| Author | Message | ||
     Chrishayden "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Chrishayden Post Number: 451 Registered: 03-2004 Rating: N/A |
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0430/coates.php features villagevoice.com exclusive Why the hanging judge can't keep his hands to himself Crouching Stanley, Hidden Gangsta by Ta-Nehisi Coates July 24th, 2004 12:00 PM I reserve the right to be a nigger. —Aaron McGruder Stanley Crouch is a gangsta rapper. Throughout his career, Crouch has moved through black nationalism, bohemia, and places we haven't yet developed the vocab to name. But if there's one thing we've gleaned from Crouch's recent assault on novelist and critic Dale Peck, it is this—we have found Crouch's muse, and his name is Suge Knight. The backstory is simple, and for Crouch routine. On July 12, out for lunch at Tartine in the West Village, Crouch spotted Peck, who'd trashed his book Don't the Moon Look Lonesome a few years back. After greeting Peck with one hand, Crouch smacked him with the other. "What I would actually have preferred to happen," says Crouch, "was that I had the presence of mind to hawk up a huge oyster and spit it in his face." Crouch claims he recieved several calls thanking him for the act, which wouldn't be a surprise given that Peck made his name by penning extended negative and, often personal, reviews of other fiction writers. This was not a moment of hot-headed indiscretion. Crouch may use his perch at the Daily News to inveigh against gangsta rap with all deliberate fury and alarm ("Hip Hop's Thugs Hit New Low," "Hip Hop Gets The Bruising It Deserves," or "Morally, Allen Iverson's a Bad Guy"), but his habit of violent exchanges with writers and editors puts him a notch above Snoop on the ne'er-do-well scale. In most cases gangsta rap is just talk—Biggie and Tupac are the exceptions. But while Crouch has yet to peel caps, the gangsta ethos is realer for him than it is for your average gun-talker. "The thing is that Stanley will get gangsta on you," says Nelson George, who worked with Crouch here at the Voice, in the 1980s. "There is nothing more gangsta than just walking up and pimp-slapping someone. Not even punching them, just slapping them, almost as a sign of disrespect." It's almost unfair to accuse Crouch of taking a page from, say, Masta Killa—Crouch was smacking critics when hip-hop was still laceless shelltops and battle raps. Along with being one of the great essayists of his generation, Crouch has always been a man who took Ishmael Reed's Writin' Is Fightin' a little too seriously. During his colorful tenure at this paper, Crouch repeatedly threatened editors and menaced fellow writers. By the time Crouch left, he'd sealed his rep as an iconoclastic curmudgeon and a critic without peer. His litany of incidents usually began with debates over some bit of jazz arcana and ultimately ended in fisticuffs. "Stanley deserves better than his own temper" says jazz writer Peter Watrous, who also worked here with Crouch. "There are two things that happen at the same time—one of them is that Stanley is a utopian. He strongly believes people should behave in certain way. That combines with an inability to control his own temper, and it makes for a bullying streak." There was the time Crouch was arguing with jazz writer Russ Musto and told him that if he were a foot taller he'd knock his block off. Musto kept arguing, since he knew he wasn't growing any. Crouch went back on his word, and swung at him anyway. After the two men were separated, Crouch calmed down and offered to buy Musto a drink. Musto says they're friends to this day. Then there's what happened to Guy Trebay, whom Crouch stalked through the Voice's old offices threatening to kill him, relenting only after writer Hilton Als intervened. Another time, writer Harry Allen approached Crouch, hoping to exchange some notes on hip-hop. Instead Crouch, evidently in a bad mood, caught Allen's neck in the cobra clutch, prompting the Voice to give Crouch his walking papers. By then the Hanging Judge had secured his rep as king of the literal literary brawlers—an accolade that ranks right up there with prettiest journalist. Really now, administering beat-downs to pencil-necked critics is about as macho as spousal abuse, croquet—or gangsta rap. Much like the acts he derides, Crouch has a taste for swinging that is nothing short of a variation on the "I ain't no punk" theme seemingly encoded on the DNA of all black males. "I have a kind of Mailer-esque reaction to the way some people view writers," Crouch once told The New Yorker. "I want them to know that just because I write doesn't mean I can't also fight." Put another way, Crouch wants you know he keeps it gangsta. "People perceive writers as being soft and not assertive. And there is a legacy of writers, going back to Hemingway, asserting their masculinity in an overt way," says George. "Maybe it gives Stanley personal satisfaction, but I don't think it's necessary. This is something you'd expect from a rapper in The Source's office because they got three mics in a review." Crouch's street mojo also adds another