"I played at August Wilson's funeral. You know what he wanted me to play? Danny Boy."

April 13, 2009 12:59 PM

Wynton Marsalis waxes poetic (and music) at the Kennedy Center about art, freedom, jazz, the minstrel shows of yesterday and today, Walt Whitman, American history, the similarities between the Battle Hymn of the Republic and the Mickey Mouse Club March, rock and roll, and how it all ties together.

Excerpts:

"A financial inheritance can be accurately assessed in dollars, but what is the value of an artistic heritage? Who calculates the value of "Amazing Grace" or "Yankee Doodle" or "Go Down Moses"?

...

"Random black folks on the plantation imitating the ways of white folks are imitated by itinerate white entertainers who blacken up and create plantation skits. Plantation owners then cull through their slaves for the most talented who then imitate the white entertainers’ imitation of black folks imitating white folks. These selected blacks are then imitated by professional white performers, and after the Civil War and the rise of black minstrelsy as an enterprise, white professionals were imitated by black professionals."

...

"Artists effortlessly speak across time because the technology of the human soul does not change. Ask Eugene O’Neill who absorbed the spirit of the Greeks through the spirit of Wagner’s acolyte Nietzsche who told him what Whitman said was what Buddy Bolden said…Wake up!"


Transcript

posted by Ndwright (30 comments total)

This man is a genius, musically and intellectually. He's a compelling speaker, brilliant musician, and gifted composer. Thanks for posting this.
posted by Mental Wimp at 1:21 PM on April 13

Aside from a few get-off-my-lawn moments, that's a damn fine speech. I love his emphasis on the inherently creolized nature of all American popular musics. I think the usual myths of "authenticity" that structure most accounts of the history of US popular music are a denial of the most vital forces of cultural innovation and rest upon a patronizing primitivization of the very people they claim to privilege (blues becomes the 'natural' expression of black suffering, for example, rather than a complex and conscious--and necessary syncretic--artistic endeavor).
posted by yoink at 1:27 PM on April 13

Is this the same Wynton Marsalis that couldn't keep up with Art Blakey's band? The one who's been described as a trumpeter stuck in the past? You know, the guy who said Miles Davis' later albums weren't "true jazz" and yet tried crashing a Miles Davis performance by showing up on stage playing his own horn? The Wynton Marsalis who got Ken Burns to all but dismiss jazz after 196x with the exception of Wynton himeself? Feh!
posted by furtive at 1:29 PM on April 13 [2 favorites has favorites]

furtive: "The Wynton Marsalis who got Ken Burns to all but dismiss jazz after 196x with the exception of Wynton himeself? "

I'll be happy to sign your petition demanding that Wynton stop being treated as the Pope of jazz. But Ken Burns has only himself to blame for having dull taste.
posted by Joe Beese at 1:35 PM on April 13 [1 favorite has favorites]

Wynton's a very good writer, and a pretty good popularizer/explainer/whatnot, kind of a Carl Sagan of jazz or something.

He's a good player, but not remarkable. And I think his playing lacks heart. Say what you will about Albert Ayler or Peter Brotzmann, but those guys convey more emotion in a couple notes than Marsalis has in his whole career. Also, yeah, like most people who namedrop Ayler or Brotzmann, I'm still mad at Wynton because of the Ken Burns thing.
posted by box at 1:50 PM on April 13 [1 favorite has favorites]

Is this the same Wynton Marsalis that couldn't keep up with Art Blakey's band?

Wow. So who put the horse's head in Blakey's bed to force him to hire (and keep hiring) this talentless loser?

You know, the guy who said Miles Davis' later albums weren't "true jazz" and yet tried crashing a Miles Davis performance by showing up on stage playing his own horn?

Yeah, and Miles Davis said that Wynton Marsalis should stop playing classical music because it was "tired-ass shit." Everybody's got their blind spots.

Not sure why Davis comes out covered with glory from the Vancouver Jazz Festival incident. Do you think that kind of challenge was some terrible Jazz faux-pas? Why not let the people hear the youngster compete with the champ? Seems like Davis was afraid of getting cut ;)
posted by yoink at 1:50 PM on April 13

yoink: "Why not let the people hear the youngster compete with the champ? Seems like Davis was afraid of getting cut ;)"

I don't think anyone is going to argue over who had more chops - though, as box points out, it ain't about how fast you can play.

