May 2001

Seatle Sound
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By Marius Nordal

A couple of years ago in Dick Russel's book Black Genius, Wynton Marsalis is quoted as saying "I don't know why John Coltrane played the way he did… it must have been because of the critics." This statement reveals an astonishing lack of comprehension by Wynton concerning the motives of one of the most spiritual and deeply revered figures in all of jazz history and seems to foreshadow the direction that Ken Burns took in his disastrous PBS series Jazz. Some may argue that the series at least took a good look at the music up to 1960. That may be…except that things moved at such a glacial pace (How many shots were there of steam locomotives chugging through the night?) that many lay listeners I spoke to simply gave up after a couple of episodes of blatty, two-beat trumpet sounds.

Well, what else could we expect? Series senior consultant Marsalis, who apparently has no musical or intellectual ideas of his own, merely became a talking head for critic Stanley Crouch who, in turn, is an admitted "failed free-jazz drummer" (how can one possibly 'fail' at free drumming?). Finally, producer Ken Burns, who claims to have owned only two jazz recordings before the series, says in USA Today "I'm an amateur historian, and I haven't taken a formal course since American History in the 11th grade. History begins 30 to 40 years out…how could I presume to tell in the current scene who's great?" Fine. Well, if Ken is not a historian and is totally clueless about jazz, it's not surprising that he basically showed up to work on the series as an empty suit, creating a power vacuum quickly filled up by admitted failure Crouch and his protégé, Marsalis.

Back to the Future

Wynton must have been born with his feet attached the wrong way because he seems to be only capable of walking backwards. Like small children who occasionally become pretend-adults by slopping around in their parents oversized clothing, little Wynton initially mimicked mid-60's Miles. Then, under the increasing spell of Stanley Crouch, became adamant that real jazz occurred, not just before '70's fusion, but before '50's modal and then, finally, before '40's bop. Taken to its logical conclusion, he would have us end up with only about five good years from 1925 to 1930: they were Louis Armstrong's only creative ones before he started repeating himself. It's like those 1950's sci-fi movies where radiation makes lizards and ants grow to become the size of buses: Wynton, through Ken Burns, has irradiated Ellington and Armstrong to where they become so big, they distort the perspective of the whole series. It tries to diminish, by exclusion, some of the greatest jazz artists in history. Under the guise of time restraints, luminous players like Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett and Stan Getz, (all of whom are white) were ignored. Stylistic giants such as McCoy Tyner and Herbie Hancock didn't make the cut either. Even Miles Davis, the first and only player to basically change the sound of the trumpet since Armstrong and who is the history of jazz since the 1950's, is referred to as merely "a talented trumpet player." In classical music, this would be the same as claiming that since Bach produced the original mother lode from which all great western art music received its inspiration that, hey, one shouldn't take the next two centuries too seriously because they are just minor variations. This retro-fitting of history with politically correct ideas might lead one to believe that Uncle Tom's Cabin is better literature than Moby Dick because it helped end slavery whereas captain Ahab was only a white Euro-male stalking an endangered species.

The Great Myth

At the beginning of the series, Wynton says that jazz is the highest reflection of the democratic ideal: " A group of people can come together and create improvised art…can negotiate their agendas with each other, and that negotiation is the art." This statement is contradicted in the series in two ways. The first is; with Wynton, this is total war without any negotiation…in fact, he practices musical fascism. He has said that "people who read the Torah" cause all the problems in the music business and then goes and further commits cultural perjury, in an Orwellian way, by using the wide exposure afforded him by the series to rewrite a past he never lived. The second is, he keeps stressing that greatest of myths; that jazz is an " improvised art". This melts down pretty fast if you consider that, according to the series itself, vast amounts of the best music are written down. In the case of piano masters such as Art Tatum, the music is so rehearsed, note for note, that one has to literally memorize the nuances of alternate takes to tell the difference. If improvising reflects Marsalis' democratic ideal, then does that mean that Ellington, Ahmad Jahmal, Jellyroll Morton, Fletcher Henderson, Gil Evans, Bill Holman and many others all represent a musical dictatorship?

Perhaps if the PBS series had been made ten years earlier, when Wynton was imitating mid-60's Miles, it would have emphasized the second 50 years of jazz instead of just the first. Senior consultant Marsalis might have rationalized at this point in his career that Ellington and Armstrong were merely primitives who laid the groundwork that led to higher levels of consciousness as expressed through Charlie Parker and John Coltrane. At least that way the series might have been better able to connect the hot emotional gestalt of the pre-war styles with the cool, more abstract approaches that began with Charlie Parker and "action" painters like Jackson Pollack in the late 1940's. Instead we're left with the impression that the modern era was a giant mistake caused when the dance band and more community oriented approaches to jazz yielded to more individualistic and rebellious personalities.