layer of mystique, particularly for his white fans. His brand of withering attacks against black nationalism and the black left would normally open the assailant to essentialist charges about his "blackness." But to the frustration of his targets, Crouch is the real deal for the Tina Brown set. From his jazz criticism, to his folksy Southern lilt, down to his willingness invoke the ghost of Joe Louis, Crouch always manages to sound like his ghetto pass is at the ready. Even if in his writing Crouch derides the ethics of the street, his actions close the distance between him and the gangsta rappers he abhors, making cartoons of them all. Both could live without the electric slide, whop, or moonwalk. Both could give up the cross-over and dunk. But never let it be said that he who purports to be a black male gives up the beast. That it's all an act, and he really won't kick your ass. That in the middle of politicking over Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and tea, he won't go David Banner, upturn your table of crumpets and coffee-cake, grab you by the collar, drag you out into the darkest alley, and show you that, yes, what you have heard is true. That he will not swing through on his dick and snatch your Jane on a vine like Tarzan. Never let it be said that Jim Brown was not the essence of him. Never let it be said that he—whether Crip or Crouch—failed to be a nigga. | ||
| Steve_s Newbie Poster Username: Steve_s Post Number: 5 Registered: 04-2004 Rating: N/A |
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Stanley!!!! LOL! Oh man that is so corny. Actually, Stanley just took up the electric bass and he was practicing his "slap" technique!! LOL! No, I think he was listening to "A Peck a Sec", the old Hank Mobley side, and he workin on his "peckin' technique." LOL!!! Peckin Stanley!! No, wait. He was trying to move up in the "pecking order"!!!! Webster's defines pecking this way: "Bird had about five or six styles, all different . . . one Sonny Rollins used to call "pecking," when a horn player uses real short phrases (today, Prince uses that style); and at least two others I can't describe right now." ["And at least two others I can't describe right now."!!! LOL!] And this one: "What we were doing is something we used to call pecking. You divided the riffs, like a chichi riff, broke them up and darted in and out of the rhythm. You could do this real well when you had a great drummer. We had Kenny Clarke and couldn't nobody play that kind of sh** better than Klook." But who really remembers a "chichi riff"? Of course that's not from Webster's, it's from the Quincy Troupe/Miles autobiography, speaking of which: "The beginning of the end of Troupe's relationship with Stanley Crouch also came about this time. Troupe was one of those who had been designated as a pallbearer by James Baldwin. Maya Angelou, Sonia Sanchez, Max Roach, and Toni Morrison were also enlisted. According to Troupe, he and others watched with disgust as Crouch opportunistically muscled himself into the line reserved for the pallbearers. The deed was made more "terrible" in Troupe's eyes by an article published in the Village Voice after the funeral, in which Crouch trashed James Baldwin. (-- Ishmael Reed, "Another Day at the Front: Dispatches from the Race War") It's possible, but I doubt that Crouch "trashed" James Baldwin (not to question the "integrity" of Mr. QT -- LOL!!), but Reed also freely admits the following: "[Troupe] had scored a coup by obtaining Baldwin's deathbed interview. He had asked Baldwin to identify the person who, in recent years, had hurt him the most, and Baldwin mentioned my name. I had hurt him, he said, because I had called him a "c**ks***er." I was shocked." (ibid) It's true that Stanley Crouch wrote some critical pieces about some of Baldwin's later work, but as far as I know, he never engaged in the kind of ad hominem attacks against Baldwin that Henry Louis Gates describes in "The Welcome Table." That's not Stanley's style. He might slap somebody, but he clearly loves James Baldwin. By the way, I consider QT's "Miles and Me" and "Miles:The Autobiography" two classic pieces of music writing, and I've read Ish's last couple of nonfiction books too. Stanley Crouch clearly has an anger management problem and like countless others (including many Hollywood actors), tends to slap or hit people. I don't condone it. But according to the reviewer's logic, he's therefore just like Suge Knight, i.e., a "ganster rapper" and some other demeaning epithets. Why? Because he's black? That's really logical, isn't it? Stanley Crouch was the first black columnist ever hired by the Village Voice, a tabloid with a long liberal history. He was fired for punching somebody, as I understand it, over a disagreement about the relative merits of rap and jazz musics. Fine. But the way I see it, he was the one who was Suge Knight-ed out of a position as the only black columnist in jazz journalism, not for any behavioral problem either. I'm not a Crouch Protector, in fact, I never read or was ever interested in anything the cat wrote when he was at the Village Voice. I recently picked up two of his books (one a signed first edition) for a dollar ninety nine each. I read one of them. I don't agree with any of his politics. But he is an extemely bright person, do not misunderestimate the guy. | ||
