AOTW Jan. 29 - Feb. 4

[Guy Berger]

Wynton Marsalis - Black Codes from the Underground (click here to buy)

Personnel:

Wynton Marsalis (tpt)

Branford Marsalis (ts, ss)

Kenny Kirkland (p)

Charnett Moffett (b)

Jeff 'Tain' Watts (d)

Please hold off on comments until we finish the current AOTW, just want to give people a heads up so they can pick it up before Sunday.

Edited March 31, 2006 by Jim Alfredson

[Guy Berger]

I listened to this album and Miles Davis's Nefertiti back to back yesterday. The music on Black Codes is heavily influenced by the 2nd Great Quintet, but still quite good despite being derivative. The one thing that's lacking (besides originality) is the "flying by the seat of their pants" feel of the 60s group -- the 80s group has a more conservative sound, more interested in exploring within the boundaries than in pushing them outward.

I'm interested in what people thought of this album when it came out, and whether they've changed their mind since. At the time, Wynton was considered by many to be a "saviour of straightahead jazz" -- in retrospect, a very silly idea. (Though I think the contrary idea -- that Wynton was KILLING jazz -- hasn't stood the test of time either.) But it's a historically important strand of a pretty broad "back to the tradition" movement in jazz that started in the late 70s.

"Citizen Tain" is maybe the most compelling performance overall.

Guy

Edited January 29, 2006 by Guy

[CJ Shearn]

Guy,

I just listened to this as well. I was 3 when this album came out and my mom bought it along with one of Wynton's classical albums after the buzz about him, and I listened to both when I was a little older. Now, 21 years after this recording was made, and now that I'm an adult I can fully comprehend what this album meant. To me, it seems to have made a movement mainstream, which bands like VSOP and Woody Shaw were doing years earlier in the mid 70's, and the post Wynton "young lions" began to investigate the style of post bop Miles did in the 60's with his 2nd quintet, after this came out. From what I understand, gathering from the liners of the reissues of these Miles albums, was not popular at all at the time.

What also is apparent to me about this record, is that Columbia seemed very bent on finding the next Miles and packaging Wynton as such with a band of great young players capable of playing music in the style of that great group. The presence of Ron Carter on "Phryzzinian Man" makes the link stronger with the Miles band, and that was magnified even more on Wynton's first album which had 3/5ths of the second quintet involved. That must have been completely orchestrated by Columbia knowing the history and importance of music made by that band on that label.

Musically, I still like the music... it is, however like you said Guy, is very derivative despite the bullshit of Stanley Crouch's liner notes trying to sound as if something new was going on. Wynton's tone and ideas here show the influence obviously of Miles, and Woody Shaw, but some of his own personality comes through, especially on the CD only bonus track of that improvised trumpet and bass blues. Branford's tone and ideas on tenor remind me especially of Wayne Shorter, though his tone on soprano, at that early stage in the game I can identify as Branford, I think he has an individual sound on that instrument. Kenny Kirkland shows pretty much what made him one of the best post Hancock pianists, and a heavy influence on his generation. I like how Kirkland could go from the acoustic straight ahead of this album, to the complex, electric fusion/straight ahead hybrid of Mike Brecker's first album the following year. (That in itself should be an album of the week)

Tain, definitely is Tain tho his playing definitely is very similar to Tony circa '67-8. The title track swings extremely hard, with the mix of swing and second line rhythms.... and a tune like "For Wee Folks" has a slick melody. "Delfeayo's Dilemma" reminds me very much of "Pinnochio", could be because a descending line in the melody is ripped straight from that tune. I think a tune like "The Impaler" recorded years later on "Citizen Tain" shows that band pretty much full circle, in a performance that I would argue, is better than anything on "Black Codes" because it has that flying by the seat of your pants feel, and that record I think is one of the best in that post bop style Wynton and co. explored that I have heard, I return to it often.

[Guy Berger]

Kenny Kirkland shows pretty much what made him one of the best post Hancock pianists, and a heavy influence on his generation. I like how Kirkland could go from the acoustic straight ahead of this album, to the complex, electric fusion/straight ahead hybrid of Mike Brecker's first album the following year. (That in itself should be an album of the week)

I think Kirkland is the most interesting musician on this CD.

Guy

[CJ Shearn]

I think so too, Guy.

[JSngry]

What I remember liking about this album at the time (and I actually asked for it - and got it - as a Christmas present) was how it was all about the mainstreaming of the 60s Miles Quintet trip. I figured since that was some important music that had never (yet) really entered the public consciousness, that by mainstreaming it the way that the Marsalis Bros. were doing, that the overall mainstream would be "moved ahead", which would in turn create an opening for the other important musics of the 60s that hadn't yet entered the public consciousness to move into, and eventually themselves get mainstreamed. Evolution at it's frustratingly slow but probably most natural pace.

Well, that's kind of what's happened. But geez, it's been uglier than I had anticipated, and I'm not at all sure that all the various mainstreamings have gone the way that I had hoped (when Ornette & Ayler are bigger heroes to rock audiences than they are to jazz ones, you gotta wonder. At least I do...).

But oh well. As they say, if the outcome was a foregone conclusion, there'd be no need to play the game. Seems that evolution is not always the untampered-with organic process that we'd like to think...

As for how it would/will sound to me today, I don't know. I'll pull out the ol' Christmas Present From Rosalyn and give it a spin. Don't know that "objectivity" will be possible at this point in time, but I'll try my best.

[CJ Shearn]

I await your full commentary, Jim.

[Guy Berger]

There's a nice slam of Crouch in Scott Yanow's AMG review:

Wynton is heard at the head of what was essentially an updated version of the mid- to late-'60s Miles Davis Quintet (despite Stanley Crouch's pronouncements in his typically absurd liner notes about Marsalis' individuality).

[Nate Dorward]

Yeah, well, have you seen Yanow's review of Marsalis's new disc in Cadence?

[Guy Berger]

Yeah, well, have you seen Yanow's review of Marsalis's new disc in Cadence?

No, what did he say?

Guy

[Nate Dorward]

I'll dig it up--it was in the March issue I think. Something to the effect that Marsalis was one of the greatest musicians in jazz today. It was a statement that just stood out for me given that Yanow rarely makes such blunt or sweeping claims.

Edited May 1, 2006 by Nate Dorward