Stanley Crouch Parker biography reviewed

[AllenLowe]

ok, really weird thing; I found the index to the book on Amazon; no mention of Al Haig.

[Quasimado]

ok, really weird thing; I found the index to the book on Amazon; no mention of Al Haig.

Volume 1 ends in 1939, apparently.

Q

[Teasing the Korean]

Please do tell us if there are other mixed metaphors and inappropriate metaphors, like the one discussed previously.

[Fer Urbina]

Ben Ratliff does an interview with him in today's Times, http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/19/popcast-early-bird-and-kansas-city-lightning/?ref=books

I thought that was quite interesting.

Agreed. This, by Ratliff, worries me: "a book that is heavy on your [Crouch's] own interpretation of American life".

I'll still read the book, though.

F

[Face of the Bass]

Well, I read the first chapter last night and thought it was great. I've never been a fan of anything Crouch has done in the past, but when somebody spends this long working on a subject, I pay attention.

Also, I hate the comments on here about how people seem to be looking for a "sober" or "objective" perspective on Parker that sticks to "the facts." As a historian who cares about writing, I find all of this offensive. Good writing is good writing, and bad writing is bad writing.

[Big Beat Steve]

Also, I hate the comments on here about how people seem to be looking for a "sober" or "objective" perspective on Parker that sticks to "the facts." As a historian who cares about writing, I find all of this offensive. Good writing is good writing, and bad writing is bad writing.

You see, that's exactly the point.

Good writing and bad writing is one aspect of the problem but is it the only one? Let's assume that a biography is supposed to focus on a person/peronality and his/her life (and therefore on FACTS or at the very least on how these facts are assessed/evaluated by somebody with a qualified opinion/understanding to provide insights into this person that flesh out the picture beyond the bare facts but still are based on the facts), right? Now assume such a biography is written excellently but goes overboard on embellishments, fictional add-ons, etc. that at best provide a picture of "what might have been" or "what could have happened" or "would have been nice if it had happened that way". Would this still be a great biography? Where would you draw the line?

Or to put it another way: No doubt you will agree that Ross Russell's "Bird Lives" wasn't written badly as such . Yet it is faulted for many fictional elements that find their way into that book and sometimes make it hard to sift fact from fiction (in the way Chuck said above). So ... where is the line between what's to be considered good and bad when it comes to how HISTORY is presented in an attempt to provide a picture of what HAPPENED and why it happened (but not of what could have happened)?

(Note this is an honest question, not an attempt at splitting hairs. I'd REALLY like to know, not least of all because I have to deal with writers - of a slightly different kind - a lot of the time in my job too )

Edited September 25, 2013 by Big Beat Steve

[Face of the Bass]

My field is African history, and this is a field that has had to construct knowledge about the continent's past often without the kinds of evidence that historians of Europe or the United States are accustomed to using. Even once you take into account the written documents (usually written by somebody with a preconceived idea about what Africans were like), oral traditions (usually passed down in such a way so as to bolster the reputations of certain rulers), and archeology and linguistics, you still are left with massive gaps. For me, I see these gaps not as an obstacle but as an opportunity, because I think it allows for a different and more honest kind of writing, an empathetic writing whereby you are trying to enter the world of your subject in order to understand their perspective. It is an art. Narrative itself is an art. The Western world for the most part has tried to divide everything into binaries, to say that either you are basing your writing on "facts" OR you are basing it on "imagination" or "embellishment." This presupposes that the "facts" of a person's life don't themselves contain imagination or embellishment, and it presupposes that these kinds of writing are entirely different or opposed to one another.

What I'm trying to say here is that the division between "fiction" and "non-fiction" is not as clear as people make it seem. There is much in common between fiction and non-fiction writing because both make use of "facts" and "imagination" and both seek to construct narratives that will engage their audiences. The lie that history as an academic discipline (a discipline I am a part of) tries to tell is that you should write history in such a way that another historian could come after you, retrace your steps, and reach the same conclusions. This is a lie because it pretends that history is a science, which it most certainly is not. It pretends that the historian is just this invisible messenger of a discrete body of "facts" that he has discovered and wishes to share with the world. It ignores the fact that these "facts" are themselves subjective representations of reality that were created by some person somewhere.

I don't know if I'm getting my meaning across. But what I want to say is that I know something of Stanley Crouch's worldview, know something of his writing, and know something of the work he has done researching Parker's life. Knowing these things, I now want to read his version of Parker's story. I'm not searching for the "definitive" account of his life because such a thing can never exist.

