]

well, poltically he's always been an Ellison-ite; and his views on many things (including his musical conservatism) line up with Elliison, who was admirably resistant to anti-semitic appeals.

[fasstrack]

well, poltically he's always been an Ellison-ite; and his views on many things (including his musical conservatism) line up with Elliison, who was admirably resistant to anti-semitic appeals.

I'm trying to unscramble 'admirarably resistant to anti-semitic appeals'. Does this mean Ellison ignored appeals to not be anti-semitic or to be? If the latter is the case can you point me to specific anti-semetic passages in Ellison's music criticism? I've read the fiction. Thanks.

Also, if Crouch, following Ellison's example, is no anti-semite how to explain the ugly words cited herein? Aberrational? Stanley grandstanding yet again (it's his meal ticket. Even I know that)?.

Edited November 27, 2013 by fasstrack

[AllenLowe]

1) I have no idea if or what Stanley said or meant; I have given up trying to answer or understand his stuff. Life is too short, as the saying goes.

2) no no, Ellison was a great man and not the least bit anti-Semitic; I have seen an interview in which several interviewers ask him leading questions about The Jews, and in which he counters in a very smart and educated and humane way on the historical circumstances that have led to the way in which Jews have related to Civil rights and progressive politics.

[fasstrack]

1) I have no idea if or what Stanley said or meant; I have given up trying to answer or understand his stuff. Life is too short, as the saying goes.

2) no no, Ellison was a great man and not the least bit anti-Semitic; I have seen an interview in which several interviewers ask him leading questions about The Jews, and in which he counters in a very smart and educated and humane way on the historical circumstances that have led to the way in which Jews have related to Civil rights and progressive politics.

Great. I kind of figured that was the case. Thanks.

One enigma left that I'm done talking about.

[robertoart]

http://dothemath.typepad.com/dtm/5-reading-the-black-jazz-writers.html

[robertoart]

Interesting piece from 'do the math'. A couple of questions I'd like to pose.

Do you think the Jewish community 'didn't' exploit Black American communities back in the day? Or if they did, has there ever been any formal or civic acknowledgement of this from Jewish leaders in the forms of apologies or even simple recognition.

Another question might be, did Jewish communities buy into the White Suprematism of the US as well in their interactions or integrations with Black communities.

And surely these issues must have had a significant effect on Jewish relations with Black American music, or to put it more ecumenically American music?

[JSngry]

Do you think the Jewish community 'didn't' exploit Black American communities back in the day? Or if they did, has there ever been any formal or civic acknowledgement of this from Jewish leaders in the forms of apologies or even simple recognition.

Another question might be, did Jewish communities buy into the White Suprematism of the US as well in their interactions or integrations with Black communities.

And surely these issues must have had a significant effect on Jewish relations with Black American music, or to put it more ecumenically American music?

Ok, which "Jewish community" are we talking about? Worded like this, it sounds like there's only/just one monolithic/all-purpose "Jew", and I'll call bullshit on that right now, even though Question #2 refers to "communities", the lack of a "some" or anything has the same connotation.

Reality is fucked up enough, and has really gotten us nowhere. Simplified/compressed reality might get us nowhere faster, but it's still nowhere. I've had enough of nowhere.

I'll rephrase the questions (and answer them) - are pigs gonna be pigs? Yes, they are. And are people willing to go along with bullshit in order to get theirs? Yes they are.

Now, I don't know that that gets us out of nowhere, but at least we know what the warning signs are. The wise one will look out for them everywhere, not just in nowhere.

[robertoart]

Do you think the Jewish community 'didn't' exploit Black American communities back in the day? Or if they did, has there ever been any formal or civic acknowledgement of this from Jewish leaders in the forms of apologies or even simple recognition.

Another question might be, did Jewish communities buy into the White Suprematism of the US as well in their interactions or integrations with Black communities.

And surely these issues must have had a significant effect on Jewish relations with Black American music, or to put it more ecumenically American music?

Ok, which "Jewish community" are we talking about? Worded like this, it sounds like there's only/just one monolithic/all-purpose "Jew", and I'll call bullshit on that right now, even though Question #2 refers to "communities", the lack of a "some" or anything has the same connotation.

Reality is fucked up enough, and has really gotten us nowhere. Simplified/compressed reality might get us nowhere faster, but it's still nowhere. I've had enough of nowhere.

I'll rephrase the questions (and answer them) - are pigs gonna be pigs? Yes, they are. And are people willing to go along with bullshit in order to get theirs? Yes they are.

Now, I don't know that that gets us out of nowhere, but at least we know what the warning signs are. The wise one will look out for them everywhere, not just in nowhere.

