Stanley Crouch

Stanley Crouch's culture pieces have appeared in Harper's, The New York Times, Vogue, Downbeat, The New Yorker, and more. He has served as artistic consultant for jazz programming at Lincoln Center since 1987, and is a founder Jazz at Lincoln Center. In June 2006 his first major collection of jazz criticism, Considering Genius: Jazz Writings, was published. He is presently completing a book about the Barack Obama presidential campaign.

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Journalist and artistic consultant for jazz programming at Lincoln Center and author of Considering Genius: Jazz Writings

Since about 1972, Sonny Rollins has seemed intent on disproving the barely arguable fact that he is the finest saxophone improvisor since Charlie Parker. He has often played wonderfully in public but released mediocre to terrible recordings. Only those who have heard him when inspired know what he can do, which is make music seem the truest proof of harshly grand, witty, and wonderful things unseen. With the brand new cd Road Shows, Vol. 1 and the dvd Sonny Rollins Live in '65 & ‘68 we get the expected mix of the marvelous and the mediocre. But the performance from 1965 is veritably flawless. In his most formidable context--saxophone, bass, and drums--he proves himself a grand master of thematic variation, giving us heart, mind, and virtuoso technique while timelessly solving the age-old mind-body problem as all of our most truly gifted jazz musicians always have.

2:09 pm, Oct 29, 2008

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Musicians, Drums, Bass, Road Shows, Saxophone, Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, Jazz, Stanley Crouch

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