Wynton Marsalis on "Cherokee"

[AllenLowe]

there's something Martin Williams said about Gerry Mulligan years ago which seems to apply to Marsalis, in a somewhat more subtle way - Williams said, of Mulligan, that he seemed to be playing at playing a solo, rather than getting inside the music. I've always felt the same way about Wynton - a kind of detachment, but not in any interesting or ironic or analytical way - just cold and distant. And a coldness in spite of a very heated attempt NOT to be cold -

[Joe G]

there's something Martin Williams said about Gerry Mulligan years ago which seems to apply to Marsalis, in a somewhat more subtle way - Williams said, of Mulligan, that he seemed to be playing at playing a solo, rather than getting inside the music. I've always felt the same way about Wynton - a kind of detachment, but not in any interesting or ironic or analytical way - just cold and distant. And a coldness in spite of a very heated attempt NOT to be cold -

I think that's one abstraction too many for my taste.

[John L]

Yeah, that was a good one. But the first good one in how many years?

So I'd have to say that this Cherokee solo was much more representative than not.

Yea, Tribes does make you wonder why he couldn't have done thatmore often on record. He seemed to be so hung up for so long on always emphasizing the "difficult and complex" that he got sidetracked from just making good music, plain and simple.

[jazzbo]

I don't know. . . I'm not a fan of this solo. But I do like Wynton's music, I like the ambitious long pieces, I liked the Southwestern Blues Trilogy, I liked all the Blue Notes (haven't heard the one with Willie) and I really like Blood on the Tracks (it's so Ellingtonian I feel as if Ellington finally won his Pulitzer).

I take very few musicians so damned seriously. . .I just love the music and it is as if the musical works were my friends, I have very many friends, many flawed, and many I'd say calling them flawed is fighting words. . . . There's room in my listening world for all these cats. And I listen to more Marsalis than Shavers, for what that's worth.

[AllenLowe]

Joe, what it means is that he approaches soloing from too schematic a conception - anybody who plays knows that it's difficult if not impossible, when things are going right, to separate the intellectual from the emotional - each is an aspect of the other. But for some players everything is so technically constructed that the solo becomes like an idea of what expression might be like, almost like a textbook instruction, instead of actual expression -one might admire it from afar for certain technical details or a certain native intelligence but it quickly fades from the mind - as my old friend Bob Neloms used to say "it ain't what you play it's what you SAY."

Edited January 12, 2009 by AllenLowe

[Chuck Nessa]

there's something Martin Williams said about Gerry Mulligan years ago which seems to apply to Marsalis, in a somewhat more subtle way - Williams said, of Mulligan, that he seemed to be playing at playing a solo, rather than getting inside the music. I've always felt the same way about Wynton - a kind of detachment, but not in any interesting or ironic or analytical way - just cold and distant. And a coldness in spite of a very heated attempt NOT to be cold -

I think that's one abstraction too many for my taste.

It nails it for me.

[JSngry]

I don't know that I'd agree w/that about Mulligan, though. I've gone back and forth with that guy over the years (never too strongly one way or the other) & have reached the conclusion that just as some people play "arranger's piano", so does he play "arranger's bari". His solos usually come out like something you could/would play as part of an arrangement. He being a very adept arranger, that ultimately makes sense to me as a way for him to play (and a perfectly valid explanation for why he does it). It seems integral to "who he is".

That doesn't "bother" me nearly as much as does Wynton's repeated attempts to show us postcards and convince us that they're Polaroids...

[paul secor]

I don't know that I'd agree w/that about Mulligan, though. I've gone back and forth with that guy over the years (never too strongly one way or the other) & have reached the conclusion that just as some people play "arranger's piano", so does he play "arranger's bari". His solos usually come out like something you could/would play as part of an arrangement. He being a very adept arranger, that ultimately makes sense to me as a way for him to play (and a perfectly valid explanation for why he does it). It seems integral to "who he is".

Jim - your comments on Mulligan reminded me of a recent e-mail I got from a friend - hope he doesn't mind me quoting him:

I think describing Mulligan as "limited" is perfectly fair. Sometimes that "limited" thing absolutely hits the spot for me, sometimes it doesn't. From having transcribed some of his quartet arrangements, I have to say that it's one of those cases where, as Mark Twain said about Wagner, "His music is better than it sounds." Every time I do one of those transcriptions, I gain more respect for Mulligan as an arranger, but even so, it's a sound you either like or you don't, and most people don't do their listening with a pad of manuscript paper in front of them. (Believe me, I don't recommend it!)

[Teasing the Korean]

I'll bet Wynton never made anything as good as the two "I Want to Live" albums on UA by Gerry Mulligan and Johnny Mandel.

As for being prejudiced: If Larry Kart, Chris Albertson and Stereo Jack can't detect a fraudulent, manufactured jazz solo - even if skillfully executed - who can? I would hope that we, as jazz listeners, are informed enough to recognize meaningful improvisation when we hear it.

I mean, jazz has been around for at least 90 years and there are 6 billion people on the planet. I would hope that by now someone knows a truly great solo when he or she hears one.

Edited January 13, 2009 by Teasing the Korean

[Larry Kart]

I don't know that I'd agree w/that about Mulligan, though. I've gone back and forth with that guy over the years (never too strongly one way or the other) & have reached the conclusion that just as some people play "arranger's piano", so does he play "arranger's bari". His solos usually come out like something you could/would play as part of an arrangement. He being a very adept arranger, that ultimately makes sense to me as a way for him to play (and a perfectly valid explanation for why he does it). It seems integral to "who he is".