But simply as a matter of respect, you don't barge on stage while a legend is playing. Especially if you're only doing second-rate versions of stuff he mastered when you were still in diapers.
posted by Joe Beese at 2:01 PM on April 13

What box said. Marsalis can play, but he's no savior of jazz, he's done active harm with his ignorant dismissal of virtually every new trend in jazz in the last half-century, and he turned the latter part of that Burns special into a travesty. I don't want to go too far in the "fuck him" direction because he's done some good stuff, but don't ask me to listen to yet another condescending, egotistical lecture about how only the jazz he likes is the real thing.
posted by languagehat at 2:22 PM on April 13 [2 favorites has favorites]

But simply as a matter of respect, you don't barge on stage while a legend is playing. Especially if you're only doing second-rate versions of stuff he mastered when you were still in diapers.

De gustibus, I guess. I mean, Miles was my first love and all, but not my only one.

My first exposure to Wynton was his classical stuff; expecting that his jazz would suck, as it does for most classical musicians, I kind of avoided him. Lately, though, due to a friend's harping, I've been listening to his jazz and saw him with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra when they appeared locally. They did Monk's Town Hall stuff. Maybe I have a tin ear for jazz, but I was absolutely blown away, from the first notes of 'Oska T' to the encore 'Green Chimneys' and hitting 'Light Blue' and 'Criss Cross' on the way. But I guess not every jazz critic agrees and that's okay.
posted by Mental Wimp at 2:25 PM on April 13

But simply as a matter of respect, you don't barge on stage while a legend is playing.

Yes, well that is Davis's account of what happened--that Marsalis barrels in while he's actually playing, Davis stops the band and tells Marsalis to get the fuck off the stage. I've seen an interview with the photographer who was there at the time, though, that doesn't quite match Davis's version. In the photographs it looks as though Marsalis has come out in the break between numbers (there don't seem to be any shots of Marsalis looming over Davis while Davis is actually playing). And the photographer says that Davis actually gestured Marsalis over to a mike, that Marsalis played for about 30 seconds then turned to Davis who didn't respond, and then left the stage.

I think some people's read on this incident is overly colored by their impressions of the men involved. Most people at a Festival concert would be thrilled if one big star joined another big star for some impromptu jamming--that would be exactly the sort of thing that makes you think there's something special about a "festival" rather than a regular concert. If this was a story about Wynford Marsalis telling Miles Davis to "get the fuck off the stage" in the (insanely improbable) event that the roles had been reversed, I think everyone would see that as a horribly ungenerous response by Marsalis. Of course, it's a bit different shooing away the old lion than the young pretender, but a generous response by Davis would have left this story a feel-good one all round, with no one bothering to think for a moment that Marsalis had committed some kind of outrage by offering to play with the guy.
posted by yoink at 2:33 PM on April 13

I didn't know about those things furtive mentioned (and yoink expanded on). My opinion of Wynton is favorably clouded by my meeting with him in my early teens. I played the trumpet throughout junior and senior high school, and around the time I got "serious" and started learning my first full classical trumpet concerto, Marsalis released what I believe was his first classical record, and it included the Hummel concerto, the very one I was working on!

Shortly thereafter, he was in LA to play with the LA Phil on tour for this record, and my mom took me to the Hollywood Bowl the afternoon before the show for the rehearsal (LAPhil rehearsals were free and open to the public at that time; don't know about now). I took my vinyl copy of the record with me and gathered up the courage to go backstage, asked someone where his trailer was, and knocked on the door.

My cheeks still hurt from the enormous grin I had on my face the entire time I talked to him, asked for his autograph (he wrote "Keep practicing!"), and reveled in the encounter.

He was nice to me, and he plays a good horn, so I like him.
posted by yiftach at 2:37 PM on April 13 [2 favorites has favorites]

yoink, I like how you combined the Marsalis brothers' names into one there: Wynford.
Slip of the keys, I know.
posted by yiftach at 2:40 PM on April 13

yoink, I like how you combined the Marsalis brothers' names into one there: Wynford.
Slip of the keys, I know.

