I was looking for the hilarious trashing of 1950s TV critic John Crosby that David Hadju did 10-12 years ago in his short-lived “Famous Door” column. Crosby, if I recall correctly, was insufficiently worshipful of the Brilliant & Gifted & Tiresome Theolonious Monk on The Seven Lively Arts, a sleepy Sunday afternoon Kulturfest in 1957. Hadju was sniffy.
But I found this instead. And wowee.
Hadju doesn’t like Stan Kenton and is mad someone’s doing a (2011) retrospective. Can you beleeeve it?
Bitter about being overshadowed by his African-American superiors in the Down Beat magazine critic’s poll, Kenton sent the editors a now-notorious telegram, grousing of his status in “a new minority, white jazz musicians.” He was something less than sensitive— personally as well as professionally, according to his daughter Leslie Kenton, who, in a memoir published last year, detailed what she described as an incestuous relationship with her father. One need not be concerned with that controversy to see the problem with Stan Kenton. Kenton’s music was monstrous enough.
The New Republic. Read the whole thing.