Jim - your comments on Mulligan reminded me of a recent e-mail I got from a friend - hope he doesn't mind me quoting him:

I think describing Mulligan as "limited" is perfectly fair. Sometimes that "limited" thing absolutely hits the spot for me, sometimes it doesn't. From having transcribed some of his quartet arrangements, I have to say that it's one of those cases where, as Mark Twain said about Wagner, "His music is better than it sounds." Every time I do one of those transcriptions, I gain more respect for Mulligan as an arranger, but even so, it's a sound you either like or you don't, and most people don't do their listening with a pad of manuscript paper in front of them. (Believe me, I don't recommend it!)

I think that Mulligan became much more relaxed as a player in the last decade or so of his life (and thus less schematic -- at times I even thought that in his '50s heyday he was a bit corny/two-beatish in rhythmic terms), but for me it's his composing and arranging that were his major contributions. His chart on "All the Things You Are" for one, featuring Don Joseph, is sublime, and many Mulligan compositions have a notable lilt and charm.

[JSngry]

I don't know that I'd agree w/that about Mulligan, though. I've gone back and forth with that guy over the years (never too strongly one way or the other) & have reached the conclusion that just as some people play "arranger's piano", so does he play "arranger's bari". His solos usually come out like something you could/would play as part of an arrangement. He being a very adept arranger, that ultimately makes sense to me as a way for him to play (and a perfectly valid explanation for why he does it). It seems integral to "who he is".

Jim - your comments on Mulligan reminded me of a recent e-mail I got from a friend - hope he doesn't mind me quoting him:

I think describing Mulligan as "limited" is perfectly fair. Sometimes that "limited" thing absolutely hits the spot for me, sometimes it doesn't. From having transcribed some of his quartet arrangements, I have to say that it's one of those cases where, as Mark Twain said about Wagner, "His music is better than it sounds." Every time I do one of those transcriptions, I gain more respect for Mulligan as an arranger, but even so, it's a sound you either like or you don't, and most people don't do their listening with a pad of manuscript paper in front of them. (Believe me, I don't recommend it!)

Being an arranger of sorts myself (and having been wired that way since Day One, I guess, I mean, as a kid I was listening to the string parts on Sgt. Pepper more than the lyrics...), listening to Mulligan that way probably comes naturally to me. But yeah, it was limited, ultimately, since Mulligan's musical/world/life/whatever view was not particularly broad or deep relative to "all things considered".

But - and this is key for me - it was his, always. And as such, it was not without personal nuances, graces, subtleties, and, relative to itself, depths. I'm ok with that in terms of living and let living (hey, I WANT to live! ), because whatever else it might have been (or not been), it was a genuinely personal expression. I just don't get that "core of self" in Wynton's work, at least not the overwhelming majority of it. Now that might be my failing, it might be that Wynton's "self" is present and I'm just too....whatever to hear/feel/relate to it. Fair enough. I'm just saying that I'm not usually one to fail to grasp a "personal message" at at least some level in many musics, especially the one in which Mr. Marsailis applies his craft, so any suggestions that it's my problem will be met with less immediate acceptance than would be if the same charges were levelled against me relative to my reactions to Goth Rock or some such.

[JSngry]

I think that Mulligan became much more relaxed as a player in the last decade or so of his life (and thus less schematic -- at times I even thought that in his '50s heyday he was a bit corny/two-beatish in rhythmic terms), but for me it's his composing and arranging that were his major contributions. His chart on "All the Things You Are" for one, featuring Don Joseph, is sublime, and many Mulligan compositions have a notable lilt and charm.

These are sentiments with which I concur.

[Chuck Nessa]

"Lilt and charm" are what I always need from music. I find them in late Beethoven and Cecil Taylor.

[Teasing the Korean]

I'll bet Wynton never made anything as good as the two "I Want to Live" albums on UA by Gerry Mulligan and Johnny Mandel.

[Dave James]

With respect to Mulligan, it would be interesting to know what his baritone contemporaries thought of his playing. I recall a story about Serge Chaloff noticing Mulligan watching him from the control booth during a recording session and taking the time to deconstruct Mulligan's style right in front of him. The tone of the story made it clear that he didn't care for the way Mulligan played. Not sure where I read this, but I have a very distinct recollection of it.

With regard to Wynton, I can take him or leave him. The only thing of his I have is the Vanguard box and I only bought it because the price was so right. It would be interesting to include him in a blindfold test to see if it's Marsalis people don't like or if it's the way he plays. Point being, if you know who to whom you're listening, can you objectively separate the man from the music?

Up over and out.

[Stereojack]

It's interesting to see people damning Gerry Mulligan with faint praise here. I for one am a big Mulligan fan, and have a lot of respect for him as a player and as a composer/arranger. While his most famous work is probably the original quartet with Chet Baker, I can see where some people might dismiss him as glib. I love the sextet with Zoot and Brookmeyer (some of the best Zoot on record), the big band, and the collaborations with Stan Getz, Ben Webster, Johnny Hodges, Thelonious Monk, & Paul Desmond. And I also think that some of his greatest playing was relatively late in his career.

[Tom Storer]

Just watched that "Cherokee" solo and found it terribly boring. He's played that tune a million times, it's just a crowd-pleaser; he sounded to me like he was on auto-pilot. Once upon a time he had Tain Watts, Marcus Roberts and Robert Hurst behind him and they'd play pretty interesting things together with a vibe of friendly competition and trying to find new things to play for each other. Now he's just performing it as a circus act.

Wynton's solos never have memorable melodic invention. That's my impression, anyway.