mary_jo, I like to keep and catalogue quotes by musicians. I read this quote by the great Wayne Shorter some time ago:
**** There are a lot of people walking around, full-grown and so-called normal—that have everything that they were born with at the right leg length, arm length, and stuff like that. They’re symmetrical in every way, but they live their lives like they are armless, legless, brainless, and they live their life with blame. I never heard Michel complain about anything. Michel didn’t look in the mirror and complain about what he saw. Michel was a great musician, and great because he was a great human being. He had the ability to feel and give to others of that feeling, and he gave to others through his music. ****
In answer to your question “should we value Michel, due to his struggle, more?”. I would say, no. Artists want to be judged based on artistic merit, period. As a good friend likes to say, the answer is often in the question. As you pointed out, he was frustrated because he felt the awards were given because they felt sorry for him. I would say that as fellow human beings we can admire and respect how he dealt with his struggle, but I suspect that he would have wanted his playing to be judged independent of that.
