January 29, 2003
HARD NOT TO LIKE HIM:
A talent for making music and enemies: He outrages feminists, had a spat with Miles Davis and is widely accused of being a reactionary, but trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis doesn't care. He is on a messianic mission to revive classic jazz. (Peter Culshaw, 20/01/2003, Daily Telegraph)I suggest that at least one benefit of such movements as acid jazz is that many people are impelled back to the originals after hearing samples used on records. "That's a mind-boggling argument to me. It's like saying it's great that people might come across a quote from Hamlet in Playboy magazine. Why should you come into contact with the best of your culture through some other source? That's a major failing in education."Marsalis has also been attacked by almost every politically correct group in New York for assorted perceived crimes from nepotism to sexism - feminists recently staged a demo complaining that there were no women in the Lincoln Centre Jazz Orchestra. "I'm paid to be artistic director, and I make the decisions" is all he will say on that.
Marsalis's most celebrated spat was with Miles Davis. Davis said of him: "The more famous he became, the more he started saying things - nasty, disrespectful things - about me," and famously exploded in Vancouver, "That motherfucker's not sharing the stage with me." So what was that all about?
"There was a classic competition between an older man and a younger man who is more idealistic. By that stage he'd given up jazz and was playing pop and rock, trying to stay pertinent." Marsalis makes "pertinent" sound like an insult. "He had released a large portion of his integrity." How is he so sure about that? "He knew it. We both knew it."
What is most impressive - but also a little scary - about Marsalis is his messianic drive to spread his version of jazz. He thinks in mythic terms.
What's that Middle East proverb: The enemy of my enemies is my friend? Is there a worse thing for an artist to do than stop trying to create beauty and try to be"pertinent" (as Mr. Marsalis is using the term) instead? Great art should be timeless, not timely.
MORE:
-INTERVIEW: And the trumpet shall sound: Wynton Marsalis is a man with a mission to spread the gospel of jazz. Some people are worried his influence will make the music too respectable. (Adam Sweeting, 06/02/2001, Daily Telegraph)
-WyntonMarsalis.net (Sony Music)
-Wynton Marsalis Page (Jazz World)
I am a big fan of Miles Davis, but by the mid-1970s, the effort that Miles was putting into staying innovative was starting to show.
In contrast, Frank Zappa's instrumental work (let's leave aside the often embarassing lyrics for convenience) seems to have maintained a consistent balance between self-conscious formalized experimentation, and inspired innovation, from about 1960 to 1994.
Contrasting yet again, so far nobody named "Marsalis" has demonstrated anything beyond mere virtuousity. Wynton is like the new Stan Kenton, at best.
Two hundred years from now, Davis and Zappa will be mentioned with Basie and Ellington... but Marsalis will be a footnote, filed alphabetically somewhere after Ish Kabibble.