The Young Fogies

Today we have the first generation of jazz players that doesn't have it's own language. To those of us who grew up in the age of vangardism during the 1960's, this is astonishing! The assassination of John Kennedy in 1963 followed, several months later, by the appearance of the Beatles seemed to cause an emotional dam to burst open. A huge gap opened up between the post-war baby boomers and their parents and music was the most immediate and vital expression of the passions of the day. One could visit the Penthouse jazz club on First Avenue in Seattle every week and hear Miles, Dizzy, Coltrane, Cannonball, Oscar Peterson and Bill Evans . There was also a whole slew of new "young lions" in their mid-twenties too, like Charles Lloyd, Chick Corea, Eddie Gomez, Gabor Zabo, Gary Burton, Keith Jarrett, Herbie Hancock and Jack DeJohnette...it seemed like the flow would never end. So what happened? How did we, in a single generation, go from heavyweights, like Miles and Coltrane, to being led by an uncreative man-child like Wynton Marsalis? Jazz , the great cultural permission-giver, the intelligent alternative to the vast wasteland occupied by Milli Vanilli and Britney Spears, has now become so repressive that you can predict most of the tunes, tempos and keys they will be played in before the band even starts. Everybody roll over and bark!

Forrest Gump Jogs

America went through a cultural burnout period during the 1970's when everybody seemed to spend their time reading self help books and jogging. Jimmy Carter called it the great "malaise." We had suffered through the Kent State massacre, the Viet Nam war and seeing Richard Nixon kicked out of office. Even Miles Davis quit playing and said that jazz was "dead". We tried to schuck off the past and, like a snake shedding it's old skin, we elected Ronald Reagan in an attempt to return to a more secure psychic landscape.

Out of the ashes appeared Wynton Marsalis and he quickly became the most visible member of his generation and unofficial spokesperson too. As a person of some intelligence, he probably quickly realized that he would have nothing new to say musically. Most musicians spend years learning to play an instrument, all the while working on their musical "message" too. If a gifted person should physically master their horn in virtually no time, as Wynton did, they're faced with being in the uncomfortable position of being caught with chops, but no message. Possessing little imagination or anything but physical talent, he simply borrowed from the styles of others. After a few years of reinventing the wheel, he seemed to take Stanley Crouch's lead and started to de-invent the wheel. How much easier it must have been to become a highly paid talking head with no thinking required either!

Wynton Marsalis is an artificial product of a lot of hype and boosterism by people that know little about jazz and see it as a tool to further racial politics or merely as a product to be sold. That a once-in-a-lifetime television project like Jazz featured a phony who does not command the respect of his peers or knowledgeable fans seems like an incredible waste. It is insulting to all the players of today who keep the music alive to suggest that jazz ability be determined by race. If whites can't really play jazz and Wynton plays both classical and jazz, is he suggesting that African-Americans are a sort of musical super-race? Perhaps a melanin induced sort of thing? Actually, there is a strong popular feeling today that not only questions whether jazz is black but whether it's even American anymore! Even a small, starter list of non-American players would include Oscar Peterson, Joe Zawinul, George Shearing, Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen, John McLaughlin, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Marian McPartland and Jan Garbarek.

All Is Not Lost

In spite of all the retro-kitsch of the Marsalis years, there are some bright spots on the horizon. Pianist Brad Mehldau seems to have an independent stubborn streak and is perhaps the first really major talent to appear since Keith Jarrett did some 30 years ago. There are many interesting new artists emerging from Europe too and there is now huge college campus scene. While not encouraging much originality, colleges and universities have certainly raised the standards everywhere across the country. There are now also hundreds of great books covering all aspects of the music too, many of them already classics. The Jazz series itself certainly has redeeming qualities. There were some nice photos (thank you Ken) and just exposing the public to this many hours of the music might enlighten some to the fact that it isn't Kenny G or soft-rock instrumentals.

Ken Burns has said, "The jazz community has done the worst job of selling itself…they are always squabbling about what is real jazz and what isn't". This series, which could have been subtitled "The Chastisement of White America" will almost certainly fan the flames of that debate for many years. Since jazz music still makes up only 3% of all record sales and is mostly supported by whites, anyone who would use this music to advance racial politics should be careful to not bite the hand that feeds them. I was glad when the end came.