This just in from another list:
About five or six years ago there was a coffee table type book published
of photos of Wynton on tour with his band, with text written by Wynton. ( I
can't remember who the photographer is, and I really can't be bothered to
look it up either.) The Boston Public Library had Wynton in as a speaker
along with the photographer to promote the book. The setting was pretty
much a lecture in the main exhibition hall at the library. Wynton was going
to make some comments, play a little bit, open it up for Q&A, and then sign
books.
In his opening comments he said something about there being a long
history of photographs and jazz. "...There are so many great black and
white photos of jazz musicians that are almost as famous as the music
itself....." blah, blah, blah.... He then said, "When you play at Tivoli
Gardens in Copenhagen, there's a photo of Coltrane behind the bandstand.
You're up there on the stand taking your solo, and you might blow five or
six choruses or something, thinking you're playing better than anybody has
ever played. Then when you finish your solo, step away from the mic, and
return to the back of the bandstand you're faced with that picture of
Coltrane down on his knees blowing, and it's a very humbling thing. You
realize what you're really up against, in the tradition of this music."
This is pretty much the opening that I was waiting for, more or less, for
about ten years.
Marsalis goes on to talk for a long time about the tradition of "this
great music" etc, the usual bullshit that you'll get to hear a lot of out
of him on PBS over the next week or so. Then he asks if there are any piano
players in the audience. An older gentleman gets up, and Wynton confers
with him for a moment, and then he calls for Stardust. I don't know what
the situation was, or where the confusion lay, but for some reason it
didn't work. Wynton, rather than being gracious, and trying to save the man
some face, proceeds to humiliate him for not knowing the changes. It was
one of the most seat squirming things I've ever seen.
Finally, Wynton opens up the floor for Q & A. There are a lot of
questions about where jazz is going, and Wynton holds to his usual garbage
about how we need to look back to the past before we can move forward. The
audience is tremendously supportive of the speaker. There is one question
from someone questioning his programming of Jazz at Lincoln Center, and
Marsalis' reply is that "I'm the director, and I'm going to program what I
want. If someone else is the director, they can program what they want." He
receives a damn-near standing ovation for this response. Then he calls on
me;
"Mr Marsalis, I know that you began your comments by mentioning the picture
of 'Trane on his knees blowing in Tivoli Gardens. I find that an
interesting point for you to make, given the way that you have tried to
marginalize the advancements of Coltrane, probably of the sort he was
making on his knees in that picture, in your directorship of Lincoln
Center. My question is only this; If it were 1963, and you were the
director of Lincoln Center, would you have allowed Coltrane to take the
stage?"
"If he was playing Lush Life or Giant Steps, yes I would. It would depend
on the program he was interested in presenting."
"No, I'm referring to the type of music that John Coltrane was probably
playing when that picture of him was taken of him on his knees. Would you
have allowed that? The 1963 version of the quartet, with Eric Dolphy, say?"
"Well, if he was playing all that squawkety squawk racket, no. But if he
were....."
" I simply want to know , yes or no, would you have allowed the John
Coltrane quartet to perform at Lincoln Center, had you been the director in
1963?"
"Well, like I said...."
"Yes or no, sir."
"No I would not."
"Thank you very much."
And I sat down. I think it was at that point that Wynton realized that he
had just banned John Coltrane from the stage in Lincoln Center ( even
before A Love Supreme had been made), and he started to squirm. He didn't
take another question, but tried to elaborate on why he would not have
allowed that version of the Coltrane band on the stage. Then he took
another question, all the while watching me, sitting there grinning, out of
the corner of his eye. He answered the next question, and tried to tie it
in with my question. Then he just returned to responding to my question,
very flustered. I don't remember him taking more than one or two questions
after mine, but he did spend the rest of his time trying to defend that
position. (At least that's what it seemed like to me.) He did approach me
as I was leaving, and said something about me trying to play "gotcha" with
him.
I was dying to hear him say this kind of thing. I had been waiting for it
for ten years. The man actually nullified John Coltrane as a jazz musician.
