By David X Young
Credentials; for ten years in a cheap loft in the flower district of
Manhattan (I am a painter) I ran open jam sessions in a free party
atmosphere until the early sixties, where some extraordinary musicians--
Chas. Mingus, Thelonius Monk, Jim Raney, Bob Brookmeyer, Teddy Charles,
Jim Hall, Bill Evans. Dave Mckenna, Hall Overton, Gerry Mulligan, Bill
Crow, Art Farmer, Jimmy Guiffre, Miles Davis, Paul Quinichette, Zoot
Sims ---among many others--- came often to play. This lasted until
roughly the death of JFK when jazz gigs became very few and the joyful
spirit began to falter for a number of reasons. About this time Wynton
Marsalis was born.
Nevertheless I wasn't one of the anointed jazz persons to receive a
digital set of the PBS series pre-broadcast, so I had to watch the
whole group of broadcasts in order to evaluate Burns' highly
celebrated effort. That is endure, for I never felt that a music I
have deeply loved and made part of my life for half a century could
produce such joyless tedium.
Burns---after the Civil War thing--strikes me as a vastly overrated and
pretentious filmmaker. His show on Frank Lloyd Wright was mostly gossip
about his girlfriends. whereas barely known filmmaker Kenneth Love's
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT AND JAPANESE ART took you effortlessly right into the
creative workings of Wright's mind. The difference is primarily that
Burns has oceans of corporate cash behind him that hardly anyone else
has. Here all that cash stifles the great free magic of jazz in the form
of a commercial for the "Wynt-bag".
When beginning to watch I strongly doubted anything new would come
from it. though one looked forward to enjoying an atmosphere in which I
once daily bathed. Burns at best is--or his stooges are-- good photo
researchers, and there were some nice visuals here and there. though
choo-choo trains seemed to be going lickety split all over the place far
too often. And some great goofs; a composite collage photo that
W. Eugene Smith made of my jazzloft building--with silhouette cutouts of
myself, musicians, groupies etc, all double-exposed for emphasis, is
used to represent the action in Harlem about the time in the twenties
when Duke Ellington arrived--- on one of those choo-choos. I guess
that's a tribute of a sort, but I strongly doubt it was intended to be
that.
There is also the nice surprise that the second jazz album cover I ever
did, the first of the Modern Jazz Quartet, is shown (uncredited) in full
color to suggest dope-free musicians, though I remember indulging at the
time I made it. (It almost never got to be in color; Prestige honchos
refused to pay for color plate separations so this one was printed in
red ink on orange paper , and for which I received a begrudged fifty
dollars). And I had never before seen a picture of Bix with a moustache.
But it's all downhill from there.
Wynton Marsalis is roughly the Cheetah to Burns' Tarzan of this series,
and Stanley Crouch its King Kong. It's their adventure, not ours, and
we are forced along for the ride, propelled by a heavy oracular prose
that squeezes all fun and juice out of the spirit and history of jazz---
as if it preceded Genesis itself. Come on, Wynton, Stanley, Ken and all
the rest of you, smoke a joint for Chrissakes and let's get it on!
John Grabowski has done a priceless satire on the lingo of these guys
which can't be bettered though it is certainly tempting. I might
suggest instead of boom-chick we go to bang-chick for the origins of
this music had much to do with sexual rambunction.
Jazz was originally-- for me-- a noise down the street; not for
everybody. There was an association with Devils and secret good fun.
And atop this---eventually-- came the realization that there was great
wit and aesthetic value to the making of this music although that
awareness was not really necessary to its pleasure--the 'art' did not
come first.
Of course one venerates the genius of Louis, Lester, Bix, Bird,
Duke-- all you need is ears and feet! But you don't need 'em
relentlessly shoved down your throat over and over as well, especially
by the noxious device of Cheetah talking over one of Louis' great
solos, telling you how to listen to what you are already trying to
hear.
When I hung out in the joints in the old days, smoking, drinking,
schmoozing, dancing and groping lassies, the jazz was the perfect
background and encouragement of the atmosphere, most congenial to the
central nervous system and spirit of fun. If--as usually happened-- one
of the players took a powerful solo that commanded our attention, the
action of the whole room would stop in awe of its majesty and power of
performance. The art came then, but the fun came first. It is the
artist's job to command attention out of this cushion of pleasure.
The great Zoot Sims; "Every night for me is a party".
How much richer and truly wonderful this series could have been if the
brilliant trumpeter Clark Terry, had been the major teaching voice,
instead of the 20 seconds or so given him. He has it all, the talent,
the knowledge, the history and a great sense of humor as well. Marsalis'
and Crouch's scatting would be no match for this titan.
My good friend the late Jimmy Rowles' encyclopedic knowledge and
experience is barely touched, let alone the fact he is one helluva
bright and highly original pianist!
The fine talents ignored are legion. One of the most glaring is Woody
Herman, who led two of the hippest and most original popular big bands
of the forties at a time when Ellington was floundering. Woody kept a
great many great musicians working over the years and deserves kudos for
just that alone. Rowles could tell you a lot here--- most fascinating
being the relationship of composer Igor Stravinsky to Woody and of his
writing for the group. And of the truly great Burns, Ralph., the shy
young man whose ingenious arrangements defined the persona of the band,
as well as knocking Igor right on his ear with Bijou.
As the series grinds to a halt to feature baby pictures of Marsalis and
add a random litany of allegedly promising young turks, the whole point
seems to be towards GREAT ART and all the attendant pretensions. If the
towering Sonny Rollins hadn't been woodshedding out on the Williamsburg
bridge when he was, I doubt if Coltrane would have gained such
portentous celebrity. Sonny could play rings around him, and always
did. I don't get any religious vibe out of Coltrane's endless modal
monotonies---but Bird, Lester, Louis, Sonny can give one great musical
moments of spiritual and gut ecstasy.
I wish I could remember verbatim a comment made long ago by Fats
Waller--- to the effect that, if you had to explain jazz, you would
never really get it.
One night in Bradleys long ago, Frank Wess was trading very hip fours
with the other musicians --all of wit and invention. It was great
musical fun. Ron Carter turned to me and said "Do you have any idea how
many players can't do that?"
Orson Welles put it brilliantly in his stage adaptation of MOBY DICK; "
There is no such thing as an unemployed audience."
