Modernity and Marsalis
Modernity and Marsalis
Oh boy, what have I gotten myself into…
Knowledgeable readers will judge the title of the blog in two ways. One group of people will agree that the terms modernity and Marsalis go together hand and hand, whilst the other group believes that those two terms are laughably oxymoronic.
If you have no clue what I am even talking about, I would suggest that you check out the Guardian article that gives a very brief peek into this conversation.
Before reading Wynton's books To a Young Jazz Musician: Letters from the Road, Moving to higher ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life, and Jazz in the Bittersweet Blues of Life, my views on Wynton were merely based on conjecture based around talk in the lounge at the University of Toronto a couple of years ago. The conversation that was being made either leaned towards the side of him preserving America’s great jazz music (that he later claims to change the definition to “America's classical music”) to him essentially ripping apart the fiber of what the history of Jazz is. From having a bit of perspective and time with the issue, I realized that the issue at hand isn’t the type quality of his creative output, rather, this was an issue with the legacy of jazz that was not being dealt with pragmatically.
To begin,
Wynton Marsalis is an immensely gifted trumpet player who excelled at both straight-ahead jazz and classical music. Wynton was able to play with the VSOP, which stood for a very special onetime performance, (also being the name of the cognac Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock enjoyed) which was the band of the Miles Davis second quintet without Miles (after Freddie Hubbard was removed from the band). He famously won Grammys in the same year for both classical and jazz trumpet for his Haydn Concerto recordings, and his Think of One album. The band that played on Think of One were all regarded as the young lions of their times, including Branford Marsalis (his brother), Kenny Kirkland, and Jeff Tain Watts. After many successful records, Branford and Kenny called it quits, leaving to play with the rock band Sting. It was only after this that Wynton would start his controversial course into the Lincoln Center.
This is where the book Jazz in the Bittersweet Blues of Life comes into play. Marselis created a new jazz septet, which was a precursor to the Jazz at Lincoln Center. This is a genuinely interesting book that takes the daily account of a touring musician, and whilst recording albums both jazz and classical. It also has interesting stories about the band members' relationships with their families on the road, Wyntons encounters with Monette, and some great Wynton basketball moments.
As Wynton progressed through his musical life you can start to see him shape the legacy that you can see today. He slowly moved towards playing traditional swing and bop music in an acoustic setting and shunned away from modern conventions of approaching music. For example, there is a famous story where Ron Carter gave his letter of resignation after Wynton removed all of the amps from the Juilliard building, not even allowing bass players in big band concerts to have amplification.
This created the Neoclassicism philosophy that Wynton pioneered, which basically categorizes jazz between the 20s and the mid-’60s. He reckoned that the major forces in jazz that led to the common language it spoke were to be credited to King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, and John Coltrane.
Wynton believed that Jazz is a Blues Music.
This might be the most important phrase of the blog! The whole controversy, for what my money is worth, is that Wynton is a catalyst for musical polarization in the jazz field. In his book moving to higher ground, he states that in the case of Miles, Miles was an innovative figure before releasing Bitches Brew, but he is a sellout that made horrible-sounding rock music for profit. For John Coltrane, he talks of his rise to the Miles Group and negatively looks down on the way he ruined his great quartet with the addition of free jazz musicians who didn't know to play. Then within the same chapter, he has only praise and high words for musicians that fit within his scope of musical “blues” acceptability, such as Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Lester Young, and others.
Think I'm exaggerating about the whole “polarization” thing? Check out the New York Times article he published “What Jazz is, and Isn’t”.
In his view, jazz is music that is based on an African bell pattern beat. In this vein, the music of jazz was created by African Americans and is truly a black art form that has been interpreted by white musicians. There is no argument from anyone that this is actually just a fact rather than an opinion.
To him, jazz music is pure, noncommercial in nature, and sticks to traditional conventions that were created in the 20s to the 60s. Basically, there had to be a return to acoustic music, and a return to swing. This is where people start to raise their eyebrows.