How could I, or anyone who really cares about this music, ever take
anything the man ever says about Jazz seriously? If I had read in an
interview that he said he would never allow Coltrane on stage at Lincoln
Center, I would have written him off as someone to take seriously on the
subject of jazz. The fact that I got to hear it out if his mouth, in
response to a question I asked of him, only makes it all that much sweeter
for me.
I say fuck Wynton Marsalis. And I do believe that he is a dangerous entity
in American art, only because of the way he has commandeered the stage, and
most of the mainstream funding, of this music that had moved forward
without any regard for a prefabricated set of rules, institutional or
otherwise, for almost eighty five years before some loud mouth derivative
trumpet player, can't write shit, started telling the world that he was
"saving" jazz.
Watch the PBS series carefully, because the man who was given the reins,
has a very dangerous agenda. I am speaking mostly based on my prejudices
here, and what I've seen and read about the series already, but I already
feel like I'm watching some sort of "Birth of a Nation" type version of the
history of jazz. We may be able to admire it for it's art, but I don't know
how far we'll be able to throw it's history after we are without the loud
voice of Mr Marsalis reminding us of how important his views are. I can't
imagine what we're missing out on, in the way of commentary in this series,
because of the fact that Wynton Marsalis had to be king shit. This
probably insured that we would never hear the stories of some very
important artists, or the commentary of some people that don't fit Wynton's
narrow view of what jazz is. And if there's one thing that I know about
jazz, it's that it is not a narrow music.
There ends the initial letter. I forwarded it on to a friend in Seattle.
Here's his response:
Great letter. Thanks for sharing it, Tom.
I'm pretty annoyed at the Marsalis-Murray-Crouch monopolitization of the
"Jazz" series, too, but, like you, appreciate the exposure the series is
giving the music. I'm actually warming up to the thing. All those clips of
Armstrong and Ellington certainly help. The long sequence on Ethel Waters
Wednesday night was great and made me want to go out and buy a bunch of her
records. And, in the same episode, they had some very brief comments from
the late Lester Bowie, who was no friend of Wynton's and never hesitated to
criticize the Wyntonians' dead-end, narrow-minded philosophy on jazz.
As the note you shared demonstrates, Wynton is doing nothing more than
imposing his tastes and point-of-view on the music. He tries to tell us that
avant garde musicians don't know how to play and don't have an understanding
of the roots of the music. When you look at Coltrane, you see how ridiculous
that is. The same thing applies when you look at most of the other great
jazz innovators since "A Love Supreme." Miles Davis played alongside Charlie
Parker. He not only understood the roots of jazz, he was one of them. Yet,
Marsalis denies him permission to experiment and move ahead. You think
Lester Bowie didn't know about the roots of jazz? He had much more in common
with Louis Armstrong--as showman, humorist and innovator-than Wynton could
ever hope to. And Bowie was a hell of a trumpet player. How about Henry
Threadgill, one of the most imaginative players/composers working today? He
certainly doesn't need Wynton lecturing him about jazz roots. Ever heard
"Air Lore"? It's a trio album Threadgill recorded back in the 1970s
(probably around the time Wynton was grooving to Herbie Hancock's
"Headhunter") that paid homage to ragtime and early jazz. It even includes a
cover of "King Porter Stomp." But Threadgill managed to look ahead at the
same time he looked back.
If you play by Wynton's rules, jazz doesn't grow. You try to play the best
you can within the confines of the past, which denies the things that make
jazz so unique: innovation and individuality. None of the people Wynton
reveres adhered to the rules of the past, yet he tries to impose a cutoff
point on changes in the music. There's no room in his world for someone to
come in and shake things up and make the music new again. So, not only would
he have denied Coltrane of '63 the Lincoln Center stage, he's denying it
now to the next Coltrane, Armstrong, Ellington, etc.
