Midway through the piece, Jennings conveys to Garner a remark from percussionist Harold Farberman, whose compositions Max Roach recorded a few months after the article appeared. “He can’t write music,” Farberman said of the pianist. “But he uses all the classical techniques—diminution, augmentation, wide key ranges, polytonality and rhythmic variations.” In response to that encomium, Jennings reported, “Garner’s big eyes rolled around like dice in a cup. ‘Man, that’s too angular Saxon for me. But if I read you right this cat likes me.’” For Jennings, this signifying riposte was “a typical Garner malapropism.”
Reading that makes Robin Kelley bridle. “Garner took a word that’s associated with musical analysis, snipped, and then used it in a pun—and everyone knows puns are the highest form of humor,” he says. “The writer does not even get it! You cannot have a low IQ, or be slow and naive, and say that. Garner’s sense of humor was somewhat similar to Monk, in that he liked to put you on. His job was to make some music, and he loved making music, which got translated into being called absent-minded or not really caring. The Black press, on the other hand, portrayed Garner as dignified, militant, race-conscious, intelligent. This is the Erroll Garner we don’t know.”