Wynton Marsalis

[Simon Weil]

I'm a long term Wynton-hater. Much more extreme in that than the average, I'd say. Yet, in the last few years I've come to the conclusion that the trend has been thoroughly in my favour. That is I am picking up a sense that, for most Jazz listeners, he's past his sell-by date.

Is this wishful thinking (might be) - Or is there something there?

Simon Weil

[Dan Gould]

I'm a long term Wynton-hater. Much more extreme in that than the average, I'd say. Yet, in the last few years I've come to the conclusion that the trend has been thoroughly in my favour. That is I am picking up a sense that, for most Jazz listeners, he's past his sell-by date.

Is this wishful thinking (might be) - Or is there something there?

Simon Weil

What is past its sell-by date is discussing Wynton.

YAWN

[GregK]

I don't hate him. He just bores me.

[alocispepraluger102]

I don't hate him. He just bores me.

his vivaldi is ok.

[JSngry]

He's turned JAZZ into a ideologically codified, institutionalized "art music" that nobody cares about any more except for subscribers to his cult. They'll keep it "alive" forever, just for themselves.

The rest of us can move on, and most likely have, to jazz, a music that can be any damn thing it wants to be, even if not everything that wants to be jazz can be.

It's playing to that difference of perspective that separates the mummies from the living.

[Rosco]

Marsalis is a good trumpet player, but no more than that. As a conceptualist he's merely content to recycle well worn ideas while his proponents (shhh.... you-know-who) acclaim them as revolutions. When all the hype and bullshit fades with the passage of time what's left is the music. Fact is, Marsalis has never made a great album (despite what the Pulitzer folks will have us believe). Not good for a supposed 'major artist'. The real action has been elsewhere all along and finally even Marsalis seems to be recognising it. His work of the last few years has had the air of a man whose time in the limelight has passed and who knows it.

Yes, I own some Marsalis albums. Clifford Brown's come off the shelf way more often.

[Kalo]

Anyone heard about his new band the Jazz Curators?

[Guy Berger]

It's a shame he didn't use his considerable charisma, resources and people skills to promote a more open, less politicized vision of jazz.

Aside from that, I don't really care about him either way.

Guy

[jazzbo]

I don't read what he says about jazz, etc. But I like a lot of his music. I like the Blues Trilogy sessions, I really like "Blood on the Fields," "The Magic Hour" and others.

[robviti]

Marsalis is a good trumpet player, but no more than that...

imo, he's a good technician, but not a very good trumpet player.

he may have gumbo, but he lacks soul.

[John Tapscott]

Marsalis is a good trumpet player, but no more than that. As a conceptualist he's merely content to recycle well worn ideas while his proponents (shhh.... you-know-who) acclaim them as revolutions. When all the hype and bullshit fades with the passage of time what's left is the music. Fact is, Marsalis has never made a great album (despite what the Pulitzer folks will have us believe). Not good for a supposed 'major artist'. The real action has been elsewhere all along and finally even Marsalis seems to be recognising it. His work of the last few years has had the air of a man whose time in the limelight has passed and who knows it.

Yes, I own some Marsalis albums. Clifford Brown's come off the shelf way more often.

This is generally where I stand. Time has shown shown that the extreme opinions about him are off base. He's neither the Savior of jazz nor the devil incarnate. I would hope no one would take his word or his music as gospel, though there are parts of it that I enjoy and I think have some lasting value. Take what you like and leave the rest.

I do think he's more than a good trumpet player; in fact I think his trumpet playing is his greatest strength, far more so than his composing. In the right circumstances (eg. the House of Tribes CD or Live at Blues Alley, he's about as good as any trumpet player anywhere these days). I doubt many would want to get on the stand and go head to head with him. One odd thing is that for all he says about the value of swing, much of his writing never really swings freely or swings hard. On one Marsalis Cd which I really enjoy, Blue Interlude, the most swinging writing is by members of the Septet, rather than WM himself.

[B. Goren.]

I don't read what he says about jazz, etc. But I like a lot of his music. I like the Blues Trilogy sessions, I really like "Blood on the Fields," "The Magic Hour" and others.

