Lazaro Vega Posted April 6, 2006 Report Share Posted April 6, 2006 http://www.slate.com/id/2139316/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric Posted April 6, 2006 Report Share Posted April 6, 2006 (edited) http://www.slate.com/id/2139316/ Nice to see the heroin angle got plenty of ink ... Edited April 6, 2006 by Eric Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guy Berger Posted April 6, 2006 Report Share Posted April 6, 2006 I thought it was a nice obit. Guy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bertrand Posted April 6, 2006 Report Share Posted April 6, 2006 He gets the correct year of birth (1931) but STILL gives a wrong age. Bertrand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam Posted April 6, 2006 Report Share Posted April 6, 2006 He gets the correct year of birth (1931) but STILL gives a wrong age. Bertrand. It's that danged new math. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christiern Posted April 6, 2006 Report Share Posted April 6, 2006 From Crouch's obit: "With the arrival of the World War II bebop generation, musicians collided with the entertainment conventions that were wrapped up in minstrelsy." Huh? The dwelling on McLean's drug problem and cursory mention of his later, positive efforts detracts from this obituary--shades of Ken Burn's twisted tabloid mentality priorities. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted April 6, 2006 Report Share Posted April 6, 2006 I thought it was a nice obit. Guy Same here. the first Crouch I've read in a looooong time that doesn't set my blood a'boilin'. A few quibbles, sure, but I have those with almost everything I read any more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danasgoodstuff Posted April 6, 2006 Report Share Posted April 6, 2006 Not bad, but perhaps it benefits from lowered expectations? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AllenLowe Posted April 6, 2006 Report Share Posted April 6, 2006 well, yes and know - this phrase "Now and again they evoke no particular emotion, only an earnest refusal to be run down by life that translates as heroic." It's like the work of a high school student, I believe they call it a misplaced modifier - in other words - what "translates as heroic"? Life? No, he's probably referring to the "earnest refusal," in which case he's made a major grammatical gaffe - as a writer, Crouch is a rank amateur - Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted April 6, 2006 Report Share Posted April 6, 2006 Grammatical errors being the only real point of contention should be considered a major triumph for a Crouch piece! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AllenLowe Posted April 6, 2006 Report Share Posted April 6, 2006 Jackie was a nice man, I got to know him a little bit in the middle 1980s. Walter Bishop worked with my group in Hartford, and Jackie came to hear us, and it was a lot of fun (Bish was a sweetheart) - at one point Jackie told me something very interesting. I will quote: "when I was still having a lot of personal problems, one day, Cecil Taylor came to my door because he wanted to play. I sent him away, didn't even let him in, and I always regretted it. Bird had told me to keep my mind open, to listen to everything." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted April 6, 2006 Report Share Posted April 6, 2006 Hell, Paul McCartnery said the same thing - "Do me a favor - open the door & let him in". And Bird played some silly love songs, too. Not that McCartney is a genius like Bird, but you gotta wonder about things like this, eh? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
relyles Posted April 6, 2006 Report Share Posted April 6, 2006 I am sorry. I can't help but wonder why this particular obituary merits a thread of its own? There are a few other obits that were posted directly into the McLean thread, but not this one. Is it to generate discussion about McLean or Crouch? If the latter, it seems to be a waste of energy and brain waves. It is obvious that Crouch is not a fan favorite in these parts so why do we keep looking for opportunities to discuss him? Thanks for allowing me my mini rant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave James Posted April 6, 2006 Report Share Posted April 6, 2006 Well I guess you can quibble about grammatical issues or the fact that there was too much focus on drugs (although I would argue that this is the kind of thing that tends to shape both a man and his music) or that he's too hung up on the concept of minstrelsy, but all in all, I thought this was a nice, and if I may say so, heartfelt tribute to one of the genuine greats in the history the music. Crouch with an agenda is one thing, but on the rare occasion when he's able to put that aside, he can be quite another. Up over and out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AllenLowe Posted April 6, 2006 Report Share Posted April 6, 2006 not exactly - Crouch ALWAYS has an agenda, as we see when he refers to the experience in the South that made Jackie a true bluesman - this is a lot of horseshi*, a real ideological spin by Stanley who is happy to have this so he can make sure that Jackie has the right credentials - BS and more BS, sorry, but that's what I think - Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clifford_thornton Posted April 7, 2006 Report Share Posted April 7, 2006 It's not bad. Also, I think the "misplaced" modifier works fine. It's not creating peril for the sentence or the idea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spontooneous Posted April 7, 2006 Report Share Posted April 7, 2006 Allen's right about that "experience in the South" BS. And Crouch wrote more paragraphs about the heroin years than about the decades of mastery that followed. It's another piece of Crouch hack work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted April 7, 2006 Report Share Posted April 7, 2006 Otoh, one could argue that the heroin years was at the emotional root of the mastery that followed, especially if one looks at Jackie's (and others') heroin experience throught hte lens of socio-political-spiritual experience and not through the lens of it being simply a "personal problem". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spontooneous Posted April 7, 2006 Report Share Posted April 7, 2006 Otoh, one could argue that the heroin years was at the emotional root of the mastery that followed, especially if one looks at Jackie's (and others') heroin experience throught hte lens of socio-political-spiritual experience and not through the lens of it being simply a "personal problem". Yes, but I don't think Crouch is making that case. He's just looking for a quick way to get through writing the obituary. (This viewed through the lens of someone who's had to write thousands of obituaries.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted April 7, 2006 Report Share Posted April 7, 2006 Could be, but I'll defend Crouch (ONE TIME ONLY! ) by saying that if he does indeed somewhere deep inside himslf "know" (and I do believe that he at least once did), that Jackie's death hit him hard in that place, just like it did the rest of us. I took his brevity and relative lack of polemics as a mark of just how hard it hit him. Jackie was more than "just" a "jazz muscian" or "one of the last of an era", ya'know? The guy spoke to, for, and about a whole 'nother thing that was more than all of that. We all know that (at some level) and we all felt it (at some level). I really think that Crouch has respect for that, as well as the fact that to do his usual bullshit on Jackie McLean would be fundamentally wrong, even for him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Nessa Posted April 7, 2006 Report Share Posted April 7, 2006 If Stanley is really "on" Jackie, get him the fuck off! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marcello Posted April 7, 2006 Report Share Posted April 7, 2006 Allen's right about that "experience in the South" BS. And Crouch wrote more paragraphs about the heroin years than about the decades of mastery that followed. It's another piece of Crouch hack work. Is it just me or have all the articles I've read gone a little overboard with the junkie angle; I mean more than at any other time? Why poor Jackie, who spent many, many more years straight than not? Here is a man who not only kicked shooting shit more than 45 years ago, but who spent 35 years as a educator and mentor. And.... has anybody heard that "went to Carolina to kick and play the blues" story before? Jackie on the right: Jackie and Dolly McLean second and third from left: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stereojack Posted April 7, 2006 Report Share Posted April 7, 2006 And.... has anybody heard that "went to Carolina to kick and play the blues" story before? Never. I've got to pull out the Spellman book. If it happened, I'd expect it to be mentioned there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spontooneous Posted April 8, 2006 Report Share Posted April 8, 2006 It's just like the shite in the Ken Burns movie about how Bix must surely have learned to play by hearing Louis on a riverboat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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