Wynton = Punk!!!

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Wynton Marsalis plays Cosby jazz.

― J Blount, Wednesday, 5 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

That's all I'm sayin'. Undeniable chops and articulateness aside, does anyone actually buy those umpteen albums he puts out every year, much less listen to them for pleasure and enlightenment?

― Lee G, Wednesday, 5 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

K. Jarrett is much more likely to be the Pink Floyd (or the Roger Waters) of Jazz than Cecil T.

― Andrew L, Wednesday, 5 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Black Codes from the Underground is good.

The Wynton thing is funny because he pisses off people who don't give a fuck about jazz. People whose only jazz record is Kind of Blue get all huffy about Wynton's conservative approach.

― Mark, Wednesday, 5 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Mark S -- what is your take on the respect Marsalis is accorded in the Penguin guides? I know you know C*oke & M*rton. Are they generally conservative or do they see something others don't?

― Mark, Wednesday, 5 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

I'm not pissed, but I am struck by the irony of a jazzman who comes out loud for tradition as the True Path and then proceeds to drop after album of prissily pristine and unmoving music. For my money, players like James Carter and David Murray have done more to validate the traditional values of jazz (for what that's worth) than Wynton's historical reenactments. I actually have more respect for Brandon, because he has at least shown himself willing to try fairly bold experiments, even at the risk of failing and/or looking like a trendy ass.

― Lee G, Wednesday, 5 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

i don't have a recent penguin, mark, only edn one, which predates burns and the lincoln jazz centre stuff: my guess is, RC reviewed it, absolutely rigorously straight-faced as regards content => he is pretty much completely impervious to cultural politics w/i jazz in any direction, *except* the politics of shoring up his own projects, as it were (viz who to put on the cover of wire in 1984 when it was selling like nine copies a month), and calmly go on to give a good review to alex schlippenbach immediately after, then louis armstrong

(rc = armstrong fan at age 12!!) (i sort of totally admire this, in a OMIGOD! way)

― mark s, Wednesday, 5 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Ulp, uh, excuse me. BranFORD.

― Lee G, Wednesday, 5 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Branford's "that's bullshit" quote about Cecil Taylor was actually placed in a derogatory (sp?) context by Burns's weak editing job, but if you actually read the transcript of the entire interview he gave, he was praising Cecil. Unfortunately, I'm not sure where you could find that online, but I know it's out there.

― hstencil, Wednesday, 5 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

I just started watching the Burns series on tape, having been forewarned that it leaves out most of the "free" developments. What I WASN'T warned about was Wynton. So I was really squirming through the first episode (all those GUMBO metaphors for crying out loud!) but I've started to warm up to Wynton now: given that the series is entirely concerned with trad-jazz, it could do worse than to have a trad-pundit for a mouthpiece. Geeta's right, he's no historian; but he is a Nostalgia Enthusiast and his ability to mimic, say, King Oliver's coronet lines does serve the purpose of sketching the progress of particular styles over those early years; styles which could seem quaint or hackneyed are approached with wonder ("see he could make his trumpet sound like it was talking!" etc).

I'm dreading the end of the series though. I'll be bracing myself for that quote about C Taylor. I wish they were a little more up front from the get-go about the trad bias: "this is only the first half of the story chronologically" or something, anything. Their "definitive guide" is the same version inflicted on hapless bistro diners the world over by D Krall soundalikes, the stuff of hep late nite smooth- voiced public radio hosts. Wynton's version is the popular version is the idea that jazz is for Torchbearers not Mavericks and implies that he is the real smooth deal and people like Ornette and Coltrane somehow lost the plot (hmm gives me a thought for that Ornette vs. Lydon thread). His concern is with preserving a museum-piece= decidedly not punk.

If C Taylor= Pink Floyd of jazz then Wynton= Sha Na Na

― The Actual Mr. Jones, Wednesday, 5 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

No, Wynton's even more of an aesthete Art-worshipper than the free dudes he hates so much. Those Bach records he made? The way he *talks* about older jazz? Dave, *you* might see his scorched-earth thing as denouncing the non-functional, but I doubt he would ever sully the Great Jazz of the Past with the word "function". Wynton is like a rock crit who denounces prog, but in so doing, props up the older stuff as unassailable. Not punk.

― Clarke B., Wednesday, 5 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Branford makes some good records. Really good, sometimes (like the last two).

― Jordan, Wednesday, 5 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Going back to the subject: Yes, Wynton is a punk: a punk-ass bitch.

― Dan Perry, Wednesday, 5 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Yeah, I think the actual quote went something like this: interviewer says C. Taylor says people should come prepared to understand his music cuz he can't be bothered to meet them halfway, and then Branford sez blah blah blah because he's partly an entertainer and performer. Or something like that (really, see the transcripts).

― Josh, Wednesday, 5 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

keyboard magazine compiled a book of interviews (keith emerson, keith jarrett etc.) and the last interview in the book was with Cecil who treated the interview like a fascist interrogation -- i think he's the one worth chasing up quotes of, or 'spoken word' or 'free speech' or 'poetry'

rec.music.bluenote (the jazz newsgroup) has almost kill-file policy on Wynton and various never-say-die brain-dead Lincoln-centric trolls, as set out in the group FAQ

remember "Born in the USA" Springsteen ? -- someone told me that the same a&r record co. man who masterminded that was the guy who originally took "neo-classical" or "real jazz" or "Wynton Marselis" to the marketplace and re-sold jazz (complete with Marselis in back then rare "the real shit" tv interview pointing out that Stravinsky was "a back-beat kind'a guy, dig ?")

that Wire magazine with that guy Byrne on the cover, didn't it have Cecil and Wynton in the same issue ? successive issues ?

― George Gosset, Wednesday, 5 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

''I'm dreading the end of the series though. I'll be bracing myself for that quote about C Taylor.''

When they broadcast the series in the UK they took the stuff on Cecil. Did they have any footage? Damn the BBC!

In some ways its good they took Cecil out. If you're not gonna do both sides then you might as well not do it.

― Julio Desouza, Thursday, 6 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

sixteen years pass...

Going back to the subject: Yes, Wynton is a punk: a punk-ass bitch.

― Dan Perry, Tuesday, June 4, 2002 7:00 PM (sixteen years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

🙏

― Dan I., Sunday, 6 January 2019 03:54 (five years ago) link

namaste

― errang (rushomancy), Sunday, 6 January 2019 04:43 (five years ago) link

Damn, I really need to see that Ken Burns jazz doc. I’ve shied away from it all these years because Wynton is an ENORMOUS jazzist purist rock-hating asshole, but I think I’d warm up to it these days. I hate rock music too!

― Mr. Snrub, Sunday, 6 January 2019 17:31 (five years ago) link

Black Codes from the Underground is good

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Sunday, 6 January 2019 18:05 (five years ago) link

This thread makes me want to listen to all six of the Marsalis Standard Time albums and maybe write about them.

― grawlix (unperson), Sunday, 6 January 2019 20:09 (five years ago) link

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