Stanley Crouch, an author, professor, poet and venerable jazz critic known for his passionate commentary, died Wednesday, Sept. 16 after nearly a decade of health challenges. He was 74. His death was announced by his wife Gloria Nixon-Crouch, National Public Radio (NPR) reported.
Once a Black Nationalist, Crouch used his columns and books to use “the invention of jazz into a metaphor for the indelible contributions that Black people have made to American democracy,” wrote the New York Times.
Though he renounced his Black nationalistic views in 1979, Crouch still “fought for what he considered a Black aesthetic in jazz,” NPR wrote. However, his penchant of calling out fellow Black artists and authors for being opportunists who capitalized on using the race card caused him to have much contention with them. Still he was always proud of his Black heritage.
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“I use Negro, Black American, Afro-American. And I might throw brown American in eventually. I don’t use African-American because I have friends who are from Africa. But I do use Afro-American, because that means it’s derived but it’s not direct,” Crouch once said.
A writer of both anthologies and fiction work, Crouch won several awards including the MacArthur Foundation “Genius Award” in 1993 and the Whiting Foundation Award for nonfiction in 1991. He was also named a Jazz Master for jazz advocacy by the National Endowment for the Arts in 2019.
According to NPR, he contracted covid-19 in the spring, but it is not clear if it contributed to his death by compounding his other health issues.
