But then, jazz and the Pulitzer have had a very long and rocky relationship. Back in 1965, y'see, the three-member Pulitzer jury voted unanimously to recommend that the Prize Board waive the "work done in the last year" requirement and give the award to Duke Ellington for his lifetime achievement. It was a major coup — or at least, it would have been. The jury only gets to recommend a winner to the Board; the Board has final say over who, if anyone, gets the award. And they weren't happy with the Duke. Rather than recognize Ellington for what he was — the greatest composer in American music— the Board chose not to give an award at all in 1965. Two of the three jurors resigned in protest. Aaron Copeland, the guy who classical snobs consider the Father of the American musical canon*, said in dismay, "He's deserved it for so long!" It should say something that the very musical establishment in favor of which Ellington was passed over, jumped to his defense.
As for Ellington, he feigned disinterest ("Fate is being kind to me; fate doesn't want me to get too famous too young," the 66-year-old bandleader remarked). But critic Nat Hentoff knew Duke behind the scenes and says he wasn't quite so magnanimous. "He was angrier than I've ever seen him before," Hentoff says of Ellington when he learned that he wouldn't get the prize. "he said, 'I'm hardly surprised that my kind of music is still without, let us say, official honor at home. Most Americans still take it for granted that European-based music—classical music, if you will—is the only really respectable kind.'"
He was right, too. Even though most Americans prefer pop styles to classical ones, we still tend to believe that the idea of "music to be taken seriously" is synonymous with music of the European classical tradition. Most of us even labor under the falsehood that American pop music is based on the European tradition, which is as incorrect an impression as one could hope to have. American music is not rooted in Europe, or Africa, or anywhere else - it is its own animal, a tradition that could not have originated anywhere else.
Some people in the ivory tower have always understood the narrow, inbred scope of the award. Gunther Schuller, a classical composer who was also a jazz composer/performer and critic, has long agitated for jazz's recognition, even as he was winning the '94 prize. The 2001 recipient, John Corigliano (Symphony No. 2 for String Orchestra), opined that "The Pulitzer was originally intended to be for a work that is going to last, to mean something to the world. It changed into another kind of award completely: by composers for composers." A breath of fresh air! Someone actually suggesting that the Pulitzer Prize jury (which, as some critics have pointed out, is supposed to rotate, but all too frequently bounces around between the same few people) to broaden its horizons.
Article comments
1 - El Bicho
great reporting, mjw. it makes me want to spend the night on the keyboard, probably will once the Sbares finish off the Islanders. you should be writing more.
2 - Pico
I caught the news of this last Monday, didn't even know prior to this that there is a Pulitzer for music. Ornette very much deserved the recognition.
3 - Michael J. West
Thanks, El Bicho. You, too, Pico. I'll actually be writing again tomorrow, but on a far less pleasant note: if you guys weren't aware, Andrew Hill passed away this morning...
4 - Howard Dratch
I never thought about a Pulitzer for music before either. But if there was a jazz musician to win it, as you point out, Ornette Coleman was the man to do it. There is fine music, musicianship and then there is someone like Coleman who steps beyond all of that into new territory.