| Chrishayden "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Chrishayden Post Number: 464 Registered: 03-2004 Rating: N/A |
Steve: Are you saying that nobody should bring it up? I won't even go into how his actions play into the stereotypical notion of the black male as an inarticulate, violent brute, because I am no follower of Dr. Gandhi myself, but anybody else, I think is free to do so. Mr. Crouch has often got himself up on his high horse and criticized rappers for behavior which he freely engages in. Further, to me he seems like a bully, ie. he attacks those who he knows won't fight him back. Terry Teachout has called him out in public several times, said that he doesn't know anything about jazz (which subject may be one of the few things he DOES know about) and he not only hasn't slapped him, but hasn't even replied. Why? He has done this recently. Yet he slaps a guy because he put a hatchet job on a book a few years ago that nobody else even liked. As the Republicans found out when they went after Bill Clinton for lewd and lascivious behavior, when you commit the very offenses you object to in others, you must expect some blowback. Which gets me to another point on which he criticizes hip hop. He talks about the bad behavior of these guys, but overlooks the behavior of such as Charlie "Yardbird" Parker, who was an out and out junkie most of his adult life, sometimes out of control. I don't know of too many rappers who have been urinating in phone booths in nightclubs, taking out across the desert because their jones are coming down on them so bad, dedicating tunes to their pushers, etc. I criticize the rappers, but when I do, I have to remember one of my idols, Jimi Hendrix, who, besides playing fantastic guitar, was not good for much else in this life, we must admit. You know, an old guy once told me that he observed this behavior in his hunting dogs: that the old dogs can't keep up with the young ones, but they snap at them as they run by. And finally, I suspect that, yes, Stanley is playing to the White Folks, to the New York Post or wherever he has the column, when he attacks hip hoppers--could be smart, that's where he gets his bread and butter--but I think it cheapens and devalues, along with all else above, anything he may care to write. | ||
| Cynique "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Cynique Post Number: 868 Registered: 01-2004 Rating: N/A |
The difference between Charlie Parker and Rappers is that Bird's bad side harmed no one but himself and his music compensated for his shortcomings, inspiring listeners to overlook his flaws. The output of Rappers, however, reflects their controversial lifestyle and exerts a negative influence on their fans. The same goes for Jimi. There a connection between the angst and the genius of Parker and Hendrix. | ||
| Yukio "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Yukio Post Number: 602 Registered: 01-2004 Rating: N/A |
actually, cynique...many of parker's fans, especially fellow musicians participated in drugs with him and as a way to be like him, assuming that his muse was the drugs...the difference now, is that television and the commodification of gossip has place everyone's business on tv, magazines, etc.... | ||
| Cynique "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Cynique Post Number: 872 Registered: 01-2004 Rating: N/A |
Yes, Yukio, there was a whole drug culture surrounding jazz musicians. Miles Davis was part of this dubious clique. He and Parker may have influenced their peers, but not their audience. Their addictions greatly dismayed their fans. | ||
| Chrishayden "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Chrishayden Post Number: 468 Registered: 03-2004 Rating: N/A |
Cynique: See what I'm saying? One of the things that amazes me constantly is how because somebody paints or sings or plays an instrument they get a free pass for things somebody else wouldn't. The street junkie is a burden on society and not pulling his weight and a poor role model--the dope addict musician, who nods out right on stage as Bird did, who blows gigs, steals and takes money from people--he is harming no one but himself. Bird almost singlehandedly made dope addiction hip among not only the musicians, but his fans. They thought in order to play like Bird they had to get high. Others thought in order to appreciate the music you had to be high. They hurt noone? What about their friends and families? Many an aspiring rock guitarist thought that the way to play like Jimi Hendrix was to get stoned out of your gourd on acid--I know a couple who took a trip and never came back. | ||
| Cynique "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Cynique Post Number: 877 Registered: 01-2004 Rating: N/A |
Yes, we do make excuses for geniuses, Chris. But I don't buy that the vast majority of either Bird or Jimi's fans became dope addicts because of them. On the other hand, when grade-school kids can perfectly recite the obscene lyrics of Rap music, a whole generation is being harmed. | ||