[Fer Urbina]

I think the problem is not so much factuality (it'd be silly to waste so much effort put into research) but how much of Crouch there'll be in the book. I've read everything he's written about Wynton and much of what he's done about jazz, and there's a lot I don't agree with. And it's not so much that I don't agree with his worldview, everyone's entitled to their own, but with a certain dogmatism about it.

Priestley's book (which I think is very good) may seem a bit impersonal or dry because, as an author, he turns himself invisible. Haddix is not too far from that style, either. It'd be impossible for Crouch to take that approach, he's more assertive as a writer, but even so, and despite the long history of writings I personally don't have much use for, I look forward to the book. In the interview with Ratliff he sounds humbled by the story he's telling, and more interested in telling it well than in any of his own agendas.

My two cents.

Edited September 25, 2013 by Fer Urbina

[Face of the Bass]

After reading the first chapter last night, I'll be very surprised if it turns out that Crouch has simply used Parker's life as a platform for advancing his own agendas. I haven't seen that so far.

[JSngry]

I think I have one-clicked on this tome, and will read it with whatever spirit I feel at the moment. We'll see where that goes.

Hell, it's under $20.00, that's lunch money on some days.

[Teasing the Korean]

For twenty bucks, I'd have lunch.

[JSngry]

I got food in the fridge.

I'd like to like or not like it from having actually read it. Not that Crouch is that important, he's really not. But Bird is, and if he does to Bird what he did to jazz in general, then I want to be advanced-warned so I can head for higher ground, where no doubt, Bird will be waiting, if in fact one can ever catch up to Bird.

[Larry Kart]

Have started the book; nothing awful so far (p. 45). Pluses are some colorful interview material with Jay McShann Orchestra veterans, minuses are some of Crouch's "Hey, Ma -- I'm writing!" touches, but to this point he seems to be staying this side of self-indulgence for the most part. Other than the interview material, though, I don't recall encountering anything that I didn't already know. Onwards...

[AllenLowe]

keep us posted, Larry.

[Face of the Bass]

I'm almost 100 pages in. My main criticism so far is that Crouch spends a lot of time on broader American cultural history, which is interesting in its own right but seems to have only the most tenuous connection to Parker. I'm starting to think that this didn't need to be two volumes.

But overall it's a good book. The interviews he does with Parker's family and associates are fantastic.

[robertoart]

heard Crouch this AM in a short interview with Don Imus and it was interesting to hear him speaking to a mass audience

For me with my trained ear - even in this mainstream context, Stanley said that in jazz one cannot improvise alone on stage with other musicians and we know we hear that alot - of course VERY FEW of the millions of people listening to the interview have any idea what he is talking about.

For me I know that he simply cannot help himself in his resentment of music he dislikes and even disdains just because the inteplay of certain improvising musicians or altered or different approaches of improvisation and interplay isn't the *same* or as obvious as the interplay of the music of be-bop, hard bop or more mainstream jazz music.

One thing he did say that speaks of the truth - when Don axsked him about Parker's heroin addiction - Stanley responded that he stumbled into it and couldn't escape. Now this speaks of wisdom from Crouch.

It does? Yes it does from my perspective which includes personal experience with drug addiction and recovery. Most addicts never escape active addiction even today when there are avenues and opportunities to recover and get clean.In Parker's time the understanding regarding the disease of addiction did not exist. It was looked at as a moral deficiency and personal weakness which it certainly is not.

.

No one had any clue about any of it - who the hell knew what they were getting into when they figured they were just fooling around with another drug...when did start using heroin? Late 30's or early 40's?

On the other hand many people who have used drugs including heroin did NOT and do NOT become addicts because they were or are NOT addicts. Some people are simply prone to addiction and at some point, once they are using they are unable to stop using through their own will. Parker was one of those people. Coltrane was also but through his process and in his case a God he found, he was able to stop using in 1957 - although as we know the after effects from his active addiction which was probably liver cancer from untreated hepatitis C killed him 10 years later. Well that's a lot more insightful than Crouch's response!

Then again, didn't Parker say Heroin addiction was like rolling over all your problems into ONE big problem.

And what about the connection between being a Black man in America at the time and addiction?

the reality is that as long as what are refered to or thought of as 'hard drugs' have been available or used in this country - they have been distrubuted through and from more blighted areas which have been predominately populated by black/monorities.

I think this says as much and then and now about the connection/relationship between African Americans and addiction as anything.

