A conversation with Stanley Crouch (1996) | THINK TANK

[Music] [Applause] [Music] hello I'm Ben Wattenberg on this edition of think-tank a lively conversation with one of America's leading essayists Stanley Crouch if you put louis farrakhan but if you put a beard on the most fair time right got a mustache and put him in a suit without a bowtie and you put him in david duke on a plane and you fool them to West Africa the Africans would say ah to Americans if you sent them to wherever in Europe David dukes family comes from right they would say up on seeing Farrakhan this guy got off the plane no matter whether they went on argument or not they would say ah to Americans now what makes us American transcends all of that a conversation with Stanley Crouch next on think-tank [Music] [Music] The New Yorker magazine wrote recently quote after 30 years as actor poet playwright jazz drummer professor and essayist Crouch is a rare figure in a narrowly specialized intellectual world he's an independent thinker unconstrained by affiliation with any camp creed or organization unquote Crouch was four years jazz critic and staff writer for the Village Voice and it's currently artistic consultant to Jazz at Lincoln Center he is also a columnist for the New York Daily News a contributing editor for the New Republic magazine and author of several books on music and culture including notes of a hanging judge his latest book is the all-american skin game or the decoy of race thank you for joining us Stanley Crouch you write in the all-american skin game that the US Constitution is like the blues what do you mean by that well I'm in the theme that the Constitution essentially has what I call a tragic base that is that it's not so much based on the idea that human beings are innately good but it's based on the suspicion that human beings may do very bad things and that they're capable of abusing power and they have to be scrutinized very closely so that's the tragic base of it and then it seems to me that the that it's connected to blues and to jazz by virtue of the fact that through amendments and new policy you're able to to improvise responses to what happens and yours in the society so that if we have instance shown of a jam session going right so for instance if you have bad policy like slavery is legal women can't vote then you have the an instrument that allows you to to redeem yourself to make up for past mistakes the same way that a jazz band the next time it plays a song may be able to make up for the mistake that it made in the first time that it interpreted it so that's kind of what I mean and I think that the that the American vision is a vision which I call tragic optimism that is the idea that human beings or are frail in fact it can do terrible things that's the tragic part but they can also do extraordinary things that's not the new part you use music as a metaphor in places I have never quite seen it used before as I mean it it's it's a political musical vision that you talk about is that about right oh yes I think that well I think it's because I've been so influenced by by listening to jazz by the interpretations of jazz made by people like Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray and and that I've come to see it as a truly American art form that hasn't that that contains in the very way it's made much of the sensibility of the country itself does I guess we can stipulate that America makes music but that does does music make America is that a two-way two-way flow well I think so I mean I'm sure that you can remember back into your childhood as we all can last century well sir you tools that you associate with the way you began to look at the world certain times you know certain things that I mean you learned a certain dance to go with a certain rhythm and then if you did if you're chasing some girl you know and she actually likes the way you dance that that's the beginning so you kind of say okay this music helped me get a little bit closer to something I was interested in our that you you know that that music is that we associate music with so many different things that happen to us not just our romantic lives but tunes it seemed to say to us at a certain time from another place exactly how we feel and perhaps when we elicit that we feel as though though though I tale is being told to the world and all sorts of things so I think that it is a double thing in the whole constellation of music it is blues and jazz that interests you most yeah truly yes if you had to give our viewers ort of a pocket history of jazz in America how's that in the next 30 seconds or whatever I mean where do you start with where does it go to so well okay what I would do is I would say okay Louis Armstrong Duke Ellington Count Basie Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie Thelonious Monk Miles Davis Charles Mingus Ronnie Coleman and Wynton Marsalis oh yes I think that would Marcellus is the most important jazz position around right now [Music] he's attempting to do with jazz to say something the same thing that James Joyce did with the novel in Ulysses or the Herman Melville did with it in Moby Dick that is that that there are any style can work you use it you use a style to express a certain thing so offense since Moby Dick is written in a number of different styles because what Melville would would get to a point where he wanted to express something a specific way he might use a different style to tell that to tell that part of the story he's got sections that are written like plays things go from they're told first first and then they go in a third person so anything that he wanted to do he used to tell this story James Joyce does the same thing and in Ulysses and Marcellus does the same thing in a way he writes and raised his music [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you might use a waters parade kind of thing for one section you might use something that would be considered very way out in another section you might use a straight swingin booze in this particular place you might use a singer you might have play something that has a dad speak to it and so all of those things may go together in in one piece of music is he most important as a composer or as a musician well he said he said his importance is extraordinary because he also represents a rebellion against the Slav the vulgarity and the simplemindedness of pop music that is it you know see what he represents in the younger musicians who are coming behind him is a turning away from you know those dumb shoes and stupid hairdos and imbecilic tasting clothes that you see popularized on MTV in and be Ichi and vh1 so that that would be what rock and roll rap yeah all of that