His Majesty, The Blues
Continuing The Entroporium’s series touching on some of its favorite New Orleans music…
Wynton Marsalis is easily one of the most controversial, clever, talented and interesting people working in American music over the last twenty years. That said, he also has a catalogue that’s nearly impenetrable to outsiders. In 1999 alone, he put out nine albums — actually eight albums with a bonus freebie. And which one is the point of entry? For us jazz-loving laymen, there’s almost no way to know.
Compounding the problem, his most ‘significant’ works tend to be way over two hours, full of ‘seriousness’ and somewhat lacking in memorable tunes. The shining example, in so many ways, would be his masterwork Blood On The Fields, a 3-hour piece on slavery that was the first jazz work to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize. A major achievement, yes, but if a melodic, well-performed 3-hour jazz meditation on slavery didn’t win a Pulitzer, wouldn’t you be a bit surprised? I mean, really. At least it wasn’t for Stanley Crouch’s incredibly pompous sermon on “The Death of Jazz,” which features on the otherwise fabulous 1989 release The Majesty Of The Blues.
Fortunately there are a few accessible points in Marsalis’s 40+ album discography. One highlight is his 1991 trilogy Soul Gestures In Southern Blue. (See, it still has to be a Trilogy, not just a plain old album.) One of the things that Marsalis always has going for him is his ability to identify and nurture young talent in his bands, and these three albums play up his sidemen’s strengths and gives them lots of room. That’s the good news about a trilogy; everybody gets plenty of time at the front of the stage.
About the time that Soul Gestures came out, I had the privilege to see Marsalis and his band with Elvin Jones, late of John Coltrane’s famous quartet, on drums in a small club in Emeryville. Even though Jones had played on Soul Gestures Vol. 1, the band instead ran through a furious version of “A Love Supreme.” It was unexpected and completely stupendous, one of the finest performances I’ve ever seen anywhere. Since then, Marsalis has graduated to concert halls and the chance to see him in smaller venues is essentially gone. But if you get the opportunity, Go!
Today’s selection is the title track from Levee Low Moan: Soul Gestures In Southern Blue, Vol. 3. Before Katrina hit, this tune was simply a depiction of a slow, hot, sticky carefree day in a neighborhood across from a levee in New Orleans with the Mississippi whispering behind the walls. Now of course you could see this as more of a longing for that simpler time. Nevertheless, a terrific little piece of restraint and beauty, well worth the 10MB download.
[Soundtrack]
Wynton Marsalis – Levee Low Moan.mp3
Blogcritics.org: Wynton Marsalis on America’s Cultural Bankruptcy (with audio and PDF links to Marsalis’s original speech, followed by interesting comments from readers)
Slate: Trumpeting Mediocrity – Was Wynton Marsalis ever that good?
Well, yes, but I meant as opposed to (for example) an Albert Ayler or Ornette Coleman 3-hour meditation on slavery. Or something TOO sweet — a 3-hour Burt Bacharach musical about Auschwitz. African-American virtuoso intelligencia: that probably hits the sweet spot for Pulitzer panelists pretty easily.
A major achievement, yes, but if a melodic, well-performed 3-hour jazz meditation on slavery didn’t win a Pulitzer, wouldn’t you be a bit surprised?
Well…um…the thing is I didn’t find Blood on the Fields to BE particularly melodic. It strikes me as meandering and directionless for the great majority of its three hours. In fact, the only real melody I can find is “Juba and the Old Brown Squaw” (I think that’s the title), the one with Jon Hendricks on vocals.
So I was a little bit surprised when it DID win a Pulitzer.