"Can't we all get along?"

Snit At The Knit

It was a shot heard ‘round the world of jazz, that’s for sure. When Stanley Crouch punched Howard Mandel at the party following the First Annual Jazz Awards, it quickly became the talk of the town, juicy fodder for the jazz gossip mill. The snit at the Knit.

But the real story is the Awards themselves. Their very existence is a tiny miracle all its own.

What Took So Long?

For years, many in the jazz community have wondered, why no Jazz Awards Show? The music and its creators certainly warrant a celebration of this nature. Why is such a creative and dynamic medium denied this validation?

Two reasons.

The people with money and power, the wealthy white men who control major label recording, distribution and festivals worldwide, they can only agree on one thing. That they all want, and desperately need, more money and power. Under the guise of "helping jazz," they line their pockets and their stomachs, generation after generation..

For years, these big shots of the jazz industry have tried to put on an awards show and failed. Somehow, their egos got in the way.

The other obstacle and one that remains a real stumbling block to greater public acceptance of this music is the long running debate, what is jazz? When Bird and Dizzy first arrived, that wasn’t jazz. In the early 60s, some felt Coltrane was anti-jazz. Then came the debate about the avant garde. As long as I can remember, this in-fighting has plagued the music.

Paging Jerry Springer

Today that conflict, like most others in our tabloid society, can easily result in violence.

What was once public discourse now more closely resembles an episode of the Jerry Springer Show. In fact, the only thing that was missing from the Knitting Factory at 1:45 am on last Tuesday morning was Mr. Springer himself.

The First Annual Jazz Awards happened because Michael Dorf, of Knitting Factory fame, and Howard Mandel, President of the Jazz Journalists Assocation, made them happen. Dorf wanted to do the awards last year during the first Texaco Festival. A squabble with George Wein put the kibosh on that.

Michael conceived the event as bringing together the jazz industry and to finance it, needed their financial cooperation. This year, even though most of the industry didn’t come through with anything more than lip service, Dorf persevered and the First Annual

Jazz Awards became a reality although Alice Tully Hall was barely half full for the event, billed as benefit for "Music Cares," and the "Jazz Foundation of America."

On With The Show!

The production itself was flawed, overlong, and in need of a smoother format but these are minor quibbles. The bottom line here is that the First Annual Jazz Awards were big fun and should be an annual event televised for jazz fans worldwide.

There were twenty three categories (plus three categories for Excellence in Jazz Journalism, announced earlier at the Iridium party). Two awards in each category, one from the industry, and one from the journalists. Add to that, musical numbers from Geri Allen with Wallace Roney, a duo of Alice and Ravi Coltrane, Dave Douglas, Joe Henderson, Joe Lovano, and the Mingus Big Band.

During the standing ovations for presenters Horace Silver, Elvin Jones and Milt Jackson, the true nature of the event revealed itself. Aside from the JazzTimes convention and annual IAJE conference, there really aren’t any occasions that bring together the jazz community en masse, in celebration of our existence and the joy of the music that unites us no matter how great our differences. We needed this.

When Don Byron accepted his award for Best Other Reed Instrumentalist from the industry, he said that "I came here prepared to feel how corny this was going to be but now I feel myself very touched and really, kind of humbled."

The Plot Thickens

Of course a moment in the spotlight at an awards show can be very intoxicating, especially for someone with an agenda.

When Sue Mingus accepted the awards for triple-winning Mingus Big Band (journalists' choice for Best Artist Or Band In Performance, and picked by both voting groups for Best Big Band), she took potshots at Lincoln Center. At first she commented how glad she was to have the Mingus Big Band playing the music of Charles Mingus at Lincoln Center. How Mingus’ music hadn’t been performed there since "Epitaph," in 1989. And when she won the second award, she declared, "who needs Lincoln Center!"

When queried about Ms. Mingus’ comments, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rob Gibson replied via email that the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra was playing Mingus on their current tour and that "the LCJO has played Mingus' music on several tours throughout the years though it's true that we only did one evening of his music since we became a year-round entity in 1991, and we've never really played it as well as the Mingus Big Band does…J@LC loves Sue Mingus and supports her and the work she does on behalf of her late great husband. Mingus lives!"

What would the buddha-like bassist have to say about that?

The Real Fireworks Begin!

More awards and performances and then Stanley Crouch arrived on stage to present the Improviser of the Year awards. Unlike the other presenters who stuck to the script, Crouch delivered his own intro, a discourse on how jazz was the music for adults. Although this was not an evening for sermons, at least Rev. Crouch had something valid to offer here. But then, he ran amok.

He read the industry nominees, Kenny Barron, Chick Corea, Joe Lovano, Joe Henderson and Sonny Rollins, without comment. However, when it came to the journalists’ nominees, Mr. Crouch seemed to forget his manners. Joe Lovano, Sonny Rollins, Wayne Shorter and James Carter elicited no reaction but when he read Dave Douglas’ name, he paused, dramatically and commented how it was "an interesting choice." As if the trumpeter didn’t belong in such elite company. When he read pianist Matt Shipp’s name, and that of his record label, Hat Art, from Switzerland, Crouch said, "well, I guess you have to record whoever you can get."

