Stanley Crouch, combative writer, intellectual and authority on jazz, dies at 74

Stanley Crouch, a cultural critic whose contrarian and trenchant writings exploring music, politics, race and literature made him a prominent and often controversial figure in American arts and letters, died Sept. 16 at a New York hospital. He was 74.

His wife, Gloria Nixon-Crouch, announced the death in a statement but did not cite a specific cause.