do you ever get the feeling, when reading about jazz, that the writer is missing the point, or defending the music on terms inappropriate to it? albert murray never makes that mistake. what he describes is what you hear and see -- at least it was for me. for him, the blues is a great folk music, and jazz is what more sophisticated artists do with the blues -- an extension and elaboration of the blues that,at its best,brings together myth, storytelling, rhythm and improvisational grace.
he treats jazz as a classic art form, but an art form whose terms aren't the same as, say, european classical music's, or pop's. and he does a great job of spelling out what jazz's elements are. if you respond to his writing, you're likely to find the whole art form of jazz opening up before you, even if you dug it before.
bizarrely, albert murray is sometimes accused of having a "racial agenda" -- see other comments here. i don't understand why. i find his vision of race the most generous and noble i've ever run across, avoiding both antagonism and romanticism. (try his great collection of essays "the omni-americans," and see if it doesn't remind you of whitman in its breadth, humor and beauty.) in his vision, america is and always has been multiracial. that's its glory and strength, not its weakness. you'd be crazy not to dig duke ellington, and crazy not to dig thomas eakins. he's a great teacher, and can get you excited about art, performance, and ideas in the way only the great critics can -- pauline kael, for instance, or kenneth tynan, or matthew arnold.
the title "stomping the blues" refers to murray's contention that the blues -- and that african-american music generally -- isn't simply about moaning low or expressing your despair. it's about being honest about "what a low-down, dirty shame" life is -- and then setting that fact to a beat, moving to that beat, and shaking the blues off, if only for a while. that's the heroism of the blues and of jazz -- they aren't about giving in to the blues, they're about "stomping the blues." charlie parker? it's "dance music for the mind."
fyi, murray was a good friend of ralph ellison's, and fans of "invisible man" and of ellison's essays are almost certain to enjoy murray too. murray is often, and accurately, referred to as the intellectual godfather of the recent neotraditional movement in jazz. he has had a tremendous influence on stanley crouch and wynton marsalis, and his ideas are behind the founding of lincoln center's jazz program.
he should be named a living national treasure.