yeah right so you're not a fan of that oh no I'm not opposed to it but I mean isn't it true that that the music of young people at any given point is scorned by their elders I mean when I was growing up as I recall it alive mem I used to listen to my sister listening to records and she was big into jazz but the older generation thought jazz was sort of dirty music in a way and isn't that really true era after era that people think that the new music is rock music well you know that well that is an argument that is that has been made because so many movements in the 20th century have had have have created controversy when they came into being and the work of the castle Stravinsky etcetera etcetera I mean even put that movie in night you know three of some of the kiss and it's just a few little people couple of X but everybody was oh my god all right the problem is this if you say those things about gangsta rap you're right it is vile I mean it glamorizes thuggish this misogyny mindless violence constant constant you're constantly getting drunk smoking reefers you know acting in an anarchic fashion Stanley you have written that American meant blood and class were not balls and chains and you've also said that every American knows exactly what you mean when you say they said it couldn't be done and we did it is that a central theme of what you're writing about oh of course I mean I mean on the one hand we have we have a one side of my history is the is the is what I call the I say somewhere in all American skin game it's a it's a it's a running battle with the worst manifestations of capitalism that is everything from insider trading slavery selling of rotten meat etcetera etcetera etcetera now those what it seems to me that our country attempts to do is bring about what I call civilization under capitalism that is a way to bring together the profit motive morality and ethics that that's the grand ideal I mean from the Pure Food and Drug Act on and on and on that's an ongoing battle it's just like the making of Locke's right if you and I are in the log business every time we we have been in the LOC people who break locks are starting to figure out how to break that lock you know that's why that's why the banks don't have the same lock that they had say 40 years ago because the minute that lock came into existence there were bank robber sometimes the people who made your food and drug laws go so far that they start destroying healthy aspects of money the whole over-regulation are you oh well see that yeah well yeah we'll see that but see but see that's but see that's why our social contract is so so extraordinary it's all bad it's so fundamentally based in the fact that people can school it up whatever the it is you know that you can you can go too far one way or the other and so so what we're seeing now is that you see our SP is this you would I come up with a law that we think will protect some part of the environment better than the policy you present we have once a bureaucracy gets involved in people began to get paychecks to do a certain thing they can go too far with that right and I think that that's the thing that we have to always keep in mind that's what I mean about the tragic optimism the possibility that it can go wrong is it may be understood and I and and our amendments are rewriting a rejection of previous policy all of that is about being able to try to try to try to get closer and closer to the reality that we actually observe in the world you've been criticized as things sort of a neoconservative hypnotize one quote which I also it's what I was and that you beat up particularly a tough lay on gays in feminists and the black activists and is that because of your distaste for this separatism kind of thing and the victimization is like well well for one thing these purported separatists usually have jobs many of which are tenured jobs and which they're paid to tell people that they can't be successful right so I find it very ironic that some kid who was a homosexual woman some minority right goes to a college where somebody's getting nearly six figures a year lifetime job guaranteed as long as they don't do anything extremely crazy right and that person is gonna tell these kids that you can't be a success I work nine months you have three months vacation every year you know but you can't make it right so don't pay any attention to me right you're the one who can make it I are some of the notable black figures today viewing themselves principally as black and you are saying nothing wrong with being black but there is this great American culture that's open to us and that's the game I want to play in absolutely right but you see the problem we have here it seems to me is first thing as I've said site somewhere in there when when call um-- the-the-the-the psychoanalysts came to america he observed that he said he observed it that white people walked talked and laughed like Negros from what he could tell you know and Africans often accuse black people like Americans of being black skin white people that is we have influenced each other so much trait that that the idea of racial the racial division is is it's a big problem for instance if you when you first come in New York from a place like I came from in Los Angeles right everybody you talked to on a telephone you think it's Jewish because there's you don't know the New York accents you haven't been able to make the distinctions of the Negro American version of it the Puerto Rican version of it the Jewish version of it the Irish version of it the Italian version now all of those versions are inside that accent but when you first pick up the telephone when you come to New York New York all of those racial divisions racial and religious divisions disappear because your ear isn't a tool to that there is this thing going on that there that many blacks are anti-semitic that is an accusation and the active accusation against you has been I guess that you are a similar file that you are overly friendly to Jews that you you you have a a particular identity with Jews that make sense well the thing what you see see the some of your some of your critics make that point oh yeah yeah well you know my mates yeah I'm the kind of person that you can say almost I should be attacked from almost any side depending upon how irrational you are and of course of course I wouldn't think anybody rationally I'm getting ready for my this is all been this is the put out right but well see the thing with me is that I've always jealous born in 1945 when I was coming up I remember very distinctly when Eichmann was captured and it was all of this stuff that came out on the television about World War two and the death camps