Stanley Crouch, a contentious and influential critic, music writer, essayist, novelist, public intellectual, and passionate advocate for jazz, died on Wednesday at age 74.
Crouch was a columnist for the Village Voice, where he was hired as a staff writer in 1980 and later the New York Daily News from 1995-2014. Crouch received a MacArthur “genius” grant in 1993, and went on to publish a full bibliography of books, collections, and even a novel. In 2013, he published a biography of saxophonist Charlie Parker, Kansas City Lightning.
In 2000, Crouch served as a visiting professor at Columbia University in New York City. For much of the last decade of his life, he served as president of the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation, which supports music education.
Crouch is survived by his wife, Gloria Nixon Crouch, a daughter and granddaughter.
