Rolling Obituary Thread: 2020

Terence Conran.

Ronald Harwood, playwright of The Dresser and screenwriter of The Pianist

Charles Saunders, pioneer of African fantasy and black sword and sorcery
https://www.facebook.com/milton.davis.52/posts/10214005770897028

Apparently his Imaro character is getting a tv series, sad that he couldn't see it. The last couple of books were self-published and he has been very obscure for a long time.

Original Bad Brains singer Sid McCray

https://www.brooklynvegan.com/original-bad-brains-singer-sid-mccray-rip/

Aline Chrétien, wife of former PM Jean Chrétien.

https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/statement-by-the-prime-minister-on-the-passing-of-aline-chretien-812442387.html

Paul Méfano, French conductor of contemporary classical music and founder of the 2e2m Ensemble. He was 83. RIP.

Jiri Menzel

https://variety.com/2020/film/global/jiri-menzel-dies-czech-director-oscar-1234761137/

Menzel was fortunately able to see a big re-evaluation of his work outside of the Czech Republic. A magnificent filmmaker

Stanley Crouch, jazz critic, amateur pugilist (he was known to swing on other writers and sometimes musicians), and master of the liner note essay so hyperbolic it could give you vertigo.

RIP. Haven’t read a lot of him, but I’ve liked what I read. Just included his piece on “The Roots of Black Homophobia” on a syllabus I’m putting together for January.

Thought he would keep doing that stuff forever. RIP

RIP, that's a bummer. he was a regular and welcome face in the crowd and a worthwhile writer. had not heard about his fighting spirit before.

Damn, Crouch is major.

Thought he was kind of problematic figure, tbh.

Oh he is! Doesn't make him not major.

I didn't really *like* Crouch but I kind of wanted him to be around forever

^^^ yeah, this. I can't remember which liner notes I was reading recently where "so hyperbolic it could give you vertigo" only begins to cover it, but I still respected his uncompromising opinions on what jazz is, even if I didn't agree with them.

Yes, thirded, that was kind of my original position.

His disdain for Bitches Brew made me not wish to dig deeper.

RIP Stanley Crouch, wrong about electric Miles and much else but always worth reading

xp

He was wrong about Davis, and about lots of other things too, but he was never just fucking around. He meant what he said, and wrote, and that's always defensible IMO.

His essay collections deserve to be bound up by the Library of America.

Oh, and I just searched his name on Amazon and spotted this:

Unti Charlie Parker Volume 2

Pub date: January 2021.

I don't know his writing well, but I've seen him interviewed in many things--think he was a friend of Christgau's and (I might be wrong here) Kael's.

xgau the only person at the village voice he didn't punch iirc

he should’ve

lol I thought adam shatz was speaking figuratively when he said "He left some bruises, not always in the right places"

xgau the only person at the village voice he didn't punch iirc

One of the first things I did when I read the news was email Matthew Shipp: "Didn't you get into a physical fight with him once?"

He responded, "He attempted 2 times - was broken up both times."

Did he ever try picking a fight with Mingus?

Wondered where I knew the name from, and yeah, I have seen him talking in basically every documentary about 20s / 30s jazz. He was very enthusiastic, which was good.

sinkah otm

I knew his political facepalms best, so...

I had drinks with Stanley Crouch at several book parties. He was intense and funny. I didn't agree with most of his opinions, but he could bring it strong, no matter how wrong. Another part of my youth gone. RIP. pic.twitter.com/MqcOpHH4jK

— Dennis Perrin (@DennisThePerrin) September 16, 2020

This just in from New West Records:
Steve Earle & the Dukes announced today that they will be recording an album of songs written by Justin Townes Earle with 100% of artist advances and royalties going to a trust for Justin's daughter, Etta St. James Earle. It is expected that the album will be recorded in October and released in January, 2021, around the time of what would have been Justin's thirty-ninth birthday. More details to be announced shortly.

Yeah that wrecked a lot of us today. I had to read it twice to take it in. I don't think there's even been an album like this.

Just included his piece on “The Roots of Black Homophobia” on a syllabus I’m putting together for January.