Shipp, would would later figure in the "Snit at the Knit" reports that "when he said that, I was in shock. I was going to stand up and say something right there but Lewis Nash was sitting next to me and he touched me on the arm and suggested I shouldn't."

Boston Globe jazz writer Bob Blumenthal also felt that introductions at the event weren’t the occasion to editorialize on the nominations. We all could have made snide remarks about one or more person in any category of the nominees and winners that didn’t fit our particular taste, that’s what makes horseracing."

Shipp found it difficult to understand "how somebody who’s in the position that he is in, would do that. He works for Lincoln Center, he has the MacArthur Grant, a column in the Daily News, he’s on tv, he makes a lot of money, and here I am, I’m just starting to get some attention paid to my work and he gets up there and gives me a black eye."

Where's the Party?

The show went on, and on, until about midnight, when some of the participants finally made their way to the Knitting Factory for a post-awards party. A sprinkling of writers, musicians and other celebrants were present when "the incident" took place.

I spoke with the three principals as well several others who were ringside, just to get the story straight. Although we spoke by telephone, Mr. Crouch chose not to comment "on the record."

Fasten Your Seat Belts.

Shortly after Mr. Crouch arrived after a late dinner at a nearby restaurant, he got into a heated discussion with Howard Mandel, who had labored long and hard, without financial compensation, to make the Awards a reality. Following his earlier dismissal of the artiistry of Douglas and Shipp, Crouch reportedly told Mandel, Bob Blumenthal and Ravi Coltrane, that the jazz journalists have it all wrong. For Crouch, Dave Douglas’ "blips and blaps" are not avant garde, Albert Ayler started playing that music in 1964 and that the harmonic language of the players based at the Knitting Factory goes back to Ornette.

Mandel agreed but offered that what journalists wrote about was the refinement of that tradition. Crouch mentioned the "exhalted harmonic language that Wayne Shorter has developed" and Mandel pointed out that Dave Douglas has recently released an entire album of Wayne Shorter material, chiding Crouch for not listening to the music he was deriding.

Then, the intensity of their conflict escalated.

"You can’t talk to me like that."

"I’m just trying to get you to take responsibility for what you said on stage."

"I didn't say anything on stage."

"Sure you did, everybody knew what you were saying on stage, everybody."

And then Crouch punched Mandel in the face, but thankfully, it was something less than a crippling blow. Yet Mandel’s glass fell to the floor and shattered.

"I think he pulled the punch a little bit," Mandel later explained. "I was not hurt just stunned that he’d done that. On the other hand, I know that he’s done that to people before. I just shrugged it off and walked away."

In retrospect, Mandel feels that "I can’t be angry at Stanley, I’ve known him for a long time. I think he’s silly in a lot of ways but he’s also brilliant in some ways. I’ll cut him some slack for his brilliance, but no, I don’t think that that’s acceptable behavior, I don’t condone it."

"Stanley likes to stand up and tell it like it really is, and it’s a problem because what he says isn’t necessarily how it really is."

The Crowd Turns on Crouch.

At this point, Matthew Shipp entered the fray: "I got in Stanley’s face and told him he was an uncle tom and a loser. He’s a clever water boy without any real principles. He just wants power and money, and he’s a power hungry freak who likes to start trouble and stir the pot when he really has nothing of value to add to anything or say."

Shipp recalls that Crouch then said "What did you say to be me boy?" and he responded "I said you’re an uncle tom and a you’re a fucking loser. Then he said, cmon little boy, step outside and bring your bottle. Let’s step outside right now."

Thankfully, Ravi Coltrane and several others separated Crouch and Shipp. "A few minutes later he came over and apologized," Shipp acknowledges, "but I told him that he slapped all independent labels in the face. Verve and Blue Note were independent labels at one time, probably when they were doing their best music. Then he got into his spiel about what constitutes jazz and what doesn’t. But that’s academic. He’s the one who made the fool of himself."

"At the event, there were many people from different generations and different camps and whatever anybody felt about some of the other camps, people were going out their way, other than Sue Mingus, people were going out of their way to get through the evening and be cool."

Dorf Speaks.

Michael Dorf via email: ‘Jazz comes in many varieties, it's why I like this art form. Stanley, is a passionate outspoken critic at his base and while I disagree with his opinion, it is one part of flavor of our industry. He was the one who got booed at during the awards and made a fool of himself at the party--it is on him now. As a presenter, he said some great thing about jazz at first, then said silly comments during the presenting. Overall, he did a poor job as a presenter and we will not ask him back for next year. Everyone else will be asked back."

What about Jerry Springer as host for next year’s show?

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