This is a great set:

[Jim R]

Wynton Marsalis, Where do we stand on him?

Maybe if we all stand on his left foot, he'll shut up for awhile?

But seriously, I'm with Guy on this.

[Simon Weil]

Wynton Marsalis, Where do we stand on him?

Maybe if we all stand on his left foot, he'll shut up for awhile?

...

LOL.

...But seriously, I'm with Guy on this.

Simon Weil

(I wish I didn't have to care about him)

Edited December 16, 2006 by Simon Weil

[J Larsen]

I've never knowingly heard him. He sat directly next to me during a very good Roy Haynes set and talked very loudly until (thankfully) deciding to leave 20 minutes into the set. I'm pre-disposed to thinking poorly of him if for no other reason than that.

[JSngry]

It's a shame he didn't use his considerable charisma, resources and people skills to promote a more open, less politicized vision of jazz.

But that was what he wanted to do.

[JSngry]

Time has shown shown that the extreme opinions about him are off base. He's neither the Savior of jazz nor the devil incarnate.

The former should be obvious by now, but the latter depends on how you feel about how he, through words & deeds alike, reshaped the professional landscape of the music, both directly & through "ripple effect". We've had roughly a quarter-century of unnecessary & irrelevant debates about what is/isn't "acceptable" to be considered jazz, who is or isn't playing "real" jazz, and just all kinds of bullshit in general that has resulted in a professional environment that is a helluva lot more fractured, factionalized, and tunnel-visioned than it was that quarter-centruy ago.

We've also seen the evolution of the "image" of jazz evolve from that of a music distinguished by a slightly "dangerous" viscerality into that of a grand cultural status symbol that is to be revered for merely existing instead of earning its keep by delivering a living & breathing immediate relevancy that also has the depth to stick around over time. Any music suffers when its sudience expects to be readily & immeditely comforted by the mere presence of a historical legacy rather than confronted & challenged (at some level, not necessarily "stylistically, but emotionally) contemporary challenge.

Will the music recover? Well, the mummies & necrophilliacs already have their museum, so they're set for "life". But the rest of us might as well get on with the business of making & developing music that for any number of reasons will never be accepted as "jazz" in that museum. All we run the risk of is not being relevant to the people who go to the museum to fornicate with the undead. That, and not getting their money and business networks.

Oh well. Sounds like a fair deal to me.

Edited December 16, 2006 by JSngry

[Alexander]

I'm a recovering Wynton-hater. When I first started listening to jazz, I wasn't interested in Wynton (ironically) because I was only interested in the music of the past. The "real authentic jazz" that I imagined no longer existed. I say that this is ironic because this is, in fact, Wynton's position on jazz history. As I became more boad-minded, I turned around and hated Wynton for being a mouldy-fig. Then one day it hit me: I hated Wynton *without ever really listening to him.* I thought that this was odd, so I started asking around about "good" Wynton albums. A friend of mine directed me to "Black Codes" and "J Mood." I listened to them, and I found that I liked them! I tried out other Wynton albums and found that - while some were better than others - on the whole, I liked them too.

So now I consider Wynton to be a fairly talented trumpet player (from a much more talented family) who was elevated far above his stature because he happened to be in the right place at the right time. He's not a giant (Branford is a giant), but he's not the hack that I once thought he was. He can be outstanding, but he's most often at his best in a side-man role. Two albums where he blows the roof off the sucker are "Citizen Tain" by drummer Jeff Watts and "Lush Life" by Joe Henderson. I've played both albums for people who claim not to like Wynton, and they are always very favorably impressed. They'll usually say something like, "I didn't know he could play like that."

Another thing I've found is that Branford (and Jason, who is extremely talented) is the unfair recipiant of some people's spillover hate towards Wynton. I even know people who can't tell them apart, and frequently say "Branford" when the MEAN "Wynton."