My experience is that the disease of addiction does NOT discriminate base don color/age/religion/background/family background, upbringing or whatever.

addicts are addicts - that's really as deep as it gets. I know Doctors/Lawyers/homeless/homeowner/nice guys/scumbags - I know all sorts. Sure addiction occurs across all types of socio-economic divide. But to dismiss the reasons some people fall into addiction and some people not, as purely to do with some kind of physical or genetic predisposition - as you seem to be implying - seems a rather quaint and old fashioned perspective. And out of synch with contemporary evidence based drug and alcohol knowledge. But if that's the story you want to tell yourself then well and good.

[uli]

I'm almost 100 pages in. My main criticism so far is that Crouch spends a lot of time on broader American cultural history, which is interesting in its own right but seems to have only the most tenuous connection to Parker. I'm starting to think that this didn't need to be two volumes.

He talked about this in his interview with Ratliff and it's the part that I found interesting. he said he wanted to put Bird more in the context of his time to make him more of a "real" person to the readers.

Anyway, I am going to read it.

Edited September 27, 2013 by uli

[Steve Reynolds]

heard Crouch this AM in a short interview with Don Imus and it was interesting to hear him speaking to a mass audience

For me with my trained ear - even in this mainstream context, Stanley said that in jazz one cannot improvise alone on stage with other musicians and we know we hear that alot - of course VERY FEW of the millions of people listening to the interview have any idea what he is talking about.

For me I know that he simply cannot help himself in his resentment of music he dislikes and even disdains just because the inteplay of certain improvising musicians or altered or different approaches of improvisation and interplay isn't the *same* or as obvious as the interplay of the music of be-bop, hard bop or more mainstream jazz music.

One thing he did say that speaks of the truth - when Don axsked him about Parker's heroin addiction - Stanley responded that he stumbled into it and couldn't escape. Now this speaks of wisdom from Crouch.

It does? Yes it does from my perspective which includes personal experience with drug addiction and recovery. Most addicts never escape active addiction even today when there are avenues and opportunities to recover and get clean.In Parker's time the understanding regarding the disease of addiction did not exist. It was looked at as a moral deficiency and personal weakness which it certainly is not.

.

No one had any clue about any of it - who the hell knew what they were getting into when they figured they were just fooling around with another drug...when did start using heroin? Late 30's or early 40's?

On the other hand many people who have used drugs including heroin did NOT and do NOT become addicts because they were or are NOT addicts. Some people are simply prone to addiction and at some point, once they are using they are unable to stop using through their own will. Parker was one of those people. Coltrane was also but through his process and in his case a God he found, he was able to stop using in 1957 - although as we know the after effects from his active addiction which was probably liver cancer from untreated hepatitis C killed him 10 years later. Well that's a lot more insightful than Crouch's response!

Then again, didn't Parker say Heroin addiction was like rolling over all your problems into ONE big problem.

And what about the connection between being a Black man in America at the time and addiction? the reality is that as long as what are refered to or thought of as 'hard drugs' have been available or used in this country - they have been distrubuted through and from more blighted areas which have been predominately populated by black/monorities.

I think this says as much and then and now about the connection/relationship between African Americans and addiction as anything.

My experience is that the disease of addiction does NOT discriminate base don color/age/religion/background/family background, upbringing or whatever.

addicts are addicts - that's really as deep as it gets. I know Doctors/Lawyers/homeless/homeowner/nice guys/scumbags - I know all sorts. Sure addiction occurs across all types of socio-economic divide. But to dismiss the reasons some people fall into addiction and some people not, as purely to do with some kind of physical or genetic predisposition - as you seem to be implying - seems a rather quaint and old fashioned perspective. And out of synch with contemporary evidence based drug and alcohol knowledge. But if that's the story you want to tell yourself then well and good.

It's actually one of my favorite subjects. I appreciate you engaging me on this topic.

I actually do not believe it has anything to do with genetics or a physical pre-disposition. No one including myself knows for sure if some of us are born as an addict although some do believe that this is the case. I tend to see this as a bit much.

My experience and belief is that with some of us, our drug addiction is based on an emotional or even a spiritual void if you will (although to this day, I'm wary of confusing people by using that misunderstood word) and subsequent ongoing pain that can only be filled with whatever brand of drug that works for us - works for us to temporarily eliminate that pain and fill that void.

At some point, the solution becomes the problem but by that point, no matter what the substance is, we cannot stop as we are now physically, emotionally and mentally in the grips of drug addiction and we cannot stop using, We use against our will, and we see no way out. It doesn't matter what the substance is - however at the latter stages of addiction a great many addicts end up using substances like heroin, crack, methamphetimine - drugs that are widely considered highly addictive, dangerous and destructive - all of which is true - or a combination of those drugs supplemented and complemented with pain pills, alcohol, marijuana.

