Pulitzer – The Cross-Genre Musical Debate

“As should hardly need to be said, excluding jazz from consideration as serious American music is indefensible. And this year, as the first jazz artist to win the Pulitzer since the prize expanded its criteria, Coleman is an unassailable choice. More than this recent album per se, his seminal role in the birth of free jazz and his decades of restless creativity make him majestically over-qualified in the way that those who break barriers of this nature typically are. Still, his selection prompts a simple yet important question of how to compare music across genres.”