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Stanley Crouch (born December 14, 1945) is an African-American poet, music and cultural critic, syndicated columnist, novelist and biographer, perhaps best known for his jazz criticism and his novel ''Don't the Moon Look Lonesome?'' == Biography == Stanley Lawrence Crouch was born in Los Angeles, the son of James and Emma Bea (Ford) Crouch. He was raised by his mother. In Ken Burns' 2005 television documentary ''Unforgivable Blackness'', Crouch says that his father was a "criminal" and that he once met the boxer Jack Johnson. As a child he was a voracious reader, having read the complete works of Hemingway, Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and many of the other classics of American literature, by the time he finished high school. He also became an enthusiast for jazz music. He graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in Los Angeles in 1963. After high school, he attended junior colleges and became active in the civil rights movement, working for the Student Nonviolent Co-ordinating Committee. He was also involved in artistic and educational projects centered on the African-Americana community of Los Angeles, soon gaining recognition for his poetry. In 1968 he became poet-in-residence at Pitzer College, then taught theatre and literature at Pomona College until 1975. The Watts riots were a pivotal event in his early development as a thinker on racial issues. A quote from the rioting, "Ain't no ambulances for no nigguhs tonight," was used as a title for a polemical speech that advocated black nationalist ideas, released as a recording in 1969,〔(Hipwax.com: Funk )〕 then for a 1972 collection of his poems. Crouch was an aspiring jazz drummer. Together with David Murray, he formed the group, ''Black Music Infinity.'' In 1975, he sought to further his endeavors with a move from California to New York City, where he shared a loft with Murray above an East Village club called the Tin Palace. He was a drummer for Murray and with other musicians of the underground NY 'jazz loft' scene. While working as a drummer, Crouch conducted the booking for an avant-garde jazz series at the club, as well as organizing occasional concert events at the Ladies' Fort. By his own admission he was not a good drummer, saying "The problem was that I couldn't really play. Since I was doing this avant-garde stuff, I didn't have to be all that good, but I was a real knucklehead."〔 Crouch befriended Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray, who influenced his thinking in a direction less centered on race. He stated with regard to Murray's influence, "I saw how important it is to free yourself from ideology. When you look at things solely in terms of race or class, you miss what is really going on."〔 He made a final, public break with black nationalist ideology in 1979, in an exchange with Amiri Baraka in the ''Village Voice''. He was also emerging as a public critic of recent cultural and artistic trends that he saw as empty, phony, or corrupt. His targets included the fusion and avant-garde movements in jazz (including his own participation in the latter) and works of letters that he saw as hiding their lack of merit behind racial posturing. As a writer for the ''Voice'' from 1980 to 1988, he was known for his blunt criticisms of his targets and tendency to excoriate their participants. It was during this period that he became a friend and intellectual mentor to Wynton Marsalis, and an advocate of the neotraditionalist movement that he saw as reviving the core values of jazz.〔 In 1987 he became an artistic consultant for the Jazz at Lincoln Center program, joined by Marsalis, who later became artistic director, in 1991. After his stint at the ''Voice,'' Crouch published ''Notes of a Hanging Judge: Essays and Reviews, 1979-1989'', which gained his ideas prominence among a wide audience and was selected by ''The Encyclopedia Britannica Yearbook'' as the best book of essays published in 1990. That was followed by receipt of a Whiting Award in 1991, and a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant and the Jean Stein Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1993. Crouch has continued to be an active author producing works of fiction and nonfiction, articles for periodicals, and newspaper columns. He is a columnist for the New York Daily News and a syndicated columnist. He is also featured as a source in documentaries and a guest in televised discussions. In 2004 Crouch was invited to a panel of judges for the PEN/Newman's Own Award, a $25,000 award designed to protect speech as it applies to the written word.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 url=http://www.pen.org/freedom/noa.htm )〕 In 2005, he was selected as one of the inaugural fellows by the Fletcher Foundation, which awards annual fellowships to people working on issues of race and civil rights. The fellowship program is directed by Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. of Harvard University. He is the current President of the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation and since 2009 a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Stanley Crouch」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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