I've really enjoyed his last couple albums where he plays in a smaller group than he has in the recent past. When he plays in a Septet (or larger) setting, I find that his Ellingtonian pretentions get the better of him and he tries to be clever in his arrangements. In a quartet setting (as on "Magic Time") he just blows, and I mean that in a good way.

I also like the VV set. It's one of the best recordings he's ever released. Actually, I usually like his live recordings a bit better than his studio recordings. Maybe he needs that fire that the audience lights under his ass. I also like him when he plays with his family. The whole is definitely greater than the sum of its parts there.

In closing, let me just say that Wynton certainly does not warrant being the center of such contraversy. If you don't like his music, don't listen. If you don't like what he says, don't pay any attention to it (I don't). And NEVER read Grouch's liner notes. I never do, and I'm perfectly content!

Edited December 16, 2006 by Alexander

[JSngry]

(Branford is a giant)

Oh really?

I mean, I like branford, always have, but "giant", in a music where "mega-giants" on even the same instrumet would have to include Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, & Albert Ayler, as well as a whole big lot of people who in any other creative realm might well be contenders for mega-gianthood, but instead are "merely" regular giants in this one due to the mega-sized mega-ness of the aforementioned mega-giants, I have a hard time considering Branford as even a semi-giant. He's a damn good player, but so are plenty of other people.

Now, if you're saying that he's a giant in the sense that the scale of expectations has shrunk all around him while he's stayed his medium-sized self, then you might have a point. But even at that, this ain't Disney World, so the illusion of reduced scale is not a relevant point, at least not to me.

[Jim R]

Yes, I own some Marsalis albums. Clifford Brown's come off the shelf way more often.

Hmm... W.M. vs C.B. ...well, they're both jazz trumpet players- one a legendary and influential giant that played with both incredible technique and beautiful soul, a humble and softspoken man... and the other a... oh, okay, makes sense.

[Randy Twizzle]

Sometimes I listen to XM satellite radio's Real Jazz channel at work. The channel seems to have become the official radio voice of the Wynton empire. Wynton and his accolytes are regularly played, and the goings on at Lincoln Center are constantly hyped,. Then there are the channel ID's, straight from the Wynton hymn book. Hey folks listen to us WE'RE SWINGING, YES SWINGING, IT'S ALL ABOUT US SWINGING. DID ANYONE MENTION HOW MUCH THIS CHANNEL IS SWINGING. But by far the most annoying is the one which features Wynton smugly proclaiming "You're experiencing a revolution in feeling..." I've go to switch stations at this point, usually to the 40s channel which sometimes features a little jazz minus the pious sermonizing.

Edited December 16, 2006 by Randy Twizzle

[Rosco]

Two albums where he blows the roof off the sucker are "Citizen Tain" by drummer Jeff Watts and "Lush Life" by Joe Henderson. I've played both albums for people who claim not to like Wynton, and they are always very favorably impressed. They'll usually say something like, "I didn't know he could play like that."

I'd add his appearance on Chico Freeman's Destiny's Dance to that list. (Hard to imagine him keeping that kind of company these days)

[Chuck Nessa]

Who we talkin' 'bout?

[randyhersom]

I dunno, ask Chris Albertson?

[felser]

Wynton's music has been a basic downward slope for me. I loved his playing with Blakey when Watson was the musical director. The repertoire became museumish when Watson left. I liked the early Wynton jazz CD's (except 'Hot House Flowers', the one with strings) and loved 'Live at Blues Alley', which I still consider his masterpiece. The early CD's include the 'Soul Gestures in Southern Blue' series, which were recorded before 'Majesty of the Blues' but released afterwards) The drastic changeover in conception with 'Majesty of the Blues' was depressing in it's pretensiousness, and I have found 90% of his jazz CD's since then to be utterly boring. The ones I like are 'Blue Interlude', 'Citi Movements', and the Vanguard set. I haven't even heard his Blue Note CD's. His classical stuff is irrelevant to my musical interests, so I can't discuss that with any degree of intelligence. I did love him in the Ken Burns Jazz series - I thought he was the star of that series the way that Bob Costas was the star of the Baseball series.

Edited December 18, 2006 by felser