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We were having a nice Sunday afternoon session, when we started talking about JALC.

The drummer has a friend who has done some work with Wynton and JALC, so he was very defensive when I started bringing up some aspects of the scene at JALC, and denied any notion of WM being anti-free jazz, anti-white jazz musicians, anti-semitic, etc...

I could see it was pointless to pursue it any further, but he seemed especially irate when I said that WM was influenced by Stanley Crouch in some aspects of JALC.

He asked for some proof, and all I could think of was a vague memory of it being mentioned in Randy Sandke's book.

Can anyone cite any mentions of Crouch's involement in JALC?

TIA

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I would have loved to hear everything in that conversation!

Though I could see I wasn't going to change his mind, he knows Sandke, and agreed to read his book.

On the free jazz question, he cited a Cecil Taylor concert at JALC.

On using whitey, he mentioned his friend, and a few other white musicians, and said the JALC orchestra is an integrated.one.

I think things have gotten better in that regard, but the repertoire is still nothing I'd ever want to check out, including the Brubeck program that's coming up.

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This is a distant memory, but IIRC Wynton did refer openly to Crouch in the early part of his career (possibly before he got involved JALC). I'd say that in the last ten years WM has changed his discourse and he's not as polemic as he used to be.

An interesting relationship that one. I think that Wynton is a much better musician than Crouch is a thinker or writer, FWIW.

F

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if you read anything Marsalis says or has written in the last 10 years (pr more), IMHO you can hear Crouch's voice; it is not blatantly anti-white; that part comes up only when convenient - when they encounter white musicians (like me, as in my Marsalis interview) who have serious disagreements. Then it becomes a matter of racial insufficiency (to him I was a white academic ensconced in theory and not the actual playing of the music. So he has his own stereotypes). But they like white people so long as they agree with their pronouncements and build up their egos.

Edited by AllenLowe
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This is a distant memory, but IIRC Wynton did refer openly to Crouch in the early part of his career (possibly before he got involved JALC). I'd say that in the last ten years WM has changed his discourse and he's not as polemic as he used to be.

An interesting relationship that one. I think that Wynton is a much better musician than Crouch is a thinker or writer, FWIW.

F

Off the top of my head, it's a dead heat.

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I like that expression "dead heat". Usually when we think of dead we think of cold, but imagine a murder victim, perhaps by stabbing, on a cold night as they first fall to the ground dead or near dead. You know there will be steam and heat around it as the blood starts coming out and over everything, especially if it's something like a slashed throat, blood, still warm blood, just galloping to get out. Dead heat indeed!

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The apologist couldn't make our weekly rehearsal/session, so we spent a few minutes renaming the infidel 'Stanley Crotch', and then went back to channeling our deity BE, musically.

We then took a break, and started recounting several stories that presented

Miles Davis in the worst possible light.

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This is probably not news to those keeping watch on the Marsalis.Crouch front (is that all of us?), but thought I'd post it anyway. From the Avant Music News interview of Matt Shipp, March 2014:

Your run-ins with Wynton Marsalis and Stanley Crouch are becoming the stuff of legend, but can you describe your main ideological differences between yourself and those gentlemen?

I really have no problem with Wynton He is not making “pronouncements” these days, and I assume he has matured and grown up over the years and most likely has a better perspective of things. That is an assumption on my part. Crouch on the other hand is a horses ass. I know him and have dealt with him and I think he is a truly evil person. There are no ideological differences with him for he has no ideas. He is a pure opportunist in my opinion. To have an ideological disagreement presupposes someone has some principals of some sort. To me, Stanley is completely empty of ideas, principals or a soul.

The whole interview can be found here:

http://avantmusicnews.com/category/amn-interviews/

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Assuming that Matt Shipp SAID this (and did not write this), maybe those who transcribed what he said might check out the MAJOR difference betwen "principals" and "principles". Might lend a bit more credibility to the thoroughness of Shipp's statements if they cleaned up their act for his sake. :w

Or were they all in school (where principals are a BIT MORE likely to be found. :crazy:

My oh my ...

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well, who can keep track of things like that? I didn't learn the difference between 'than' and 'then' until I was almost 50. I knew there was one, but I could never get it straight until my wife gave me a little trick to remember (then, with an E, refers to time with an E).

Edited by AllenLowe
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Assuming that Matt Shipp SAID this (and did not write this), maybe those who transcribed what he said might check out the MAJOR difference betwen "principals" and "principles". Might lend a bit more credibility to the thoroughness of Shipp's statements if they cleaned up their act for his sake. :w

Or were they all in school (where principals are a BIT MORE likely to be found. :crazy:

My oh my ...

To say nothing of "horses" instead of "horse's."

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OT on:

Allen, I think that case of "principals" falsely used for the "standards that you have" is a typical case of just plain laziness and couldn't-care-lessness that has been creeping in of late (because I keep noticing this at alarming rates in relatively recent years,much more so than in past decades). All too many out there in journalism clearly need to get their act(s) together more thAn ever.

@TTK:

I tried not to nitpick too much. ;)

OT off. ;)

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  • 9 months later...

I just read Sandke's book. Here's something from page 123 that speaks to the Marsalis/Crouch relationship:

>>>

Ironically, Marsalis's interest in jazz only began at age fourteen, even though his father was a professional jazz pianist. Marsalis biographer Leslie Gourse recounts that when Stanley Crouch first met the young trumpeter, "He [Crouch] was astounded at how great Wynton's prowess on the trumpet was and how little Wynton knew about the jazz tradition." Marsalis freely admits that as a teenager he was turned off by Dizzy Gillespie's "thin tone." He credits Crouch for being "one of the first people who made me understand the value of the historical perspective in jazz music and the fact that there's a philosophy behind any type of aesthetic statement."

>>>

On the other hand, on page 33, the following appears in reference to Crouch:

>>>

His musical views, on the other hand, have gone through a complete about-face. Crouch arrived in New York in 1975 as the drummer for, and roommate of, avant-garde saxophonist David Murray. From 1979 to 1988, when Crouch was a staff writer for The Village Voice, he was quick to use this pulpit to preach the virtues of new jazz in general and David Murray in particular (revealing a penchant for conflict of interest a la Hammond and Feather). But in the early 1980s he switched his allegiance to Wynton Marsalis and became a staunch advocate of more traditional forms of jazz, specifically those that exhibit "the blues" and "swing." It's more than a little ironic that an ex-avant-garde drummer has appointed himself the ultimate arbiter of who swings and who does not.

>>>

We were having a nice Sunday afternoon session, when we started talking about JALC.

The drummer has a friend who has done some work with Wynton and JALC, so he was very defensive when I started bringing up some aspects of the scene at JALC, and denied any notion of WM being anti-free jazz, anti-white jazz musicians, anti-semitic, etc...

I could see it was pointless to pursue it any further, but he seemed especially irate when I said that WM was influenced by Stanley Crouch in some aspects of JALC.

He asked for some proof, and all I could think of was a vague memory of it being mentioned in Randy Sandke's book.

Can anyone cite any mentions of Crouch's involement in JALC?

TIA

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Two of the things I occasionally ponder re: Crouch/Murray...

(A) Murray has mellowed out significantly over time and to some extent converged with the "young lion" aesthetic

(B) judging by his collaborations with Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, etc Wynton has also mellowed out in his old age from the opposite direction

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