Improvisation is the heart of Jazz.
posted by yoink at 2:49 PM on April 13 [1 favorite has favorites]

don't ask me to listen to yet another condescending, egotistical lecture about how only the jazz he likes is the real thing

Well, I wouldn't--and I'm not asking you to listen to this, either--but whatever else this speech is, it isn't one of those.
posted by yoink at 2:54 PM on April 13

yoink: "a generous response by Davis would have left this story a feel-good one all round"

From what I've read, "feel-good" wasn't Miles' bag.
posted by Joe Beese at 2:56 PM on April 13

I would like to take this opportunity to point jazz fans to STOP SMILING's awesome Jazz Lover's Care Package (only $15!) and you get their jazz issue, a copy of Studs Terkel's book Giants of Jazz and a copy of Phil Ranelin's album The Time is Now!
posted by sciurus at 3:16 PM on April 13

Oh yeah, their Boxing issue has a great article about how Miles Davis's love of boxing, and a long interview with Ken Burns about Jack Johnson. [I am not affiliated with Stop Smiling, but I am a huge fan.]
posted by sciurus at 3:18 PM on April 13

Well I loved it. And I have to keep going back to the presentation and researching all the history he laid out to see if it's true. He continues to hammer nails into the coffin on hip hop very effectively. But he has no good explanation as to why hip hop even came to be. We all know it started in NYC, but why were kids trying to be deejays instead of RnB or Jazz musicians? I know: Bad Parenting, poverty, and drugs. The birth of hip hop coincides with the height of the career of Frank Lucas (and they made a movie about that fool- talk about minstrel show.) All those teens out there running around with parents who were working too hard, or on dope, or busy hustlin. Kids only had access to other kids. Clearly they still wanted to make music, but no support for lessons, no time, and no money for instruments. How many black bands were there in the 70s? How many now? How many rock bands, then/now? Tons. I really don't know how black culture is going to find its way back to the great music.

Also, I like Wynton. I bought a few of his albums in my mid 20s, and I just didn't really like his compositions. I liked Branford because he was in Throw Mama from the Train. But Wynton is doing an incredible job at trying to keep the history of Jazz alive. Honestly, it will be hard listen to hip hop anymore because of what I just saw (and most us old school hip hoppers knew all about how quickly is was selling out with the comming of g rap, and Hammer. I just never thought that hip hop was ALL bad.) Hip hop was an invention of necessity, as was the case with all black music. Today? I don't know.

I just want to say thank you for posting this. To me, it was like listening to an album side. Like it reminds me of Johnathan Livingston Seagull, for some reason. I'm weird, I know. And these are the thoughts of a high school dropout.
posted by Flex1970 at 3:28 PM on April 13

Please forgive the typeos.
posted by Flex1970 at 3:33 PM on April 13 [1 favorite has favorites]

My favorite quote:

we all yearn for a new American mythology.

We want to embrace one another, but don’t know how. And the answer is not more education, but more substantive and more culturally-rooted education.

posted by eye of newt at 6:46 PM on April 13

Nice post, ndwright. As I said back when we had the big Wynton discussion (your second link) here six years ago, his music has never interested me that much, but he is a wonderful explainer. (As bluedaniel said then, "What Wynton and many of his family have contributed to jazz is education, and an education much needed...").

America likes to have one designated 'whatever' at any one time, and Marsalis has benefited from when, for a number of reasons, he became the country's designated 'young jazz musician' who got all the publicity. Just like, for Ken Burns, the designated 'jazz musician' for his series was Louis Armstrong. It's ridiculous that a pop song like Hello, Dolly! is included on the Jazz soundtrack.

It's probably also ridiculous, though, to think that Albert Ayler, even if Wynton hadn't been involved, would ever have ended up on a mainstream PBS show designed to explain jazz to an non-jazz audience. Maybe for his influence on John Coltrane, but even when Ayler — on Coltrane's recommendation — got signed to Impulse, a top record label of the 60's, he never was very successful. After his first studio album for them, Love Cry, the label demanded he fire his trumpet player (Ayler's brother Donald), and fans and critics alike despised his second, New Grass.

