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The All-American Skin Game, or, the Decoy of Race: The Long and the Short of It 1990-1994
In this collection of essays long and short, the hugely controversial critic and author of Notes of a Hanging Judge gives us a refreshingly iconoclastic view of race in American culture and society. Whether Crouch is writing about the U.S. Constitution as blues, or jazz (Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Wynton Marsalis), he is always incisive and provocative.
267 pages, Hardcover
Published October 31, 1995
About the author
Stanley Crouch
33 books57 followersStanley Lawrence Crouch was an American poet, music journalist & jazz critic, biographer, novelist, educator and cultural commentator. He was also both a civil rights activist and a musician as a young man.
Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, Stanley Crouch attended Thomas Jefferson High School, graduating in 1963. He continued his education at area junior colleges and became active in the civil rights movement, working with the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). He gained a reputation as a talented young poet, and in 1968 became poet-in-residence at Pitzer College (Claremont, California); he then taught theatre and literature at Pomona College (Claremont, California). In 1969, a recording of him reading several of his poems was released as an LP by Flying Dutchman Records. This was followed by his first book, a collection of his poems published in 1972 by the Richard W. Baron Publishing Co.
During the early 1970s, Mr. Crouch also pursued a parallel career as a musician, playing the drums in a progressive jazz group called Black Music Infinity, which he had formed with saxophonist & clarinetist David Murray, and which also featured saxophonist Arthur Blythe. In 1975, Mr. Crouch & Mr. Murray moved from California to New York City, where they lived above an East Village jazz club called the Tin Palace. Mr. Crouch functioned as the club's booking agent for a while, and he both chronicled and participated in the thriving avant-garde jazz scene in New York at that time, along with musicians such as Henry Threadgill, James Blood Ulmer and Olu Dara, among many others. There were also a number of other poets, as well as photographers, painters and other visual artists actively involved in that milieu. By the end of the 1970s, however, Mr. Crouch had for the most part given up the drums, and his role as a musician, to concentrate on writing.
In 1980 Mr. Crouch joined the staff of the Village Voice, where for the next several years he further honed his craft as a writer. He was honored with a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1982. In 1987 he became an artistic consultant for the Jazz at Lincoln Center program, along with Wynton Marsalis, for whom he had become a friend and intellectual mentor. After leaving the Village Voice in 1988, Crouch published 'Notes of a Hanging Judge: Essays and Reviews, 1979-1989', which was selected by The Encyclopædia Britannica Yearbook as the best book of essays published in 1990. He received a Whiting Award in 1991, which was followed in 1993 by a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant and the Jean Stein Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Mr. Crouch continued to write for newspapers and magazines in addition to writing books. He wrote a column for the New York Daily News, and eventually became a syndicated columnist. He also appeared in several documentary films and was a frequent guest on television programs. His first novel, 'Don't the Moon Look Lonesome' was published in 2000, and 'Kansas City Lightning: The Rise and Times of Charlie Parker', his biography of the revered jazz musician, in 2013.
In addition to his writing on music and the arts generally, Mr. Crouch was one of the most incisive writers and socio-cultural commentators on race relations in the U.S., which was a frequent topic of his articles and books. In 2003 he was fired from the magazine 'JazzTimes' after an article he had written on racism in the music business had caused a somewhat overblown and ridiculous controversy. Probably not coincidentally, he was selected in 2005 as one of the inaugural fellows by the Fletcher Foundation, which awards annual fellowships to people working on issues of race and civil rights. Mr. Crouch was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009. In 2016, he was awarded the Windham–Campbell Literature Prize for non-fiction, and he was named an NEA Jazz Master in 2019.
Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, Stanley Crouch attended Thomas Jefferson High School, graduating in 1963. He continued his education at area junior colleges and became active in the civil rights movement, working with the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). He gained a reputation as a talented young poet, and in 1968 became poet-in-residence at Pitzer College (Claremont, California); he then taught theatre and literature at Pomona College (Claremont, California). In 1969, a recording of him reading several of his poems was released as an LP by Flying Dutchman Records. This was followed by his first book, a collection of his poems published in 1972 by the Richard W. Baron Publishing Co.
During the early 1970s, Mr. Crouch also pursued a parallel career as a musician, playing the drums in a progressive jazz group called Black Music Infinity, which he had formed with saxophonist & clarinetist David Murray, and which also featured saxophonist Arthur Blythe. In 1975, Mr. Crouch & Mr. Murray moved from California to New York City, where they lived above an East Village jazz club called the Tin Palace. Mr. Crouch functioned as the club's booking agent for a while, and he both chronicled and participated in the thriving avant-garde jazz scene in New York at that time, along with musicians such as Henry Threadgill, James Blood Ulmer and Olu Dara, among many others. There were also a number of other poets, as well as photographers, painters and other visual artists actively involved in that milieu. By the end of the 1970s, however, Mr. Crouch had for the most part given up the drums, and his role as a musician, to concentrate on writing.
