Brownian Motion

Harold Cruse, Social Critic and Fervent Black Nationalist, Dies at 89 By CHRISTOPHER LEHMANN-HAUPT Published: March 30, 2005 Harold Cruse, an outspoken social and cultural critic who was best known for his angry collection of essays, "The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual," died Saturday in Ann Arbor, Mich. He was 89. The cause was congestive heart failure, his companion, Mara Julius, said. Largely self-educated and widely read, Mr. Cruse taught African-American studies at the University of Michigan and was one of the first blacks to get tenure at a major university without a college degree. He ranged over many subjects in his writing: politics, radicalism, music, culture and the situation of black people in America. In "Crisis" he summed up a set of positions that left him isolated from almost everyone else in the political spectrum of the mid-1960's. He was against integration. "Integrate with whom?" he asked. He deplored the black-power movement as being all slogans and no political program. He opposed the back-to-Africa campaign, although he had grudging admiration for Garveyism. Despite a brief association with the Communist Party, he abominated Communists and liberals - in particular, Jewish intellectuals, whom he blamed for black anti-Semitism. He was critical of almost everyone, from James Baldwin to Ossie Davis to Lorraine Hansberry, for accepting too readily the premises of white culture. He concluded that blacks must form their own political, economic, social and cultural base to work on all fronts toward an accommodation with capitalism as it was modified by the New Deal. Mr. Cruse's book stirred up strong reactions in many quarters. But Christopher Lasch wrote in The New York Review of Books that he agreed with book's thesis, as he put, "that intellectuals must play a central role in movements for radical change." A new edition of "Crisis" will be published next month. A year after its original publication, Mr. Cruse was asked to lecture at the University of Michigan, where he became involved in the African-American studies program until his retirement in the mid-1980's as professor emeritus. Harold Wright Cruse was born in Petersburg, Va., on March 8, 1916, and moved with his father, a railway porter, to New York City as a young child. After graduating from high school, he worked at several jobs but was ambitious to become a writer. He served in the Army in Europe during World War II. After the war, he attended the City College of New York briefly but never graduated. In 1947, he joined the Communist Party and wrote drama and literary criticism for The Daily Worker, although he was never doctrinaire. In the 1950's, he wrote several plays, and in the mid-1960's he was co-founder, with LeRoi Jones (now Amiri Baraka), of the Black Arts Theater and School in Harlem.The more he learned about the arts, the more he deplored what he saw as a white appropriation of black culture, particularly as exemplified by George Gershwin's folk opera "Porgy and Bess." He called for blacks to embrace their cultural uniqueness. His later books include "Rebellion or Revolution?", "Plural but Equal: A Critical Study of Blacks and Minorities and America's Plural Society" and "The Essential Harold Cruse: A Reader" edited by William Jelani Cobb with a foreword by Stanley Crouch. In addition to Ms. Julius, his survivors include two half sisters, Shirley Toke, of Richmond, Va., and Catherine Jones, of Petersburg.

Look for the Silver Lining was done in 1973 and is on a Concord 2fer, coupled with Jimmy Bruno and Howard Alden. Ray Brown and Jake Hanna round out the group. The Ellis/Pass quartet was Carl Jefferson's first recording; the Bruno/Alden date was his last.

This turtle needs an agent.

"That's a problem when you arrive later to the party - your name belongs to somebody else. " Unless you're deadcoldfish. Then you don't have to sweat it.

I can still count my reviews on one hand.

While I was out of town over Xmas someone ordered a CD from me that I had listed on Half.com. Since I wasn't around to confirm the order it was automatically cancelled by half.com. Half.com permits feedback on cancelled transactions, so I left the buyer feedback explaining that I was out-of-town and inviting him to re-order the CD. He didn't. Now, 3 months later, he leaves me negative feedback, saying he "never received order". What a vindictive little shit. And that will be the last time I squander my chance to leave reciprocal negativity!

Amen.

Dave Brubeck and his wife Iola wrote a musical in the early 1960s called "The Real Ambassadors". Although it never made it to Broadway it was performed at a jazz festival once or twice, and it was also recorded by Columbia with the original cast--Louis Armstrong and his band, Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, Carmen McCrae, and Dave. It's a wonderful recording. Also check out King Pleasure--Moody's Mood for Love being perhaps his best.

Very few professions have been more dramatically altered by the WWW than the used book trade. In the not-so-distant past it was slow, inefficient, and required dedication, a broad if not necessarily deep knowledge of history and culture, and a real love of books; dealer wannabes normally served apprenticeships at established bookstores, or were collectors who became dealers to feed an insatiable book habit. Today it is fast, efficient, and requires very little of its practitioners other than an urge to turn thrift store finds into cash. There are plenty of real book dealers on ABE and related sites, but there are plenty of imposters as well. They're the ones selling dollar books and gouging on shipping.

I list books on http://www.bookavenue.com/ , which is one of the smaller book databases, but Bookfinder searches Bookavenue, ABE, Alibris, and at least half a dozen others.

Eternity is a very very long time. Accept Jesus and pray to him daily. God bless you. At cosine we all can crucial as always tribute intern their flatworm and arachnid and swift..

Jesus, no kidding! Actually, if I was gonna zip someone from a board, I'd just zip 'em...no need to go public and set in motion a first class melee. Someone threatens people....ya just flip the switch and miraculously, they just never post again. These untidy cyber liquidations are so............soooooo Red Menace-like. B-) Where's the Maalox bottle? Weizen, the minute you leave the politics forum you start talking nothing but common sense. Who woulda thunk it?

Try Amazon.

It was the MJQ at Music Inn with Guest Jimmy Giuffre. I see from checking Amazon that there was a 2nd volume as well. I'm not sure whether either of these have been issued on CD.

I agree wholeheartedly with these picks; also check out The Sheriff, and the collaborations with Laurindo Almeida, Sonny Rollins, and Jimmy Giuffre. I believe part of the reason that the MJQ's reputation has suffered somewhat is that their Atlantic records were not well-engineered sonically: they have no presence--they needed RVG. The result is on their records they often sound like they're playing down the block.

That's Don Redman singing "Shakin' the Afri-can".

Sounds wonderful. Wish I still lived in Brooklyn.

No Donald Byrd? Emmett Berry Don Joseph Wilber Harden Jimmy McPartland Dizzy Reece Peanuts Holland Joe Thomas Harold Baker Doc Cheatham Ray Nance

We did Mort a few weeks back. http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php...57&hl=mort+fega I grew up in Nyack NY, and I used to listen to Mort when I was in high school. Since his show didn't begin until midnight, I was never able to catch more than 20 or 30 minutes of him before I'd fall asleep; unfortunately, he wasn't around on the weekends when I could have listened until signoff at 3. Still, Mort's taste in jazz was impeccable and he taught by example. He was a good egg.

And of course Bunny made a recording of "The Wearin' of the Green".

Red Allen Bill Coleman Frank Newton Bobby Stark Joe Smith Buck Clayton Harry Edison Joe Newman Bobby Hackett Hot Lips Page Charlie Shavers Art Farmer

It's exciting to read that Robin D.G. Kelley is writing a biography of Monk. He's a brilliant academic.

Perhaps the last survivor of the generation of physicists who fled fascist Europe in the 1930s and then during WWII contributed their expertise to the development of the atomic bomb. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/08/science/08bethe.html

Up with some new old stuff.