Wynton Marsalis(sp)

And yet, that doesn't take anything away from how bad those guys (Wycliffe, Herlin Riley, Wessell Anderson) are.

http://www.donnasbarandgrill.com/Live/030303/index.html

He was amazing that night. It was my very first trip to New Orleans, and I'm playing snare drum (probably horribly, I haven't listened to this for years).

i've never listened to wynton before

i'm listening to black codes from the underground (shoulda been a public enemy album title)

but yeah

it's good

better than his rep would suggest

but...it totally fails to grab me in anyway whatsoever

it just kinda sits there

does anybody still listen to blood on the fields

i had a roommate in college who played it all the time because he was a prizewhore, but he did not actually have any independent interest in jazz

blood on the fields is good

Just finished Ted Gioia's "The History of Jazz" and wanted to note that it had more on Marsalis than on all non-US artists throughout history combined.

I really need to check on here before I start any more music books.

That's crazy. I think Gary Giddins once said Marsalis's impact inversely diminished as his ambitions grew bigger, and I kind of agree (though not commercially - I think Marsalis got more press and probably sold more records and more concert tickets when he released more ambitious work). A great player, but a frustrating artist where his great technical ability can be hampered by his flawed vision.

(though not commercially - I think Marsalis got more press and probably sold more records and more concert tickets when he released more ambitious work)

Curious about the timeline -- he was dropped by CBS in 2000 for flagging sales.

It's a weird and complex issue. He writes a fucking ton of material for the JALC Orchestra, and gets other members to write and arrange, too, but nobody else plays his compositions, like, ever — not one Wynton Marsalis tune has entered the common repertoire. And that's kinda too bad, because some of the albums the JALC Orchestra has put out in the last few years — Handful Of Keys, Jazz & Art, The Fifties — are pretty good. No, he's not breaking new ground, it's all basically Mingus-meets-Ellington with some extra New Orleans thrown in, but the tunes are decent, and the band can certainly play. I feel like in his quest to preserve jazz, he built himself a giant tomb and walled himself up inside it. If he came out more and engaged with the wider world, it would be better for his music and maybe for the music as a whole. But if/when you just want to hear him do his thing, he can be pretty good at it.

I do wonder if everything he’s done with founding JALC will be his greater legacy.

Speaking of which, I know that there was and is some bad blood about the experience of the ALJO, which started at JALC but then split off for reasons maybe you can read about elsewhere. Also I heard a story about someone else of some stature unrelated to the ALJO saying "The only Wynton I care about is Wynton Kelly."