THE LEOPARD'S SPOTS

Hanging the Judge: Crouch, Jazz & the All-American Skin Game (Daniel King, May 14 - 20, 2003, Village Voice)

In a recent issue of JazzTimes magazine, Stanley Crouch accuses white critics of elevating white musicians "far beyond their abilities" to "make themselves feel more comfortable about . . . evaluating an art from which they feel substantially alienated." Crouch also claims that white writers, who were born in "middle-class china shops," ensure "the destruction of the Negro aesthetic" by advancing musicians who can't swing at the expense of those who can. While people can argue whether that column, "Putting the White Man in Charge" (April 2003), is typical Crouch, the usual does allegedly include sniping at performers and critics, cursing out colleagues, and receiving more complaints than any other contributor. Still, when JazzTimes, the most widely read magazine in jazz, fired him after running that column, questions arose as to whether there was a connection between his accusations and his removal.

"Hi, Stanley--We've decided to end your column," begins the e-mail, sent to him a few weeks ago. "You've made your point many times about what jazz is and who can play it, and we feel the column has now run its course. It's time for us to move on. Thank you for your contributions to JazzTimes over the past year."

"He was also routinely late with copy," adds Chris Porter, the magazine's managing editor. "His columns were becoming tedious, generally alternating between vitriolic rants and celebrations of his buddies."

"Sure, I was late, but then I ceased to be late," answers Crouch. "That a writer of my status and reputation would be dismissed in this way, with no discussion at all, constitutes some serious brand of injustice.. . . How does my article constitute a 'vitriolic rant'? Because I challenge ideas without holding your hand?"

To a JazzTimes contributor--23, white, and close friends with Porter--Crouch's allegations, and his pink slip, are fiercely personal. Crouch is writing about writers like me, whose white editors apparently fire black critics for criticizing us. Crouch's dismissal arises from the fact that we whites do get upset when we're attacked; that we often use tardiness and redundancy to deflect allegations that we are, as he says, "intimidated by Negroes," and that we "use that Negro as a weapon" against our "own middle-class backgrounds." Instead of providing Crouch's in-your-face ideas a platform in the magazine, Porter censored any more such views, at least in his backyard.

Obviously they're under no obligation to provide him with a forum for his ranting, but why hire him if not to be provocative? This is like when radio stations fire shock-jocks after they inevitably say something stupid. Why is the management that hired such people never held accountable? Posted by Orrin Judd at May 21, 2003 10:11 AM