awesome and my mother was very adamant about the fact that that when we looked at that that was happening in the death camps and stuff the way that that put in perspective what was happening in terms of racism in the United States further she worked for him for she was a domestic you know amazed she worked for a number of Jews who would invite me and her to dinner at the house and she would get them to loan me books and when I would go there and they would be talking about you know I'm having lunch with these people who were German Jews and uh they said well what do you think about Nixon and Kennedy you know and so this is 1960 I was 14 1915 to d7 14 miles like she lives just what white folks talk about I didn't you know I think if I wasn't accustomed to these kinds of you know I was nobody ever asked me as a 14 yo what I thought about you know the presidential race now that was just the beginning not that my mother wasn't on which she was a big Kennedy person all of that I don't mean that I just meant that there was a certain kind of a of an intellectual engagement that I counted in the Jewish world I was very depth at I was nearly enthralled by and I'm still very fascinated by and but I think you know in the United States though it's very easy to be attracted to a number of different kinds of things that are outside of of what some people might think is just circumscribed group I'm in other words as an American I don't particularly feel uncomfortable among any American group I mean if I'm wrong American southerners or Italian Americans or Jews or Asians and some that I never somebody's gone looking around him where my people is I don't you know that doesn't really bother me you know in fact uh when I was a boy my mother was so obsessed with us meeting other groups of people that she sent us all to this this this elementary school there was a mixed school that had Asians Irish kids and Spanish kids in it because there was a there was a there was a all-black elementary school very near us and she said look you know the world is made up of all kinds of people and you might as well start meeting them now so she sent me my brother and my sister to that school so about my first six years of first six years of school I was I was able to find out very quickly that that that that no ethnic group or not no ethnic religious of class of racial group is superior to any other because I ran in the idiots in every ethnic group that are you smart ones in every one it is the the melting pot still the right metaphor for America oh I think so except that you see I think I think what we misunderstand now is okay you see like there's this hilarious show on Showtime called Sherman Oaks what it's about is it's this Jewish family that lives in the valley outside La Brea suburbs one of their sons has decided that he's black that he has a black friend and so the black friend is the know and see the conversation between the white kid in the black kid is hilarious because the white is gone yo look at bro well we got to be doing ideas too black man and I'm supposed to hang back as you represent and white oppressors everywhere dish out my faith will you chill Ferrigno let your father talk man thank you doctor no problem and so it's a real send up of that and immigration all kinds you know and an upper-middle-class angst and a bunch of things but but but if but in the way kid right what we see is is is how quickly any any cultural language can be appropriated anyplace in the United States we've got people who who pick up all kinds of different things one from the other and I don't think there's anything wrong with that I think that that in other words I don't think there's any way that somebody should be able to tell somebody that if you've got if you're gonna be a Jewish American you have to start here and stop here if you're gonna be a black American you have to start here and stop here if you're gonna be a real you know modern-day woman who's pro-feminist a certain way you have to start here and stop here I think that's all don't plus I don't think it works I think people will will will will gravitate towards the things that make them feel most human within the terms of their time is intermarriage the the final stage of assimilation well I think we'll see us we'll see to me when it comes down to romance I think that should just be the province of the two people I mean it's so difficult for Americans to stay married that I don't think right now I don't think anybody should worry about it of marriage I mean it doesn't guarantee anything further well as I've often said now if you put Louis Farrakhan but if you put a beard on Louis Farrakhan right now a mustache and put him in a suit without a bowtie and you put him in David Duke on a plane and you fool them to West Africa the Africans would say ah to Americans mm-hmm if you sent them to wherever in Europe David dukes family comes from right they would say up on seeing Farrakhan of this guy get off to play no matter whether they went on argument or not they would say ah to Americans now what makes us American transcends all of that and everybody else on the face of the earth recognizes it almost immediately as almost a week they see it you know and that's the thing I think that's the most important and that's the thing I think it's gonna win out no but I mean you are saying quite properly I think that who marries who should be up to the individuals fine right but but it is just going to have a powerful as this progresses and if it progresses particularly black/white where it hadn't happened before it's just going to change American society I think American society is going to be drastically changed by intermarriage I mean in that I think that race will become so diffused and it'll become so diversified if you will because of all of these different kinds of combinations that I don't think the the two or three different divisions that we now are using will really work say 100 years from now there aren't gonna be hard to tell wait okay thank you Stanley Crouch and thank you we at think-tank depend on your views to make our show better please send your questions and comments to New River media one one five Oh 17th Street Northwest Washington DC 200 3 6 or email us at think-tank at pbs.org to learn more about think tank visit PBS online at www.viki [Music] the think tank I'm been wattenberg [Music] [Music] this has been a production of EJ with New River media which are solely responsible for its content

Channel: American Enterprise Institute

Views: 2,131

Rating: 4.9529409 out of 5

Keywords: AEI, American Enterprise Institute, politics, news, education

Id: 8vUm5GFpa0s

Length: 25min 44sec (1544 seconds)

Published: Sun May 24 2020