International Society for Jazz Research

The author – for more than 30 years himself a critic for well-known publications in Germany, the United States and Japan – depicts the "paranoic" relationship between artists and critics. He shows, on the one hand, that the history of music criticism "is a history of flops", and on the other hand, it is a ''triumphant street of criticism". The best critics have, in all epochs of the history of Art, served as a bridge between artists and the public.

The author makes the following stipulations:

1. Criticism is not possible without love and respect.
2. The critic must have the possibility for comparison, that is, he must continually listen to a great deal of music, in order to make judgments: "Occasional critics are bad critics".
3. The decisive question is not: What does the critic demand from an artwork?, but what does the artist in question want to say and express with his work?
4. The critic does not have to pass judgment, but to substantiate it.
5. The critic must master the art of writing. Hardly anywhere else - like a handicraft - is so poorly written as in Jazz criticism.
6. Too many critics, in reality, do not mean the music, but themselves and their own problems.
7. The claim that the critic himself should be a creative artist is, since Leaging - the father of Western Art Criticism - refused. It does help, however, if the critic can play an instrument and possesses a thorough knowledge of Music theory.
8. A Jazz critic who is not in a position to recognize the quality of a musician four or five years before the general public, should discontinue writing. Criticism must not confirm the reader's conviction but attempt to change it.

The author relates to the article's conclusion that musicians are possessed by an illusion, when they believe "all musicians are brothers" and the critics are the musicians' natural enemies. The critics are blamed for a system of which they are only the symptoms. It is the critics job to see through this process and to let the readers and musicians take part in this enlightenment process. It is through this means epecially that the struggle for existence, which in Art not only exists between musicians and critics, but above all and primarily among musicians themselves, can become more human and more tolerable.