In 1980 Mr. Crouch joined the staff of the Village Voice, where for the next several years he further honed his craft as a writer. He was honored with a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1982. In 1987 he became an artistic consultant for the Jazz at Lincoln Center program, along with Wynton Marsalis, for whom he had become a friend and intellectual mentor. After leaving the Village Voice in 1988, Crouch published 'Notes of a Hanging Judge: Essays and Reviews, 1979-1989', which was selected by The Encyclopædia Britannica Yearbook as the best book of essays published in 1990. He received a Whiting Award in 1991, which was followed in 1993 by a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant and the Jean Stein Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Mr. Crouch continued to write for newspapers and magazines in addition to writing books. He wrote a column for the New York Daily News, and eventually became a syndicated columnist. He also appeared in several documentary films and was a frequent guest on television programs. His first novel, 'Don't the Moon Look Lonesome' was published in 2000, and 'Kansas City Lightning: The Rise and Times of Charlie Parker', his biography of the revered jazz musician, in 2013.
In addition to his writing on music and the arts generally, Mr. Crouch was one of the most incisive writers and socio-cultural commentators on race relations in the U.S., which was a frequent topic of his articles and books. In 2003 he was fired from the magazine 'JazzTimes' after an article he had written on racism in the music business had caused a somewhat overblown and ridiculous controversy. Probably not coincidentally, he was selected in 2005 as one of the inaugural fellows by the Fletcher Foundation, which awards annual fellowships to people working on issues of race and civil rights. Mr. Crouch was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009. In 2016, he was awarded the Windham–Campbell Literature Prize for non-fiction, and he was named an NEA Jazz Master in 2019.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 25, 2020
Honestly, this book just wasn’t what I expected. I thought that it would be insightful prose to the conversation of race; however, the repetitive themes amongst the pieces of writing just left me feeling like I was on a hamster wheel. I also struggled with the musical tie-in’s, not being well-verses in jazz nor the blues, I felt like a lot of Crouch’s hard hitting arguments went over my head. I think if I were a fan of either musical genre I would have enjoyed this book much more.
October 31, 2020
I'm not going to try to review this right now, mostly because my brain is a bit fried from (mostly work-related) stress at the moment. At some point, hopefully soon, I will attempt to write linked reviews for not only this but all three books by Mr. Crouch that I have read this year...
August 2, 2022
Three stars because he's right (which is to say interesting and usefully provocative) as often as he's wrong (which is to say myopic and ostentatiously cranky).
I can't get enough of the talk about jazz and democracy, or his passion for the blues and trad jazz, the writers he loves like Saul Bellow & Albert Murray, or his unique way of putting sentences together, which is both elegant syntactically and conversationally blunt.
Don't at all think he's anywhere near the truth when he rips into Miles as a sellout for going electric (Shock, horror! What will we tell the children!), his ridiculously snobby attitude towards rock music and pop culture in general, and some of his domestic policy ideas are bunk-- give a look at his recommendation for stopping teenage pregnancy the ten seconds it deserves.
All in all, I do enjoy reading him in a way that I don't with others.
I can't get enough of the talk about jazz and democracy, or his passion for the blues and trad jazz, the writers he loves like Saul Bellow & Albert Murray, or his unique way of putting sentences together, which is both elegant syntactically and conversationally blunt.
Don't at all think he's anywhere near the truth when he rips into Miles as a sellout for going electric (Shock, horror! What will we tell the children!), his ridiculously snobby attitude towards rock music and pop culture in general, and some of his domestic policy ideas are bunk-- give a look at his recommendation for stopping teenage pregnancy the ten seconds it deserves.
All in all, I do enjoy reading him in a way that I don't with others.
January 13, 2015
A collection of essays, reviews, and addresses from the early 1990s by this often cantankerous culture critic, this is a rather uneven book... and now rather dated. However, Crouch's essays on jazz - and specifically his tribute to Dizzy Gillespie, his essay on Wynton Marsalis's "In this House, On this Morning," and his critical take on Miles Davis's later work - are solid and provocative, and well worth reading. Hard to believe, though, how easily he can dismiss James Baldwin, all the while raising Albert Murray to the status of genius. Murray is important, but certainly not so flawless as Crouch would believe!
April 30, 2015
This wonderful book changed the way I see America. From the warmth of the opening coda to it's visually poetic conclusion, Stanley Crouch is an optimist about the future of race relations in this country. What a breath of fresh air Mr. Crouch is. "The All American Skin Game" should be required reading for every university in this country. Thank you Mr. Crouch!.
Want to Read
January 17, 2008Disclaimer: I don't wanna, but i hafta read this stupid book.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews