Considering Genius: Writings on Jazz by Stanley Crouch

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Because understanding great literature is better than trying to read and

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understand yet another business book, on the Leadership Lessons from the Great

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Books podcast, we commit to reading, dissecting, and analyzing the

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great books of the Western canon. You know, those

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books from Jane Austen to Shakespeare and everything else in

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between that you might have fallen asleep trying to read in

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high school. We do this for our listeners, the owner, the

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entrepreneur, the manager, or the civic leader who doesn’t have the time

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to read, dissect, analyze, and leverage insights from

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literature to execute leadership best practices in the

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confusing and chaotic postmodern world we all now

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inhabit. Welcome to the rescuing of Western civilization

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at the intersection of literature and leadership.

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Welcome to the leadership lessons from the great books podcast.

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Hello. My name is Hazon Sorells and this is the

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leadership lessons from the great books podcast episode

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number one forty four

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men of colones how was I evil

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Oedipus cast his blind eye upon the men of

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Athens and blamed the blamed them, not himself,

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for the sins he committed. He blamed the city

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state. He blamed the rulers. He blamed the

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elders. He blamed everybody but himself.

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Twenty five hundred years later, the French writer and political philosopher

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Jean Jacques Rousseau declared mightily on the

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cusp of the French Revolution that, quote,

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man is born free, yet everywhere he is in

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chains. From these two

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philosophical and cultural traditions in the West springs the

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idea in constant tension with its Apollonian

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opposite that men in their natural organic

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state are free, and society serves to shackle

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them with needless conventions, arbitrary

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rules meaningless traditions and

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endless orders of course forcing

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them into a state of rebellion against their

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natural goodness

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And then well, and then art comes along intertwined with

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sexual mores and filled with innuendos

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designed, as art always is, to channel men’s natural

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chthonic impulses into Apollonian order

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without them really knowing or at the very least

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to coax them to release so that

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the act of sexual union itself

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because art is at the bottom of it about sex

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the sexual union itself can be more pleasurable

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if this sounds weird for the opening of a literature and

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leadership podcast today that’s because well, that’s because of

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the book we are covering today.

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Unusual for this show, it is a book that critiques, analyzes, and

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examines the untidy and unpredictable nature of one of the

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most unlikely genres of art, that is

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music, to ever be created by modern

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man. This book,

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unblinkingly traces the history and the twists and the turns of

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improvisation, chaos, and

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its manifestation in earthy reality

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in a place that can only exist that we in

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The United States call, well,

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jazz. Today, we will extract as

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many leadership lessons as we can from a book written by a man whose

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name tends to be intoned with the likes of Pauline

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Kael or Toby Tobias.

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Considering Genius Writings on Jazz

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by Stanley Crouch. Leaders,

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here at the end of the fourth turning, improvisation will be the

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key to solving some of the hardest problems remaining

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in what is left of our benighted twenty first

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century.

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And we are going to open our episode

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today with the essay, the

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Negro aesthetic of jazz, by

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Stanley Crouch. And I quote,

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jazz has always been a hybrid, a mix of African, European, Caribbean,

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and Afro Hispanic elements, but the distinct results of that mix,

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which distinguished jazz as one of the new arts of the twentieth century, are

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now under assault by those who would love to make jazz no more than an,

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quote, improvised music, unquote, free of definition.

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They would like to remove those elements that are essential to jazz and that came

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from the Negro, Troublesome person, that Negro.

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Through the creation of blues and swing, the Negro discovered two invaluable things.

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With the blues, a fresh melodic could be framed within a short form of three

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chords that added a new feeling to Western music and inspired endless

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variations. In swing, it was a unique way of

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phrasing that provided an equally singular pulsation.

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These two innovations were neither African nor European nor Asian nor Australian nor

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Latin or South American. They were Negro American.

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Though the through the grandsier, Louis Armstrong, swinging and playing the blues

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moved to the high ground. After Armstrong straightened everyone out and indisputably

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pointed to the way, there was a hierarchy in jazz and that hierarchy was

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inarguably Negroid. So much so that many assumed Negro

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genius came from the skin and the blood, not from the mind. That is

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why one white musician brought a recording to the white New Orleans Rhythm

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Kings to Bix Beider Cricker and excitedly told

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him that they sounded, quote, unquote, like real niggers.

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So the issue was one of aesthetic skill, not

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color, not blood.

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That white musician understood exactly what every black concert musician rely

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realized upon truly meeting the criteria of instrumental or vocal performance.

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At some point, perhaps even at the start, Leotyne Prince

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learned that being black and from Laurel, Mississippi did not shut her

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off from the art of Schubert, Wagner, or Puccini, no matter how far their

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European social worlds were from hers in terms of history

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and geography. Nor did Price’s becoming a master change

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those works, she’s saying, into German Negro or Italian Negro vocal art.

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They remain German and Italian and European, but were obviously available

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to anyone who could meet the measure of the music.

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Hierarchy has always given Americans trouble. We

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believe that records are made to be broken or to be broken free of, which

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is why, along with that pesky skin color, the Negroid elements central to

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jazz were rebelled against as soon as possible. Martin Williams, the late great jazz

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critic and himself a white southerner, told me once that there used to be a

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group of white jazz musicians who would say when there were only white guys

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around, quote, Louis Armstrong and those people had a nice little

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primitive thing going, but we really didn’t have what we now call jazz

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until Jack Teagarden, Bix, Trumper, and their gang

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gave it some sophistication. Bix is the one who introduced

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introspection to jazz. Without him, you would have no Lester

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Young and no Miles Davis, close

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quote. In such instances, Beiderbecher

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ceases to be a great musician and becomes a pawn in the ongoing attempt to

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deny the blues its primary identity as Negro developed introspective

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music, which is about coming to understand oneself

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and the world through contemplation. To recognize that would

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be to recognize the possibility of the Negro having a mind and one that could

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conceive an aesthetic overview that distinguished the music as

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a whole. Troublesome person, that

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Negro, especially one

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with an aesthetic.

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Stanley Lawrence Crouch, born

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12/14/1945, died

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09/16/2020 just before the

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launch of this podcast. He

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was a American poet, music, and cultural critic, a

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syndicated columnist who had a long running column, novelist,

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and biographer, in particular, a jazz

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biographer. Stanley was born in Los

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Angeles, the son of James and Emma Bay Ford

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Crouch. Crouch said that his father was a, quote, unquote, criminal

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and that he once met the boxer, Jack Johnson.

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As a child, Stanley was a voracious reader, having read the complete works of Ernest

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Hemingway, Mark Twain, f Scott Fitzgerald, and many of the other

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classics, many of which we have covered on this podcast, of American

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literature by the time he finished high school.

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Stanley came from a and was born in the

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pre civil rights era of America.

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During the time that he was in high school, Crouch was active as a jazz

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drummer. And at the end of his high school career, together

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with David Murray, he formed a musical group, the black music

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infinity. During the

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time he was wandering through his twenties

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and into his thirties, Crouch befriended Ralph Ellison

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and, of course, the great Albert Murray who influenced

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his thinking in a direction less centered on race.

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He stated regarding Murray’s influence, quote, I

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saw how important it is to free yourself from ideology. When you

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look at things solely in terms of race or class, you miss what

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is really going on.

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As a writer for The Voice from 1980 to

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1988, he was known for his blunt criticisms of his

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targets and his tendency to excoriate their

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participants. It was during this period that he became a

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friend and intellectual mentor to the jazz great, Wynton

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Marsalis, and became an advocate of the neotraditionalist

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movement that he saw as reviving the core values

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of jazz. Just like Pauline Kael in

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film, it could be argued that Stanley Crouch

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oh, and Toby Tobias, who I mentioned in the opening as well in dance,

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was one of the great jazz critics

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and music critics of the

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last half of the twentieth century.

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Speaking of Stanley Crouch and his understanding of jazz, we

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have to look at, when we think about jazz music, one of

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the greats of the twentieth century, Louis

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Armstrong. And Stanley Crouch had quite a bit to

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say about Louis Armstrong, and we’re

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going to take a look at some of those things that he had to say

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as we head back to the book, Back to considering genius,

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writings on jazz by Stanley Crouch. We’re going to look at the essay,

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Papa Dip, Crescent City Conquistador and

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Sacrificial Hero. And I

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quote, for all the grandeur,

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mirth, and joy that Louis Armstrong, Papa Dip, gave

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to the world, he was essentially a sacrificial hero.

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Though he had contributed to the essential success that made jazz the most

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sophisticated performing art in Western history. By the bebop era,

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the middle aged innovator was frequently dismissed as no more than a wide

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smiling entertainer and Uncle Tom, even a walking

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aesthetic cadaver. But as long as an old lion has teeth

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and claws, it isn’t safe to stick an arm in his cage.

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Armstrong was such a lion. His technique was pared down by the

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time and by his fantastic exhibitions of stamina and

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bravura playing in the nineteen thirties when nothing was too

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difficult or too dangerous to try. Consequently, would

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be hip listeners and musicians who focused on obvious virtuosity

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missed the new things that he had to offer. The wisdom and depth of

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experience of his later years was vastly different from the rebellious

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longing and the exhilaration of conquest heard when he was a

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young innovator. One reason Armstrong’s best

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late work is often overlooked is that his early achievements were so monumental.

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A quintessential twentieth century man, Armstrong created a body of work that

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interacted perfectly with the technology of the age when human motion

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was literally reproduced rather than described. Through the

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phonograph, the radio, and film, his artistic

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action was captured as he took on convention and won a well

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documented battle. He defeated the greatest gift, the ultimate

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measure, and the inevitable enemy, time.

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A character of Jean Luc Godard’s The Mired Woman states

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an understandable European vision when she says in a discussion about memory,

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the past, and discerning truth, quote, I prefer the present because I

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have no control over it, close quote. That

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woman would have been shocked to realize what Louis Armstrong had been doing all

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those years ordering the present in the context of

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ensemble improvisation. As

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Albert Murray has pointed out, the phonograph record gave musical artists the

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opportunity to leave truly accurate scores. We don’t have to surmise

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intent. We could hear coherence and achievement or confusion and

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failure. In that respect, technology transcended the written manuscript in the

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same way the jazz that the jazz musician transcended the present. When

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Papa Dip was a youth, a flame with fresh musical with a fresh musical

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world in his very cells, his recordings provided a master

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class. Aspiring jazzmen and songwriters played Armstrong’s

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discs over and over in order to learn how artistic expression

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worked on the hoof and what the particulars of his

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transforming logic were.

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Then we’re going to move forward a little bit. As

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maturity increases the speed of perception and experience becomes

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denser, fewer details are needed to recognize essential meanings. While

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the younger person is still contemplating, the old master has moved on to the next

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point, digesting through the shorthand made possible by the passage of many

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moons. In art, that law allows the individual

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gesture to take on greater resonance. The best of Louis

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Armstrong’s work after 50 proves that his expressive ideas

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didn’t reach their peak until he was nearly 60. By the middle nineteen fifties,

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Armstrong could shade a single pitch with a greater swell of nobility, a

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deeper sense of tragedy, a stoic nostalgia shaped by the facts, and

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a bittersweet richness born of the lessons he had learned about victory,

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ambivalence, and loss. Four collections

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that prove my point are Louis Armstrong plays WC Handy, nineteen fifty

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four, Satch plays Fats, nineteen fifty five, Satchmo, a

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musical autobiography, 1956, ’50 ‘7, and Echoes of an Era, the

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Duke Ellington Louis Armstrong years, 1961. He

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was then like Escudero, the Spaniard who Ralph Ellison described as

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growing to a point that he could reduce the entire vocabulary of

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his tradition to a few compelling twists

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of his fingers.

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Hello. So, I’m gonna do some shelling here,

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00:16:43,955 –> 00:16:47,475
and, hopefully this will be a pause in

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00:16:47,475 –> 00:16:51,235
our riveting conversation for you. I have

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00:16:51,235 –> 00:16:54,990
an offer for you. My most recent book is 12 rules

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256
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intentional leadership. And that’s it for me.

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00:18:00,130 –> 00:18:01,270
Now back to the show.

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In the book of Deuteronomy in the Old Testament in the

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Bible, Louis Armstrong would have appreciated this.

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It states, and I quote, Moses

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was a hundred and 20 years old when he died. His eye

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was not dimmed nor his natural force

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abated. Close quote. Louis

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Armstrong was quite possibly the greatest jazz

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musician, the greatest jazz improviser of

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the twentieth century, as Stanley Crouch makes his

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argument here in his essay in Writings

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on Jazz. He was different than

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Duke Ellington, who was more of a

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classically inclined man, who

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took jazz in the direction higher

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than it started in nor was he Miles Davis who

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eventually, became

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the very thing that

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he fought against. Louis

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Armstrong was not John Coltrane or Charlie Parker,

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both of whom struggled with drugs.

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Louis Armstrong just was a force that

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rolled on and on. He was the Moses of

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twentieth century jazz. His

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emotional force came through his music, his desire

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not only to love and to be loved, but to also make a

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dent in the world not by dent of who he

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was, but by dent of what his talent

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could achieve. Where does power

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and influence really come from? Does it come from the well of the

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emotional force that a person brings to it?

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Does it come from our internal forces or does it come from our

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external circumstances? Is a

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leader’s locus of control internal or

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external? Is it what comes out

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of a man that is more influential, or is it what

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goes into a man? Louis

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Armstrong was a sacrificial hero as all

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heroes are. He placed himself on

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the altar of jazz. He placed himself on the altar

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of the twentieth century and allowed himself to

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be, to be the thing

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that would be fought against, to the thing that would

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be contended against, to the thing

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that would be pushed against, the rock

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such as it were that the later water of all

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jazz musicians and all jazz of the twentieth century

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would break itself against.

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There’s a lesson for leaders in the life of Louis Armstrong. And

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the lesson is this. Do you wanna go out with eyes

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undimmed and force unabated? Or do you wanna go

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out leaving everything on the

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floor?

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Speaking of Miles Davis, let’s get back to the book.

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Back to Considering Genius, the

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collected writings on jazz by Stanley Crouch.

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We’re gonna pick up here with a little commentary on

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Miles Davis from On the Corner, the sellout of

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Miles Davis. And I quote,

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the contemporary Miles Davis, when one hears his music or watches him perform,

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deserves the description that Nietzsche gave of Wagner, the greatest

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example of self violation in the history of art. Davis made

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much fine music for the first half of his professional life and represented for

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many the uncompromising Afro American artist contemptuous of

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Uncle Tom, but he has fallen from grace and been celebrated for

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00:22:17,510 –> 00:22:21,289
it. As usual, the fall from grace has been a form of success.

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00:22:21,990 –> 00:22:25,815
Desperate to maintain his position at the forefront of the modern music scene

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to sustain his financial position to be admired for the hipness of

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his purported innovations, Davis turned butt to the beautiful in

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order to genuflect before the commercial.

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Once given to exquisite dress, Davis now comes on the bandstand draped in the

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expensive bad taste of rock and roll. He walks about the

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stage, touches foreheads with the saxophonist as they play a duet, bends over and

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remains in that ridiculous position for long stretches as he blows at the floor,

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invites his white female percussionist to come midriff bare down a ramp and

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do a jungle movie dance as she accompanies herself with a talking

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drum, sticks out his tongue at his photographer’s, leads to the

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din of electronic cliches with arm signals, and trumpets the

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many facets of his own force with amplification that blurts forth the sound so

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decadent that it can no longer disguise the shriveling of its

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maker’s soul. Beyond the terrible

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performances and the terrible recordings, Davis has also become the most remarkable liquor

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of money boots in the music business, willing now to pimp himself as he once

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pimped women when he was a drug addict. He could be seen on television

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00:23:29,245 –> 00:23:32,544
talking about the greatness of Prince or claiming in his new autobiography,

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Miles, that the Minneapolis, Bulgarian, and borderline dragon

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drag queen, quote, can be the new Duke Ellington of our time if he just

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00:23:40,360 –> 00:23:44,120
keeps at it, close quote. Once nicknamed

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Inky for his dark complexion, Davis now hides behind the murky fluid of

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his octopus fear of being old hat and claims

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that he is now only doing what he has always done, moving ahead,

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taking music forward, submitting to the personal curse that is his need

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for change, the same need that brought him to New York from

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Saint Louis in 1944 in search

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of Charlie Parker. Before he

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was intimidated into mining the fool’s gold of rock and roll, Davis’s

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00:24:13,920 –> 00:24:17,465
achievements was large and complex as a trumpet player and an

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00:24:17,465 –> 00:24:21,145
improvisor. Though he was never of the order of Armstrong, Young,

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Parker, or Monk, the sound that came to identify him was as

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original as any in the history of jazz. His technical limitations were

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never as great as commonly assumed, except when he was strung out on

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drugs and didn’t practice. By January 1949, when he recorded

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overtime with Dizzy Gillespie and Fats Navarro, he was taking a back

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seat to nobody in execution. By May 1949, when he traveled to

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00:24:43,460 –> 00:24:47,135
France and was recorded in performance, he was muscling his way

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across the horn in molten homage to Navarro and

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Gillespie, the two leading technicians of the bebop era. He was three weeks

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00:24:54,735 –> 00:24:58,255
short of his 20 birthday and already had benefited from big hand

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00:24:58,255 –> 00:25:01,860
experience and big band experience with Billy Eckstein and

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Gillespie, already had stood next to Charlie Parker night after night

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on bandstands and in studios.

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The conventional idea that Davis discovered that he couldn’t play like Gillespie and

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00:25:13,380 –> 00:25:17,085
proceeded to develop a style of of stark, hesitant, even blushing lyricism

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00:25:17,305 –> 00:25:20,525
that provided a contrast to Parker’s flood of virtuosic

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00:25:21,225 –> 00:25:24,684
inventions is only partially true. A methodical

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00:25:24,745 –> 00:25:28,265
musician, Davis systematically worked through the things that were of interest to

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00:25:28,265 –> 00:25:32,039
him. Eventually, he personalized the levels of declamation,

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nuance, melodic fury, and pathos that are heard, for example, in

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00:25:35,700 –> 00:25:39,380
Parker’s bird of paradise. But first, he examined

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00:25:39,380 –> 00:25:43,220
Gillespie’s fleet approach and harmonic intricacy, which shaped the dominant approach

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00:25:43,220 –> 00:25:46,965
to bebop trumpet. From Gillespie, he learned bebop

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harmony and was also encouraged to use the keyboard to solve problems. He

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00:25:50,805 –> 00:25:54,485
even took from Gillespie an aspect of timbral piquancy that settled

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00:25:54,485 –> 00:25:58,085
beneath the surface of his sound, but Davis rejected the basic nature of

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Gillespie’s tone, which few found as rich or as attractive as the

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00:26:01,870 –> 00:26:05,250
idiomatic achievements of the deejoid race brass vocabulary

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00:26:05,630 –> 00:26:09,310
that had preceded the innovations of bebop. Davis grasped

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musical power that comes from having a sound that

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00:26:13,005 –> 00:26:16,785
is itself a musical expression.

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The life and career of Miles Davis proves

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the maxim that one, well,

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00:26:44,325 –> 00:26:47,765
not even one, that everybody, right, wants to rule the

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00:26:47,765 –> 00:26:50,985
world, but once everybody has it,

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00:26:51,445 –> 00:26:54,965
no one, or at least very few, can keep

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00:26:54,965 –> 00:26:58,730
it. Stanley Crouch seems to

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00:26:58,730 –> 00:27:02,090
have objected to Miles Davis selling out,

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00:27:02,090 –> 00:27:05,450
and there’s something to be said, I guess, for

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00:27:05,450 –> 00:27:08,110
not selling out, whatever that may mean.

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00:27:09,434 –> 00:27:13,115
But the slam or the critique that artists sell

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00:27:13,115 –> 00:27:16,095
out has been leveled ever since

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00:27:16,554 –> 00:27:20,014
artists began getting paid for their work

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00:27:20,475 –> 00:27:24,049
in more than just claps and maybe a few scraps

410
00:27:24,669 –> 00:27:27,809
of bread. Improvisation

411
00:27:28,510 –> 00:27:32,270
and selling out in the world of jazz seem to be at odds with

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00:27:32,270 –> 00:27:34,130
each other, but this is because

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00:27:35,935 –> 00:27:39,555
Pache, Stanley Crouch, the audience gets to determine

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00:27:39,695 –> 00:27:43,155
what is, quote, unquote, selling out and not the critic.

415
00:27:43,855 –> 00:27:47,555
Sure. The critic can point the way, and

416
00:27:48,900 –> 00:27:51,560
the critic can point out

417
00:27:52,260 –> 00:27:56,100
the spots along the road to selling

418
00:27:56,100 –> 00:27:59,780
out, but the critic the critic does not get the

419
00:27:59,780 –> 00:28:03,460
final word word. The market does, and the market got the final

420
00:28:03,460 –> 00:28:05,785
word on miles Davis

421
00:28:07,765 –> 00:28:11,305
being a critical darling, and eschewing the audience

422
00:28:11,925 –> 00:28:15,765
or not leading the audience, doesn’t lead to market

423
00:28:15,765 –> 00:28:19,205
wealth. But on the plus side, it does lead to less

424
00:28:19,205 –> 00:28:22,940
confusion When you’re a critical darling, that means you’re

425
00:28:22,940 –> 00:28:26,700
on purpose difficult for the audience to

426
00:28:26,700 –> 00:28:30,140
maintain or for the audience to even get a hold of or for the audience

427
00:28:30,140 –> 00:28:33,855
to even appreciate. I see this in the writing

428
00:28:33,855 –> 00:28:37,535
of my books, and I see this in content and

429
00:28:37,535 –> 00:28:41,215
things that we see on the Internet. Should

430
00:28:41,215 –> 00:28:44,515
books as the final best end of

431
00:28:44,975 –> 00:28:48,790
technology to transmit wisdom across time be

432
00:28:48,790 –> 00:28:52,490
difficult? Should they be easy? Should their covers

433
00:28:52,550 –> 00:28:55,530
be inviting or should their covers be closed off?

434
00:28:56,230 –> 00:29:00,070
Should the content be invigorating and uplifting? Does it

435
00:29:00,070 –> 00:29:03,770
really matter if it’s self published or traditionally published?

436
00:29:04,335 –> 00:29:07,475
Does it have more weight, more gravitas, more meaning

437
00:29:07,934 –> 00:29:11,775
if I spent five years trying to

438
00:29:11,775 –> 00:29:15,455
get a book deal for an idea that expired ten

439
00:29:15,455 –> 00:29:18,975
minutes ago that I could have blogged about two days

440
00:29:18,975 –> 00:29:22,640
ago? Being a critical darling

441
00:29:23,980 –> 00:29:27,500
doesn’t lead to market wealth, but it does lead to less

442
00:29:27,500 –> 00:29:31,340
confusion. These are the kinds of decisions that talent

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00:29:31,340 –> 00:29:34,880
has to make, and talent is the other part of the dynamic here.

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00:29:35,385 –> 00:29:39,085
Miles Davis had talent. Even Stanley Crouch will admit that. Everybody

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00:29:39,145 –> 00:29:42,745
would admit that. Heck, I was just in a conversation the other day with

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00:29:42,745 –> 00:29:46,345
somebody and I mentioned to them, when they were asking me

447
00:29:46,345 –> 00:29:50,070
about my music preferences, what I thought of

448
00:29:50,070 –> 00:29:53,669
jazz, and I said, well, Miles Davis in Kind of Blue is quite

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00:29:53,669 –> 00:29:57,130
possibly the best jazz album of the twentieth

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00:29:57,270 –> 00:30:00,950
century. Miles Davis had

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00:30:00,950 –> 00:30:04,745
talent. Talent is mercurial

452
00:30:04,965 –> 00:30:08,245
and transitory, the muse, such as it were,

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00:30:08,725 –> 00:30:12,565
particularly if it’s not appropriately sacrificed to on the part

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00:30:12,565 –> 00:30:16,325
of human beings. No one really can describe

455
00:30:16,325 –> 00:30:19,919
what the particular sacrifices are that must be made in

456
00:30:19,919 –> 00:30:23,360
order to honor talent. Those are too individualistic and

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00:30:23,360 –> 00:30:26,820
gossamer like based on your talent and your abilities.

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00:30:28,000 –> 00:30:31,679
The sacrifices that a carpenter will have to make aren’t the same as

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00:30:31,679 –> 00:30:35,095
the sacrifices that a jazz musician will have to make. The

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00:30:35,095 –> 00:30:38,855
sacrifices that a business person or an entrepreneur will have to make aren’t the

461
00:30:38,855 –> 00:30:42,695
same as the sacrifices that a civic leader will have to make, and,

462
00:30:42,695 –> 00:30:46,135
of course, the sacrifices that a mother or a

463
00:30:46,135 –> 00:30:49,434
father, a parent, or even a grandparent will have to make

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00:30:50,200 –> 00:30:54,040
aren’t the same as the types of sacrifices that a person who has

465
00:30:54,040 –> 00:30:56,460
no children will have to make.

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00:30:57,800 –> 00:31:01,100
But talent does require sacrifice.

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00:31:01,880 –> 00:31:05,715
We all know this, by the way. And in the case of art, the sacrifice

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00:31:05,774 –> 00:31:09,455
always involves the artist making decisions, some of

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00:31:09,455 –> 00:31:12,434
them intentional, most of them intuitive

470
00:31:13,215 –> 00:31:16,815
about improvisation, about what is selling out and what is

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00:31:16,815 –> 00:31:19,955
not, and about how to lead the audience.

472
00:31:21,019 –> 00:31:24,539
And this is the big lesson that leaders can take from the life and times

473
00:31:24,539 –> 00:31:27,600
of Miles Davis. The sacrifice

474
00:31:28,059 –> 00:31:30,639
always involves making decisions,

475
00:31:31,659 –> 00:31:35,465
especially if you want the rule of the world, and

476
00:31:35,465 –> 00:31:37,645
you want to keep it.

477
00:31:57,419 –> 00:32:00,320
As we round the corner here today, I want to

478
00:32:00,860 –> 00:32:04,514
quote from Albert Murray in his great

479
00:32:04,514 –> 00:32:08,195
essay, the Omni Americans, talking about the

480
00:32:08,195 –> 00:32:10,534
blues idiom and the mainstream.

481
00:32:11,955 –> 00:32:15,794
I’m gonna read a couple of passages here for you. The creation of

482
00:32:15,794 –> 00:32:19,550
an art style is, as most anthropologists would no doubt agree, a major

483
00:32:19,550 –> 00:32:23,170
cultural achievement. In fact, it is perhaps the highest as well

484
00:32:23,390 –> 00:32:27,070
as the most comprehensive fulfillment of culture. For an art style,

485
00:32:27,070 –> 00:32:30,770
after all, reflects nothing so much as the ultimate synthesis and refinement

486
00:32:30,910 –> 00:32:34,665
of a lifestyle. Art

487
00:32:34,665 –> 00:32:38,265
is by definition a process of stylization and what it stylizes is

488
00:32:38,265 –> 00:32:41,565
experience. What it objectifies, embodies,

489
00:32:41,705 –> 00:32:45,005
abstracts, expresses, and symbolizes is a sense of life.

490
00:32:45,705 –> 00:32:49,530
Accordingly, what is represented in the music, dance, painting, sculpture, literature, and

491
00:32:49,530 –> 00:32:53,050
architecture of a given group of people in a particular time, place, and

492
00:32:53,050 –> 00:32:56,730
circumstance is a conception of the essential nature and purpose of human

493
00:32:56,730 –> 00:33:00,490
existence itself. More specifically, an art style is the

494
00:33:00,490 –> 00:33:03,865
assimilation in terms of which a given community,

495
00:33:04,005 –> 00:33:07,365
folk, or communion of faith embodies its basic

496
00:33:07,365 –> 00:33:11,044
attitudes towards experience. Then I’m gonna

497
00:33:11,044 –> 00:33:14,345
skip down a little bit and go to this. Kenneth Burke has equated

498
00:33:14,645 –> 00:33:18,290
stylization with a strat with strategy. To extend the military

499
00:33:18,290 –> 00:33:21,910
metaphor, one can say stylization is the is the estimate

500
00:33:22,130 –> 00:33:25,890
become maneuver. In such a frame of reference, style is

501
00:33:25,890 –> 00:33:29,330
not only insight but disposition and gesture. Not only

502
00:33:29,330 –> 00:33:33,115
calculation and estimation become execution as in engineering,

503
00:33:33,495 –> 00:33:36,554
but also motive and estimation become method and occupation.

504
00:33:37,735 –> 00:33:41,414
It is a way of sizing up the world and so ultimately and beyond all

505
00:33:41,414 –> 00:33:44,315
else, a mode and medium of survival.

506
00:33:46,215 –> 00:33:49,960
And then a little bit later on, he notes this,

507
00:33:51,140 –> 00:33:54,820
indeed the blues idiom represents a major American innovation of

508
00:33:54,820 –> 00:33:58,520
universal significance and potential because it fulfills,

509
00:33:58,659 –> 00:34:02,115
among other things, precisely that fundamental function that

510
00:34:02,115 –> 00:34:05,795
Constance Rourke describes to the comedy. The irreverent

511
00:34:05,795 –> 00:34:09,635
wisdom, the sudden changes, and adroit adaptations she found in the folk

512
00:34:09,635 –> 00:34:13,475
genre of the Yankee backwoodsman Negro of the era of Andrew

513
00:34:13,475 –> 00:34:16,429
Jackson. It provokes it provides,

514
00:34:17,290 –> 00:34:20,909
quote, emblems for pioneer people who require resilience

515
00:34:21,449 –> 00:34:25,050
as a prime trait, close quote from Albert Murray in his

516
00:34:25,050 –> 00:34:28,755
essay, The Omni Americans. As we close here today, I

517
00:34:28,914 –> 00:34:32,755
wanna get to the core of why we’re here in

518
00:34:32,755 –> 00:34:36,594
this short episode about well, about jazz. I

519
00:34:36,594 –> 00:34:40,054
don’t have to talk about music on this podcast, and it doesn’t frequently

520
00:34:40,835 –> 00:34:44,214
show up as a genre that we do talk about because

521
00:34:44,460 –> 00:34:47,199
music is so emotional, so personal, so

522
00:34:48,540 –> 00:34:50,880
specific to the individual that

523
00:34:52,219 –> 00:34:55,900
the notions and the ideas that I might have about music can

524
00:34:55,900 –> 00:34:59,200
very rarely successfully be scaled up to leadership.

525
00:35:00,765 –> 00:35:04,305
But there’s something there in what Albert Murray is getting at and there’s something here

526
00:35:04,365 –> 00:35:07,724
in what Stanley Crouch is getting at in his writings on jazz and

527
00:35:07,724 –> 00:35:11,484
there’s something here I think that is beneficial for leaders in the jazz

528
00:35:11,484 –> 00:35:14,785
medium as it comes out of America in and of itself

529
00:35:15,450 –> 00:35:18,750
here at the end of the fourth turning.

530
00:35:20,730 –> 00:35:24,430
At the end of chaos, how do you move

531
00:35:24,970 –> 00:35:27,230
into building for the future?

532
00:35:29,275 –> 00:35:32,475
I used to, way back when I first started my first business, I used to

533
00:35:32,475 –> 00:35:35,355
have a hashtag that I would post everything on and you could find it still,

534
00:35:35,355 –> 00:35:39,115
I’m sure, on the Internet and on social media platforms unless it’s been

535
00:35:39,115 –> 00:35:42,655
scrubbed or retconned or just forgotten by the Internet.

536
00:35:44,070 –> 00:35:47,670
And the hashtag was buildingforthefuture because I

537
00:35:47,670 –> 00:35:51,270
believed that with every blog post, with every training, with every social

538
00:35:51,270 –> 00:35:54,790
media post, I was somehow building for the future. I was somehow building

539
00:35:54,790 –> 00:35:57,210
for a better tomorrow today.

540
00:36:00,525 –> 00:36:04,285
There’s many, many reasons why I stopped using that hashtag, but one of

541
00:36:04,285 –> 00:36:08,125
the big ones is that improvisation didn’t

542
00:36:08,125 –> 00:36:11,885
factor in to how I thought about building for the

543
00:36:11,885 –> 00:36:15,320
future. Jazz shows the

544
00:36:15,320 –> 00:36:18,760
way towards improvisation. Jazz is the

545
00:36:18,760 –> 00:36:22,520
way towards improvisation. Jazz is improvisation in and

546
00:36:22,520 –> 00:36:25,980
of itself, and it’s the uniquely Yankee backwoodsman

547
00:36:26,360 –> 00:36:29,984
Negro version of jazz that will guide

548
00:36:29,984 –> 00:36:33,585
us out of the chaos of the

549
00:36:33,585 –> 00:36:37,425
fourth turning and into a new, I hesitate to say this,

550
00:36:37,425 –> 00:36:38,885
but a new golden age.

551
00:36:41,170 –> 00:36:44,870
On this one third of the continent, as leaders,

552
00:36:44,930 –> 00:36:48,450
we must encourage people to continue the process of

553
00:36:48,450 –> 00:36:52,230
mixing and mingling our unique natures, perspectives,

554
00:36:52,450 –> 00:36:56,150
humanities, and experiences, and pouring out the gumbo

555
00:36:56,985 –> 00:36:59,885
onto the ground that comes out of that.

556
00:37:02,825 –> 00:37:06,445
By the way, in every first turning, the unresolved

557
00:37:06,985 –> 00:37:09,885
chaos is the unresolved problems, the unresolved

558
00:37:10,820 –> 00:37:13,880
conflicts and tensions that were

559
00:37:15,060 –> 00:37:18,500
present and evident in that fourth turning. In a first

560
00:37:18,500 –> 00:37:21,940
turning, typically, those things are subsumed. Those

561
00:37:21,940 –> 00:37:25,675
things lay fallow. Now they may have some

562
00:37:25,675 –> 00:37:29,435
flare ups here and there, but in general, over the next twenty five

563
00:37:29,435 –> 00:37:33,035
years, what will be

564
00:37:33,035 –> 00:37:36,655
prioritized will be leaders who will have the resolve

565
00:37:37,180 –> 00:37:40,940
and who will be able to resolve the conflicts of the first

566
00:37:40,940 –> 00:37:44,720
turning. Those conflicts will be more Louis Armstrong

567
00:37:44,780 –> 00:37:48,460
than Miles Davis. But either way, they

568
00:37:48,460 –> 00:37:52,125
are going to need they are going to require, they are going

569
00:37:52,125 –> 00:37:54,705
to demand the unique perspective

570
00:37:56,605 –> 00:38:00,285
that the unique well, the most unique form of

571
00:38:00,285 –> 00:38:03,185
music on the planet provides.

572
00:38:04,880 –> 00:38:08,580
They are going to need the perspective of those who think,

573
00:38:09,120 –> 00:38:12,820
who act, and who feel, well,

574
00:38:14,480 –> 00:38:15,460
feel like jazz.

575
00:38:18,335 –> 00:38:21,775
I know this one was tenuous and so I would encourage you

576
00:38:21,775 –> 00:38:25,455
to go and listen to your favorite jazz album. If you’ve never

577
00:38:25,455 –> 00:38:28,595
listened to jazz before, I would encourage you to start with

578
00:38:29,200 –> 00:38:32,180
Louis Armstrong and move yourself into Charlie Parker,

579
00:38:33,120 –> 00:38:36,660
then take on Thelonious Monk, and finally end with

580
00:38:36,720 –> 00:38:37,860
Davis and Coltrane.

581
00:38:40,320 –> 00:38:43,620
That’s my only advice to you as a leader on this episode

582
00:38:43,680 –> 00:38:47,435
today, because that will allow you to

583
00:38:47,435 –> 00:38:50,815
stay on the path in a much more intuitive

584
00:38:51,035 –> 00:38:54,875
and improvisational way. And,

585
00:38:54,875 –> 00:38:58,369
well, that’s it for me.

586
00:39:13,045 –> 00:39:16,665
Thank you for listening to the Leadership Lessons from the Great Books podcast today.

587
00:39:17,285 –> 00:39:21,125
And now that you’ve made it this far, you should subscribe to the

588
00:39:21,125 –> 00:39:24,345
audio version of this show on all the major podcast players,

589
00:39:24,645 –> 00:39:28,410
including Apple iTunes, Spotify, YouTube Music, and

590
00:39:28,410 –> 00:39:31,150
everywhere else where podcasts are available.

591
00:39:32,089 –> 00:39:35,770
There’s also a video version of our podcast on our YouTube

592
00:39:35,770 –> 00:39:39,609
channel. Like and subscribe to the video version of this podcast on the

593
00:39:39,609 –> 00:39:43,375
Leadership Toolbox channel on YouTube. Just search for leadership

594
00:39:43,435 –> 00:39:46,494
toolbox and hit the subscribe button there on YouTube.

595
00:39:47,195 –> 00:39:50,875
And, while you’re doing that, leave a five star review if you

596
00:39:50,875 –> 00:39:54,555
like what we’re doing here on Apple, Spotify, and

597
00:39:54,555 –> 00:39:58,369
YouTube. Just go below the player and hit five stars.

598
00:39:58,830 –> 00:40:02,510
We need those reviews to grow and it’s the easiest way to help grow this

599
00:40:02,510 –> 00:40:06,030
show and tell all your friends, of course, in

600
00:40:06,030 –> 00:40:09,715
leadership. By the way, if you don’t like what we’re doing here,

601
00:40:09,715 –> 00:40:13,255
well, you can always listen to another leadership show. There are several

602
00:40:13,475 –> 00:40:17,304
other good ones out there. At least that’s what

603
00:40:17,304 –> 00:40:20,604
I’ve heard. Alright. Well,

604
00:40:21,223 –> 00:40:22,524
that’s it for me.