The reality is that many people try pot, ecstasy (or molly), K, cocaine or even crack and heroin - and despite the fact that these drugs are all addictive to varying degrees - many of those people do not turn into drug addicts - therefore there is something different about some of us who do become addicts with the same background as friends or brothers or sisters who started out doing some of the same things - who did NOT become drug addicts.

Recovery replaces active addiction with a solution that varies in kind from one recovering addict to another. The relaity is that in the 1940's and 1950's there was very little hop for an addict to recover - and today it is different although from a standpoint of how many people recover from the disease of addiction, it is still very, very low - as still most addicts are destined to die a using addict death - and befopre that will suffer via degradation, institutions, depravity, desparation and sometime insanity.

Edited September 27, 2013 by Steve Reynolds

[Face of the Bass]

I'm almost 100 pages in. My main criticism so far is that Crouch spends a lot of time on broader American cultural history, which is interesting in its own right but seems to have only the most tenuous connection to Parker. I'm starting to think that this didn't need to be two volumes.

He talked about this in his interview with Ratliff and it's the part that I found interesting. he said he wanted to put Bird more in the context of his time to make him more of a "real" person to the readers.

Anyway, I am going to read it.

Yeah, but the challenge in doing that is to connect all that stuff to Parker's world. And at times it feels like he's just trying to fill up space and doesn't have a clear reason to go into his digressions.

Edited September 27, 2013 by Face of the Bass

[AllenLowe]

well, context is great, but I will say from what I've seen that Crouch's reach in American culture far exceeds his grasp; in other woids, he tends to be full of shit.

But one never knows......

[John Litweiler]

Steve, well said.

[uli]

I'm almost 100 pages in. My main criticism so far is that Crouch spends a lot of time on broader American cultural history, which is interesting in its own right but seems to have only the most tenuous connection to Parker. I'm starting to think that this didn't need to be two volumes.

He talked about this in his interview with Ratliff and it's the part that I found interesting. he said he wanted to put Bird more in the context of his time to make him more of a "real" person to the readers.

Anyway, I am going to read it.

Yeah, but the challenge in doing that is to connect all that stuff to Parker's world. And at times it feels like he's just trying to fill up space and doesn't have a clear reason to go into his digressions.

Agreed. A master biographer to that extent is Caro, imo and his tend to be very long as well.

[Face of the Bass]

well, context is great, but I will say from what I've seen that Crouch's reach in American culture far exceeds his grasp; in other woids, he tends to be full of shit.

But one never knows......

So far there's nothing full of shit or wrong about it. It's actually kind of standard and predictable. For instance he spends a few pages talking about Birth of a Nation even though it came out before Parker was born. I think he was trying to make a point about blackface in American culture, but it kind of fell flat and was an unnecessary diversion.

[robertoart]

heard Crouch this AM in a short interview with Don Imus and it was interesting to hear him speaking to a mass audience

For me with my trained ear - even in this mainstream context, Stanley said that in jazz one cannot improvise alone on stage with other musicians and we know we hear that alot - of course VERY FEW of the millions of people listening to the interview have any idea what he is talking about.

For me I know that he simply cannot help himself in his resentment of music he dislikes and even disdains just because the inteplay of certain improvising musicians or altered or different approaches of improvisation and interplay isn't the *same* or as obvious as the interplay of the music of be-bop, hard bop or more mainstream jazz music.

One thing he did say that speaks of the truth - when Don axsked him about Parker's heroin addiction - Stanley responded that he stumbled into it and couldn't escape. Now this speaks of wisdom from Crouch.

It does? Yes it does from my perspective which includes personal experience with drug addiction and recovery. Most addicts never escape active addiction even today when there are avenues and opportunities to recover and get clean.In Parker's time the understanding regarding the disease of addiction did not exist. It was looked at as a moral deficiency and personal weakness which it certainly is not.

.

No one had any clue about any of it - who the hell knew what they were getting into when they figured they were just fooling around with another drug...when did start using heroin? Late 30's or early 40's?

On the other hand many people who have used drugs including heroin did NOT and do NOT become addicts because they were or are NOT addicts. Some people are simply prone to addiction and at some point, once they are using they are unable to stop using through their own will. Parker was one of those people. Coltrane was also but through his process and in his case a God he found, he was able to stop using in 1957 - although as we know the after effects from his active addiction which was probably liver cancer from untreated hepatitis C killed him 10 years later. Well that's a lot more insightful than Crouch's response!

