Wynton Marsalis & Eric Clapton Play The Blues

[mikeweil]

Ice Cream

If this is funny, I lost my sense of humour ...

The problem with Wynton's playing is, IMHO, that he's become so stiff and accurate.

And Clapton is, to me, the perfect example of how to build a career on borrowed licks.

[Hot Ptah]

I am not so dismissive of Eric Clapton as many here. I agree that this is a combination that should never have been attempted.

I remember when Wynton fired his brother Branford from this band, because Branford was playing with Sting, and that wasn't pure jazz enough for Wynton. What happened to that idea?

[mikeweil]

Wynton defines what jazz is, that's all.

[JSngry]

We've gone from looking at now to looking ahead to looking back to, finally, looking the other way.

[A Lark Ascending]

Anyone noticed how Keith Jarrett grunts on his recordings?

[AllenLowe]

anyone notice that Wynton keeps shadowing me? Back in the 90's he did a Louis Armstrong tribute after I had recorded one at the Knitting Factory - and now he does a blues program,

[Larry Kart]

This is actually pretty funny - Wynton and Clapton playing New Orleans jazz. Listen to how Wynton tries to play around with rhythm at the beginning of his solo around the 2 minute point, and then ends up losing the swing completely. As for what Clapton plays...no comment.

Ice Cream

Shoot me for saying this, but I keep expecting Wynton to punctuate his solos with shouts of "Hey, Lordy Mama," like some guy in a straw hat and suspenders at the Red Garter.

[J.A.W.]

This is actually pretty funny - Wynton and Clapton playing New Orleans jazz. Listen to how Wynton tries to play around with rhythm at the beginning of his solo around the 2 minute point, and then ends up losing the swing completely. As for what Clapton plays...no comment.

Ice Cream

Shoot me for saying this, but I keep expecting Wynton to punctuate his solos with shouts of "Hey, Lordy Mama," like some guy in a straw hat and suspenders at the Red Garter.

[JSngry]

[RDK]

You guys are too damn cynical. Me, I can't wait to hear Wynton's trumpet solo on Layla!

[Jim R]

Interesting that Clapton is playing different guitars here than his usual Strat.

He seems to pull out some other beauties on special occasions (like the ES-350TN that he played at his appearance with Chuck Berry on "Hail, Hail..."). The other guitar (besides the 335) pictured on the tray card looks like a gem... an early 50's single pickup L5CESN? I'll be looking for more Youtube clips, just for that alone.

I may be ill or weird, but I'd like to hear this. I'm just willing to give it a chance.

I listened to Layla on Youtube yesterday, and... meh. I'm not sure Clapton should be playing while sitting down.

[Dave James]

Well, that, I must say, is truly awful. Both Marsalis and Clapton should be ashamed of themselves.

[Alexander]

I've enjoyed Wynton's collaborations with Willie Nelson...

[7/4]

I don't know who's more tired, the song Layla or me hearing it my whole fucking life.

[Clunky]

I don't have anything against Clapton or Wynton , I like Cream , but the clips sound bloated ,cavernous and about as far from the blues as I can imagine. I won't be buying.

[AllenLowe]

I will say, listening back to Cream and older Clapton, that his guitar playing has not held up well - he was/is rhythmically stiff, and cannot compare to Bloomfield, Peter Green, Hendrix, even Jimmy Page when he wasn't stuffing a fish up some poor girl's winky-dink.

[J.A.W.]

I don't have anything against Clapton or Wynton , I like Cream , but the clips sound bloated ,cavernous and about as far from the blues as I can imagine. I won't be buying.

I've always liked Cream's Disraeli Gears album and a few of their non-blues numbers on other albums, but I never cared for their interpretations of blues songs, especially the stuff with Clapton's stretched solos. No thanks.

Edited September 10, 2011 by J.A.W.

[Chuck Nessa]

Have to admit I never "got" Clapton. By the time he was around I had a few years of listening to Muddy, Buddy, Otis, JB Hutto and Wolf in clubs.

edit for typo.

Edited September 10, 2011 by Chuck Nessa

[Hot Ptah]

I have had to listen to quite a lot of Clapton, from his entire career, because he is a favorite of my son. His entire recorded output is not consistent to be sure, but to dismiss him as without any worth is too harsh in my opinion.

[Chuck Nessa]

I can understand that. I'm just coming from a different place.

[Sundog]

I don't know who's more tired, the song Layla or me hearing it my whole fucking life.

Yeah- but the outro to Layla is still magic to my ears.

[danasgoodstuff]

I've enjoyed Wynton's collaborations with Willie Nelson...

Yeah, it was OK...but Willie and the Wheel rocked my boat harder.

Eric's done shit that totally rocked my boat (mostly but not entirely a long time ago)and a lot that's totally snoozeling, so I'm not expecting much here.

Yeah, they play Layla to death on the radio, but I'll still take it over Free Bird or Stairway any day.

[AllenLowe]

Cream had some extremely good songs; the first Bluesbreaker recording was extremely influential; the early Yardbirds had a huge impact on the emerging rock/blues scene, and I listen to and like a lot of that; personally I feel that whole movement was a very positive thing in that it helped refresh the whole blues scene, which was growing stale. Though the work of Bloomfield with Butterfield, and of both Butterfield and Bloomfield afterwards. was pretty damned brilliant in its own right; and a lot of guitarists went past Clapton's work, from Hendrix to James Williamson and on. At least that's the way I hear it.

[RDK]

I don't know who's more tired, the song Layla or me hearing it my whole fucking life.

Yeah- but the outro to Layla is still magic to my ears.

[Hot Ptah]

I can understand that. I'm just coming from a different place.

Well, I have heard a ton of blues guitar, live and on record. From my concert experiences, I would say that Clapton has been bested by Son Seals, Otis Rush, Buddy Guy, Albert King, Lonnie Brooks, Luther Allison, R.W. Burnside, Joe Louis Walker, Bob Margolin, and several others. I saw Muddy Waters live, although he was not playing much guitar then.

But Clapton is not incompetent. Some of his live recordings from the 1970s are quite intense, and not without some imagination within the blues soloing tradition. He has some chops too, to be fair to him. I like some of his recordings in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, too. He has championed old blues in recent years on recordings, when he could have just retired or played commercialized stuff.

To say that Clapton is a nothing musician, or that his only good music was in the 1960s, is not a fair characterization of his recordings up to the present, I think.

Clapton is not one of my great favorites. I would not "fight" for him like I would if someone was stupidly saying that Lester Bowie couldn't play, for example. But he is not as lightweight as some of those on this thread have implied, in my humble opinion.

I think that Clapton was poorly served by this collaboration. My impression is that he held back to be able to fit in with Wynton, but it just did not work.

What I find incredible about this collaboration is that we have all had to listen to, and read, Wynton Marsalis scornfully blasting one musician after another over the years for diluting their music away from the purest form of jazz (by his definition), and for collaborating with commercialized artists. Now he's doing it, and not very well, either. So has he abandoned all of his strongly held principles?

I used to hope that Wynton would abandon those judgmental ideas and loosen up a little. But I thought that if he did so, that he would play well and that it would at least be more musically interesting and have some energy to it.

Edited September 11, 2011 by Hot Ptah