| Abm "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Abm Post Number: 557 Registered: 04-2004 Rating: N/A |
Chris/Yukio, Well said. There’s no hypocrite quite like an old hypocrite. I too find it interesting how the middle age and senior sets conveniently enjoy ‘forgetting’ the transgressions of their heroes while concurrently running down those of their kids/grandkids. If you looked at all of the Jazz, Soul/R&B, Blues greats, you will discover that at least 1/2 of them were philanders, pedophiles, double-dealing cheats, tax dodgers, wife beaters, whoremongers, misogynists and assorted other nefarious types. In fact, a lot of the ill behavior of hip-hoppers is but some variation of what they observed their musical predecessors do. But what I find most amazing is how is Crouch able to get away with such brutish behavior. Hasn’t anyone ever brought criminal charges against him or sued him for assaulting them? Cynique, And ditto to Chris/Yukio's comments about Bird Parker. Also, 60's Rock 'god' Jimi Hendrix helped encourage an entire generation of young Americans, especially artists, to consume illegal/harmful narcotics. And the ascendant genius of his art was so entwined with the ubiquitous image his drug consumption that even in spite of his dying from a drug overdose, his musical contemporaries/successors continue to ‘get high’ and perpetuate the ‘glories’ of such throughout the entire American culture. And Yukio is correct: The only major difference between then and now is there is so much more media/corporate attention on and capitalistic manipulation of the wayward acts of today’s artists. | ||
| A_womon "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: A_womon Post Number: 355 Registered: 05-2004 Rating: N/A |
Cynique, I thought you was gonna leave hip hoppers and rappers alone? abm, chrish, Yukio I applaude you, the only reason that these older musicians who were adored by their audiences didn't have a greater impact upon them is precisely as you have stated, they were not seen in millions of homes across the country at any given moment....who knows how things would have been if they had been???? | ||
| Chrishayden "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Chrishayden Post Number: 469 Registered: 03-2004 Rating: N/A |
Cynique: I can see you now with your son, "Did you shoot up your scag this morning, dear? I want you to grow up to be just like Bird." Introducing him to people--"He's got a $100 a day habit already and he's just 16. He's going to make his mother proud." At the PTA meeting: "I'd like to make a motion that we hold a bake sale so that we can provide needles, syringes, Mexican Brown, China White, whiskey, bennies and gage for the band. We do want our musicians to be #1." The kids hear us whitewash these cats past and put down the folks they were listening to (I am reading this biography of Louie "Pops" Armstrong, who smoked marijuana almost every day of his adult life, and how his first wife was a prostitute who stabbed him and how he hit her with a brick) and then find out what they were doing and look at us like we got tails--"You tell me that anybody who shoots up is weak and despicable and you cover for this dude?" | ||
| Yukio "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Yukio Post Number: 603 Registered: 01-2004 Rating: N/A |
cynique: I think u give too much credit to rappers...african americans, as all cultural groups, have always had folk doin alcohol and drugs...from the joop joints and black and tans of the past, to the clubs and lounges of today... | ||
| Yukio "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Yukio Post Number: 604 Registered: 01-2004 Rating: N/A |
also, i don't think reciting lyrics is a symtom for drug usage... | ||
| Cynique "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Cynique Post Number: 878 Registered: 01-2004 Rating: N/A |
F*** all you people. All I gotta do is listen the "Charlie Parker with Strings" album and I'll forgive him anything. Seriously, there are always cults around charismatic jazz or rock musicians. But they are the lunatic fringe, so to speak. Believe it or not, during the 60s everybody wasn't a hippie. And during the 50s, everybody wasn't into Be-Bop. There was the culture and the counter-culture. As for rappers, they are not promoting dope or alcohol so much as they are glorifying violence and mysogyny. | ||
| Chrishayden "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Chrishayden Post Number: 470 Registered: 03-2004 Rating: N/A |
Cynique: As your hero, Ronnie Reagan would say, there you go again. I bet your hair is standing up on end and you are fumbling in the cabinet for the vodka. It's a shame we have to do that to her now and then, Yukio/Abm/A_woman, but she'll thank us for it in the morning. We know you wouldn't feel like that if you were married to Bird. Or if you had been Jimi Hendrix's son, who said he is sick of hearing about his father--apparently he never saw him while he was alive. If you had been involved with these people instead of listening to their music from a safe distance you would be cursing their names even as we speak. "Yeah, I knew Bird," Miles said. "He ripped me off, stole my money, pawned my stuff-" Your heroes have feet of clay, Cynique. Accept it. Get over it. | ||