Then again, didn't Parker say Heroin addiction was like rolling over all your problems into ONE big problem.

And what about the connection between being a Black man in America at the time and addiction? the reality is that as long as what are refered to or thought of as 'hard drugs' have been available or used in this country - they have been distrubuted through and from more blighted areas which have been predominately populated by black/monorities.

I think this says as much and then and now about the connection/relationship between African Americans and addiction as anything.

My experience is that the disease of addiction does NOT discriminate base don color/age/religion/background/family background, upbringing or whatever.

addicts are addicts - that's really as deep as it gets. I know Doctors/Lawyers/homeless/homeowner/nice guys/scumbags - I know all sorts. Sure addiction occurs across all types of socio-economic divide. But to dismiss the reasons some people fall into addiction and some people not, as purely to do with some kind of physical or genetic predisposition - as you seem to be implying - seems a rather quaint and old fashioned perspective. And out of synch with contemporary evidence based drug and alcohol knowledge. But if that's the story you want to tell yourself then well and good.

It's actually one of my favorite subjects. I appreciate you engaging me on this topic.

I actually do not believe it has anything to do with genetics or a physical pre-disposition. No one including myself knows for sure if some of us are born as an addict although some do believe that this is the case. I tend to see this as a bit much.

My experience and belief is that with some of us, our drug addiction is based on an emotional or even a spiritual void if you will (although to this day, I'm wary of confusing people by using that misunderstood word) and subsequent ongoing pain that can only be filled with whatever brand of drug that works for us - works for us to temporarily eliminate that pain and fill that void.

At some point, the solution becomes the problem but by that point, no matter what the substance is, we cannot stop as we are now physically, emotionally and mentally in the grips of drug addiction and we cannot stop using, We use against our will, and we see no way out. It doesn't matter what the substance is - however at the latter stages of addiction a great many addicts end up using substances like heroin, crack, methamphetimine - drugs that are widely considered highly addictive, dangerous and destructive - all of which is true - or a combination of those drugs supplemented and complemented with pain pills, alcohol, marijuana.

The reality is that many people try pot, ecstasy (or molly), K, cocaine or even crack and heroin - and despite the fact that these drugs are all addictive to varying degrees - many of those people do not turn into drug addicts - therefore there is something different about some of us who do become addicts with the same background as friends or brothers or sisters who started out doing some of the same things - who did NOT become drug addicts.

Recovery replaces active addiction with a solution that varies in kind from one recovering addict to another. The relaity is that in the 1940's and 1950's there was very little hop for an addict to recover - and today it is different although from a standpoint of how many people recover from the disease of addiction, it is still very, very low - as still most addicts are destined to die a using addict death - and befopre that will suffer via degradation, institutions, depravity, desparation and sometime insanity.

I'm not engaging you so much per se, although your post does give a worthy insight on drug use from the individual perspective. I'm more thinking of using as it relates to Parker and the Jazz community of the day, and how much Heroin use in the Black jazz community reflected Heroin use in the Black non-Jazz community. And how much this determined the choices and the circumstances that were presented or forced upon Parker. For instance, 9 out of 10 Black musicians were using/addicts, so how particular was that to the wider Black community of the time? Obviously most White Jazz players of the time were users too, but using was an anomaly in non-Jazz White America.

So with all the ragging on Crouch, I would expect him to have a greater understanding of how Heroin was a part of Black Jazz life - in the particular, and how this related to Black life in more general circumstances, because of his own connection to the Black American past as well as the access this gives to a more intimate oral history.

People on this board can pick scabs at the supposed over dramatisation or weakness in Crouch as a writer, but in seeing Crouch as a Social Historian of the music, I would rather read his research than a White person attempting something similar. I think the 'anti-Marsalisism card' gives many on here a so called ideological higher ground when it comes to receiving books like this.

[Larry Kart]

So far (p.99) my reaction is about the same as that of Face of the Bass -- "kind of standard and predictable," plus a few oddities of writing by my perhaps picky standards, and no social historical views/insights with which I, for one, am unfamiliar. The contrast with the passages quoted from Ralph Ellison ... to my mind, there's quite a gulf there. The extensive interview material with Parker's adolescent girlfriend and eventual first wife Rebecca Ruffin is nice but so far doesn't tell me anything that links up in some pointed way with the Parker to come. She might be almost any woman recalling an intense youthful infatuation. Onwards...