It's amazing that a series on jazz ever got on TV at all. Last week I enjoyed reading this book of interviews called The Jazz Ear, at one point of which Branford (the hipper Marsalis) says, “Musicians are always talking about ‘Why isn’t jazz popular?’ But [jazz] musicians today are completely devoid of charisma. People never really liked the music in the first place. So now you have musicians who are proficient at playing instruments, and really, really smart, and know a lot of music, and people sit there and it’s just boring to them — because they’re trying to see something, or feel it.”

p.s. Yet again, MetaFilter has amazed and delighted me. Wynton Marsalis = Jonathan Livingston Seagull is just a fantastic comparison.
posted by LeLiLo at 8:49 PM on April 13

bass solo!
posted by mexican at 8:50 PM on April 13

Wynton Marsalis is technically brilliant, but his music leaves me cold. It feels empty & soulless compared to someone like Miles Davis or Coltrane.
posted by mike3k at 9:07 PM on April 13

Was he named after Wynton Kelly? There's an underappreciated jazz musician, I think.
posted by box at 9:38 PM on April 13

Was he named after Wynton Kelly? There's an underappreciated jazz musician, I think.

This site says yes. (And yes, I agree about W. Kelly.)

I also always thought it was cool that Marsalis reportedly (at age six) was given his first trumpet by Al Hirt. Who also was a fantastic classical trumpet player (Hirt spent most of the WW II years at a conservatory in Cincinnati).
posted by LeLiLo at 10:18 PM on April 13

He continues to hammer nails into the coffin on hip hop very effectively. But he has no good explanation as to why hip hop even came to be.

We don't even come to see our own, man.
Listen, Freddy, listen...
If we had to depend upon black people to eat,
We would starve to death.
You've been out there,
You on the bandstand,
You look out there, What do you see?
You see Japanese, you see... you see West Germans,
You see Slobovic, you know, anything, except our people man.
It makes no sense, it incenses me that our own people
Don't realize our own heritage, our own culture.
This is our music.
That's bullshit!
Why?
That's all bullshit. Everything, everything you just said is bullshit.
You're complaining about-
I'm talking about the audience.
That's right.
The people don't come because you grandiose motherfuckers don't play
shit that they like. If you played the shit that they liked,
then the people would come.
Simple as that.
posted by afu at 3:09 AM on April 14 [1 favorite has favorites]

I know next to nothing about W. Marsalis or his music. I think I have one of his albums somewhere that I can't have liked very much. But as a speaker-performer ...this was about as good a speech as I've ever seen. Floored me. Actually moved me to tears (but I'm in the middle of a painful bittersweet breakup so that's not saying much).

The best of the American arts and the way they’ve been sung and swung provided human meaning to the questions posed by the Founding Fathers more than 150 years earlier. It told you to be yourself and love what made you, you. It told you to listen deeply to others and find the beauty of originality in them. And through swing, the most flexible rhythm ever played, it told you how to balance your individuality with the desires of the group. It told you we have a history, a depth, a tradition that requires skill and study but demands you apply those skills to search the frontiers of your soul. It told you that innovation and creativity hold hands with the tried and true.

As a north European I'm barely even tangentially a part of this American (hi)story, but Marsalis tells a striking universal tale. Culture and identity, history and our shared human experience. An incredible performance. This Metafilter place keeps dropping motherfucking hits, biatc...yeah, I also liked his contextualized criticism of gangster rap. I don't actually know if he's entirely right, but he was very persuasive.
posted by Glee at 8:08 AM on April 14

Well, I wouldn't--and I'm not asking you to listen to this, either--but whatever else this speech is, it isn't one of those.

Fair enough, and I'll take your word for it.

I don't actually know if he's entirely right, but he was very persuasive.

That's part of my problem with him—he is very persuasive, and very personable, and he tells a good story, and when he's praising stuff he likes that's great, but when he goes off on stuff he doesn't he can (because of his wide-ranging influence) have a bad effect. He doesn't like much of what's most vital in recent jazz, and it's partly due to his influence that the record companies keep promoting "young lions" who do a good job of replicating the sound of jazz 60 or 70 years ago.

And yeah, Wynton Kelly deserves more popularity.
posted by languagehat at 8:49 AM on April 14

Many people don't realize that Wynton Marsalis is an excellent classical musician.
posted by eye of newt at 1:00 PM on April 14 [1 favorite has favorites]

..as yoink, Mental Wimp, yiftach, and lelilo have mentioned. Anyone I miss?
posted by eye of newt at 1:39 PM on April 14 [1 favorite has favorites]