Like George W. Bush or any other good conservative, Wynton tells us that if
someone disagrees, they can start their own jazz program--it's America, it's
an equal playing field, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. But
Wynton's high-profile soapbox was purchased for him long ago by a publicity
machine. From age 18 he received a marketing push that was unheard of in
jazz, before or since, earning him a platform to spout off his opinions in
magazines and newspapers and making his name synonymous with jazz. You need
to be a "name," to get interviewed by major publications, to get on TV, to
get your own radio programs. Wynton is a great player and has considerable
ability as an educator, but there are many players who are equally good,
more innovative and imaginative and just as articulate and charismatic who
don't get the attention they deserve because they don't have marketing
dollars behind them. Marsalis could share the spotlight, introduce his broad
public to artists who are doing important work today, but he doesn't. Why? I
think it's because he's scared.
>From his earliest albums, a common criticism of Wynton was that he was very
talented but hadn't found his own voice as a player and that his tunes were
derivative. If you remember, the Marsalis quartet of the early 80s was
steeped in the music of Miles Davis' second great quintet (the one with
Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams and Ron Carter). It's sad.
Wynton was then very young. He could've moved on to refute his critics by
developing his own sound and compositional style, but instead he's moved
backward through jazz history to ape Ellington and Armstrong. All he talks
about is the past, paying homage to it and mastering the innovations of past
masters. It's very much a retreat from the challenge imposed on him, not
just by critics but by the artists he himself reveres: to do something
original and new. His lectures are less about jazz history than about Wynton
Marsalis justifying himself. By focusing constantly on the past and on the
fundamentals of the music as he sees it, and by downplaying the need for
experimentation, innovation and individuality in the music, he diverts
attention away from his shortfalls as a unique artist and puts the spotlight
on what he can do well: play a hell of a lot like Louis Armstrong or
pre-electric Miles Davis and write a hell of lot like Blanton-Webster era
Duke Ellington.
And with the "Jazz" series, Wynton will again be presented as the beginning
and end of jazz, literally: the first voiceover in the film is his and I
read that the series ends with a clip of the Lincoln Center Jazz Band
playing Ellington.
----- Original Message -----
From: "temi castro" <temicastro@yahoo.com>
To: "Leslie N. Shill" <icehouse@redshift.com>; "acid" <acid-jazz@ucsd.edu>
Sent: Friday, January 12, 2001 4:26 AM
Subject: Re: the latest jazz episode
>
>
> Jazz.... strange term. I got into jazz when I moved to
> Paris at the age of 15 and my best friend Luc Bellon
> at the Lycee de Sevres, hipped me up to a Louis
> Armstrong and Ella recording of Gershwin's Porgy and
> Bess. I listened to it non-stop wallowing in the sheer
> niceness. Then I checked out Grover Washington's
> Winelight (he he he) that got me into Weather Report
> esp. the Jaco years. After that was free jazz which
> saved me from trouble in my late teens as I searched
> for purpose and rhyme. I then had an ECM phase, a
> Monk/Coltrane/Miles Davis period, a blue note phase
> (blakey, sonny rollins, freddie rice), then a soul
> jazz phase (blue note...), I was really into
> soundtracks and CTI last year...
>
> Heavy influences
>
> John Coltrane Africa (Impulse)
> Heavy jazz biznes!!! Still blows my mind everytime,
> amazingly moving, totally evocative, total experience.
> Also Crescent, Ballads, Chin chin cherry, The album
> with Duke (someone should give Bob Thiele a nobel, a
> hug or something... he could see beyond the surface).
>
> Archie Shepp - Mama Rossa with Niels van Hoft
> CHeck out, Contracts if you can find this pearl,
> trippy mind expanding stuff, infinity, infinity!
>
> Sonny Rollins - Live in Copenhagen (or stockholm???)
> It has Pete La Roca on drums and Jimmy Grimes? on bass
> bad kick ass bop!!!! tight boom baf! Lyrical and
> witty.
>
> Keith Jarrett trio - Still Live (ECM) Goose pimples,
> storytelling in a mesmerizing way. You feel he is
> telling you about something abysmal in meaning, the
> human condition is all in there every drop of it.
>
> Monk and Coltrane- Maaaaaad! nuff said. Misterioso!!!
>
> Miles- Agharta and Panghea .... I could go on and
> on...
>
>
> __________________________________________________
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> Yahoo! Photos - Share your holiday photos online!
> http://photos.yahoo.com/
>
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