What do people think about Wynton and the direction he went?
If you want an example of someone who really has something out against Wynton, you can find author Stuart Nicholson to be a prime example of such a person. In his novel, (which is also a highly problematic book when it goes beyond its criticism of Wynton Marsalis) “Is Jazz Dead? Or Did It Move to a New Address?”, he makes valid criticisms of the institution of the Lincoln Center. His points led to the conclusion that Wynton was essentially creating an exclusive club that denied female participation, a musical selection that features mausoleum music, and not jumping on the European radio big band concept of having open applications amongst several other issues. With joy, he also adds a quote from Keith Jaret that reads “I've never heard anything Wynton [Marsalis] played sound like it meant anything at all. Wynton has no voice and no presence. His music sounds like a talented high-school trumpet player to me... he's jazzy the same way someone who drives a BMW is sporty.”.
To continue with some of my opinions!
Wyntons view on music is only one opinion, so why is it such a big deal? Well, your opinion makes a big deal when you are a “jazz CEO” of one of the largest jazz establishments. His perspective of wanting to change the historical narrative to fit his dogmatic views of jazz is worrisome. Especially when this is done by posting articles in the world's largest newspapers, or giving a highly biased account of what jazz is to Ken Burns, rather than giving an unprejudiced opinion that would be more true! Just because he has a fascination with the roots and beginnings of this musical form, doesn’t give him any right to actively try to undo the work of so many innovative musicians in the free and fusion era.
When I went to do my bachelor's degree at the University of Toronto, there was a measly jazz history course, that hadn’t even had musicians and bands such as Pat Matheny, Sun Ra, Weather Report, the Head Hunters, Woody Shaw, Kenny Garret, Chick Corea… the list goes on! These musicians, in my opinion, have a really equally valid effect on the effect that music has on us today. If jazz musicians had a broader perspective on the whole spectrum of what jazz history actually is, it would give a lot more people the opportunity to want to grow and learn within the musical canon.
Also, I just want to quickly tackle Wynton's view on commercialism, and to what extent this speaks to artistic truth. To Wynton, it seems like a pillar of what he is saying is that you should avoid greed and stay true to yourself because greed corrupts the artist's intention. But if you look at Miles, the type of person he was as a trendsetter, it's perfectly logical that he was a trailblazer in the fusion era, because that was him being true to himself. If you look at John Coltrane in a similar light, his musical got more spiritual as he laid off heroin and got sober, which also remained true to himself. Would you consider someone to have a 10 million dollar net worth, which is tied to a jazz organization that is geared towards making one type of music, not that same greed? Just an idea.
For a lot of people, the fear is that jazz will go the way of classical music. People don’t want what is/were innovative music to go the way of having music resembling a mausoleum. To a lot of people, this is very counterintuitive to the entire essence of jazz from its beginnings to its present form, which is the European perspective on things. Wynton argues that this is the antithesis of the music, as creating brain music that people can’t digest gets pushed by creative European musicians. To Wynton, jazz music is like a sport that has fixed rules, as he literally describes in his books. You have to be a strong sportsman and help push the rest of the team (the band) to victory.) Again this is really opposite to the European view that yes while they might admit to there being a game, they want to be the ones making the rules for themselves, and allowing themselves to innovate and stretch the limitations of what they can achieve, and not solely accept the rules that just lay before them.
However strongly you feel about what jazz means to you, at the end of the day we don’t need jazz elitists to give us meaning in the music we enjoy. In my view, it would be enjoyable for the community to adopt a pragmatic approach that includes broad jazz perspectives from different kinds of people. Perhaps rather than a book or an article telling us one man's opinion on jazz, we get a compendium of 30 jazz artists and their perspective of what jazz is and what it means to them. After all, jazz is being championed in liberal democracies, where the spread of thought and ideas is key!
Just be nice okay?