Crouch’s
work was ever a blend of high art and street talk, the prose version of what he considered the profound democracy of jazz. He saw his country, his work and his life as intertwined, advancing “through argument, through contradiction, through reinterpretation,” grounded and graced by a spirit of “tragic optimism.” In his 2007 biography of Charlie Parker, “Kansas City Lightning,” he presents the great saxophonist in his early days as not just a revolutionary musician, but a kind of exemplary citizen.
“The 21-year-old Parker was possessed by his music — by a ravenous need to improvise, to learn new tunes, to find new ways of getting through the harmonies with materials that would liberate him from cliches,” Crouch wrote. “Parker seemed to have a crying soul, a spirit as troubled by the nature of life as it was capable of almost unlimited celebration.” (AP)