| Cynique "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Cynique Post Number: 880 Registered: 01-2004 Rating: N/A |
I never called them heroes, Chris. I can separate their art from their person. And, musicians aren't the only ones who hurt and destroy those around them. You can find people like that in all walks of life. You are such a bleeding heart. | ||
| Chrishayden "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Chrishayden Post Number: 472 Registered: 03-2004 Rating: N/A |
Cynique: And it's just like you to like the jivest album Bird did. Bird with Strings sucks. If you don't be listening to the early stuff he did with Diz and Miles, you don't like chicken on Sundays. | ||
| Cynique "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Cynique Post Number: 884 Registered: 01-2004 Rating: N/A |
I think critics would disagree with your assessment of Parker's lyrical musicianship on "Charlie Parker With Strings." And, actually, I like mostly everything he did, as I am reminded every time I see the movie "Bird" on cable TV. | ||
| Thumper "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Thumper Post Number: 220 Registered: 01-2004 Rating: N/A |
Hello All, I'm here for you Cynique, cause I agree with what you're saying. I also LOVE Bird with Strings!! It's one of my favorite albums of all times. Yes, his earlier recordings, especially the Dial sessions were good. But the Bird with Strings is a composition of contrasting elements blending into one. I love Billie Holiday's Lady in Satin for the same reason. The rawness coupled with the strings is an awesome combination. Stanley is clowning. It could be that ol' boy is past his peak. Besides that Peck wasn't the only one that disliked Crouch's novel. It should have had a hatchett taken to it. His conduct is that of the rappers that he loves to criticize, so ol boy is just a plain hypocrite or slapped Peck for PR for both him and Peck. Like that old saying goes there is no such thing as "bad" PR. | ||
| Yukio "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Yukio Post Number: 607 Registered: 01-2004 Rating: N/A |
hmmm....it is not just about crouch, but how whites do the same thing...in other words, a slap becomes racialized... | ||
| Chrishayden "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Chrishayden Post Number: 474 Registered: 03-2004 Rating: N/A |
Re: Charlie Parker With Strings:--- PARKER, Charlie (b Charles Christopher Parker Jr, 29 Aug. '20, Kansas City KS; d 12 March '55, NYC) Alto sax, composer, bandleader. Grew up in Kansas City MO; later nicknamed 'Yardbird' (for Bird: The Complete Charlie Parker On Verve is a ten-CD set. But the album with strings is disappointing because Jimmy Carroll's arrangements are hack work; in fact much of the accompaniment Granz provided (incl. a vocal group on a few tracks) had nothing to do with what Parker was doing, and only a minority of the Verve tracks rank anywhere near Parker's best recorded work. From Music Webs Encyclopedia of Popular Music I can go on and on but Charlie Parker With Strings is on the order of James Brown with the Dee Felice Trio doing "Come Rain or Come Shine" and "I Love You Porgy" (this album, along with others where he does "Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens"--does exits)-- All the for real Boppers turn up they nose at it. So, Thump and Cynique, if and when you have a bunch of hipsters over to the crib to listen to some way out sounds, don't put this one on the turntable. You have been warned. | ||
| Cynique "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Cynique Post Number: 886 Registered: 01-2004 Rating: N/A |
I knew you were going to track down something to reinforce your opinion, Chris. But I still think this album has stood the test of time and stands on its own as a showcase for Parkers' lyrical virtuosity as a saxophonist. I will continue to enjoy it for its ethearal resonance and will make no apologies about doing this because I have never claimed to be a hip be-bopper! | ||
| Thumper "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Thumper Post Number: 225 Registered: 01-2004 Rating: |
Hello All, Chris: The James Brown records that you're talking about, one of them is slated for release on CD for the first time, next month I believe. "Hipsters", "way out sounds", just because I like old school music and Carey don't mean that I'm old! *LOL* I've heard the same criticism before concerning Bird on Strings, and I guess we're going to have to agree to disagree because I still love it. Chris, I didn't know that you had the Verve box set. I've had mine for years and years and years. Do you have the Complete Billie Holiday on Verve too? I got one for you, guess what I got and had it for many years, The Complete Riverside Recordings of Thelenois Monk! All 16 CDs! Try topping that one and then I'll come back on you with my John Coltrane stuff. *big smile* |