I'm sure that historically there was a Jewish community just the same as there was an African American community. Just the same as there was a Native American community. These things might be different across the country, although I guess a lot of this stuff with regard to African Americans and Jewish people seems to be focused on New York. Or at least that's what it seems to me. Historically over here there is a Jewish neighbourhood same as there is a Aboriginal neighbourhood. And even though those neighbourhoods have changed as people have moved on or out (or were forced out by the imposition of inner city development), the neighbourhoods are still symbolically associated with each cultural group. And each cultural group has their leaders and spokespeople that speak to varying degrees for and represent the community. In Australia though, the Jewish community really did emerge as refugees from Nazi Europe, and so much of the Jewish community here was established from families that arrived at the death knell before World War ll, which is probably different to the Jewish diaspora in New York. So sure there might have been some pluralist aspects to it, but marginalised people tended to be more self contained. And still do to a point. Of course I take into account what you posted upstream about rural communities and poverty bringing people together and into a relationship of sorts. I know this intimately from my time living on my Aboriginal families Country or Mission, (a very rural situation), where the historic support around the farming communities and the Mission families ran deep. And the allegiances and friendships are still honoured to this day.

However the story was a little bit different in the city amongst the poverty and the masses. Perhaps because the aspect that was the land was taken out of the equation, and there was less to buffer and bring people together away from the full force of racism and poverty, so it was much more an us and them situation for Aboriginal community - not to say there wasn't a lot of White people that weren't considered like family, especially because so many White men married Aboriginal girls. And in some ways a lot of Aboriginal women historically were too shamed to marry Aboriginal men.

So I think these questions I posted above are relevant questions and relevant to Jewish relationships with Black music. Especially to how or whether Jewish people were different in the way they related to Black people in terms of not just the overt racism, but also perhaps things like 'paternalism' or more subtle forms of dominance.

[flat5]

"I'm sure that historically there was a Jewish community"

Argument has always been central to the Jewish culture.

Jews do not think alike. Community mostly means they lived close to each other.

[king ubu]

At the risk of igniting another storm I don't want .... have you read the Baldwin piece linked above, freelancer? I think that could help ...

[Teasing the Korean]

I'm sure that historically there was a Jewish community just the same as there was an African American community.

The difference between Jews and African Americans during the periods you're discussing is that Jews could assimilate into mainstream US culture in way that blacks could not. As a result, Jews then - as now - could place at any point on the spectrum in terms of their "jewish identity" or "American identity." Geographic location and density of a Jewish population could play roles, but they are still not determining factors. So there is no single, identifiable Jewish community, then as now. Demographers cannot even accurately assess Jewish populations; they are all estimates.

Edited December 1, 2013 by Teasing the Korean

[Face of the Bass]

There is a good book on the real estate markets in Chicago in the mid-twentieth century that deals with the relationships between Jews and African-Americans in a way that is nuanced and more helpful than that implied by most broader classifications. It is called Family Properties, and is written by Beryl Satter.

One thing to understand about the relationships between Jews and blacks in the U.S. is that many urban neighborhoods that became black in the mid twentieth century were, prior to that, often Jewish and/or containing other white immigrant communities. So there is a kind of hierarchy at work, or rather perhaps a continuum, that occasionally put Jews and blacks into close contact with one another, and in relationships that were often antagonistic and economically exploitative (as happened in the buying and selling of real estate). I think one of the things Satter suggests is that the only partial integration of Jews into the mainstream of American life during the twentieth century often meant that upwardly mobile Jewish people played unsavory economic roles that encouraged anti-Semitism among blacks.

[fasstrack]

"I'm sure that historically there was a Jewish community"

Argument has always been central to the Jewish culture.

Jews do not think alike. Community mostly means they lived close to each other.

Thank you, thank you, and again thank you.

Most people here know I'm Jewish by my ethnic horseplay. When I was a car service driver a few years back I often went through Borough Park---which was like being dropped into a 19th century shetl. People in a totally insular world, wearing garb and doing daily rituals unknown to the larger world (though not too unlike the Pennsylvalia Dutch in many ways).

Once I picked up a passenger and we got to talking. He asked about my family and was aghast to learn I had no children. Making the mistake of telling him I regarded my compositions as my children I saw him look at me in a way that probably indicated he thought I was insane and, more to the point, no way could I be a Jew.

Nurture, not nature.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Is a car service driver a taximan?

MG

[fasstrack]

Is a car service driver a taximan?

MG

Yes.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Is a car service driver a taximan?

MG

Yes.

Ta.

MG