― A White, White Gay (cryptosicko), Wednesday, September 16, 2020 1:34 PM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i really hope you're prepared to give some context for the piece, e.g.

Virulent homophobia was hysterically and consistently inserted into 1960s black nationalism single-handedly by Amiri Baraka.

^ conveniently ignores SC's own deeply disturbing homophobic attitudes, which you can hear for yourself in this spoken word piece from 1969 which i'm sure mr. crouch would've preferred we all forgot existed:

!! do not click if you don't want to hear dozens of homophobic slurs !!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA9elrRWfA8
"ain't no ambulances ..."

Wasn't aware of Crouch's own homophobic history, but I definitely planned to contextualize anyway. Thanks for this, though; it'll definitely figure into my discussion.

crouch was close to baraka iirc, as a favoured and talented disciple -- and made his bones breaking with him and breaking with free jazz, an event possibly more oedipal than careerist when it happened, though it did his career no harm of course

when i interviewed diamanda galas in the late 80s -- galas who had played piano with crouch and david murray and others in the 70s -- she had very evidently come to dislike him greatly at some point, perhaps always. she hinted at why but didn't expand and i didn't know enough to press the point

he could write of course, and his love of jazz before miles went electric is genuine, and scholarly. tbh i think he ruined marsalis.

Nice remembrance of Crouch in his complexity here by Ethan Iverson:

https://www.npr.org/2020/09/16/913619163/stanley-crouch-towering-jazz-critic-dead-at-74

WOAH

No one ever influenced me more than Stanley Crouch. As a young woman I was blessed to be taught by him & mentored by him. He gave me my true North, with his genius & incomparable ability to see right into you & show you what is true. May he rest in peace. https://t.co/Gi75VxKy9g

— Marianne Williamson (@marwilliamson) September 16, 2020

uh, wow

Cause when I think of Stanley Crouch, I think of a love revolution.

https://media4.giphy.com/media/WONP1AEDRp7wHc2IUM/giphy.gif

I suppose Williamson is also kind of into poundcake speech politics except she's less "pull up your pants" and more woo woo - "your only limit is your own mind" type junk

To be honest I kind of love how she just keeps throwing curveballs at me, most of them more bizarre than upsetting.

my commie roommate read A Return to Love twice because it was, to paraphrase, "such compelling bullshit"

https://artsfuse.org/211996/arts-remembrance-soul-iconoclast-roy-c/?fbclid=IwAR28vNcDWiA7dUnddDXlLXd9u-gfzz4-nE-V4aMbeMmbt-ng9fKKEDMf7S4

RIP Roy C (Hammond), southern soul singer

https://www.wjbf.com/csra-news/soul-singer-roy-charles-hammond-aka-roy-c-has-died/?fbclid=IwAR0ppYaA8crmJH-8aYrUnC4D4UqyFAoO7ivYzcw-YuYYRbW2YKl2UgsO_MU

1965 hit, “Shotgun Wedding”. Another song, “Impeach the President”, which he recorded and produced with a high school group, the Honey Drippers, has had one of the most sampled drum tracks in hip hop. Later continued to tour on the southern soul circuit

RIP. The bells are ringing in Georgia.

RIP. Impeach The President is a JAM.

indeed. RIP.

Winston Groom, 77.

I didn't know there was a Forrest Gump sequel, Gump and Co.:

Forrest also meets an attractive blonde woman named Gretchen, who works in a beer hall. Originally from East Germany, Gretchen was spirited to the West, but her family still remains in the Soviet zone. Forrest and Gretchen start dating, but when Forrest suggests buying Little Forrest an oompah horn, Gretchen thinks he cannot afford such a gift on a private's salary and suggests better rapport could be built through writing letters explaining his situation in Germany. Despite Gretchen's concerns, Forrest shells out $800 for the horn (but considers it a better deal as he did not get ripped off for shipping as he did in Alaska).

That plot summary is a treat:

When Forrest's background in pro football is discovered, he gets recruited for the Sour Krauts, the unit's football team, to play against an intelligence unit, the Wiesbaden Wizards.