By Mike Brannon
New Orleans. A name that conjures visions of the past more often than any other southern city. A truly American city in the sense that it was built on the foundation of various distinct cultures which are still present in everything from the food to the music. Our music. American music...jazz. Recently there's been a resurgence of quality and pride in jazz music; most of the credit belongs to a young trumpet player from New Orleans named Wynton Marsalis who has for a decade led the way, relentlessly honing the gift he was given. The gift not only of virtuosity on the trumpet or for crafting a song in the tradition of all great American music but the ability and drive to impart this knowledge to a new generation of aspiring young musicians.
MB: I'd really like to thank you for doing this.
WM: My pleasure.
MB: What would you like to impart to music students who value the improvisational tradition especially in light of the fact that pursuing music as a career can make for a very difficult life?
WM: Well just that when you ... that it's important to pursue education for personal development. Not that you should pursue education to for a career. Like, I knew I wasn't going to go into the math field, but I thought it was important to study calculus and trigonometry. And I really knew I wasn't going to use higher math and I wasn't going to go into history or science or any of that. But it's important to be educated about the world that we live in because it makes us better able to live and cope with civilization.
MB: Were you fairly well prepared for the fact that music can go alot of different ways financially?
WM: Oh yeah. Well, I knew that because my father was a musician who didn't work. So I mean I was born ... I mean I grew up prepared for that watching him, the way his his at- tempts to make money playing music went. I feel it's impor- tant for students to understand that studying Jazz music - if they really can get good instruction in it and studying the Blues and the other branches of American music including band music like John Phillip Souza's ... just adds to their understanding of our culture. And that's why it's (not) important whether they find work doing that or not, because
it will affect other aspects of their life positively.
MB: Do you feel that there's much value in the college level music programs? I mean is there a real purpose in musicians making an effort to get to these schools or do you think there's better ways of getting their stuff together?
WM: Well you know schools are just a center of information and it's up to you to pursue ... to get the information and going to school doesn't (keep you) from living in the world or doing whatever else you feel that you can be doing. So I don't think a school can take away from your attempts to learn something.
MB: In a recent NARAS music and education special report you discussed the value of the groove to and it's importance to students of music. How would you say they can best create it and lock into it?
WM: Well I don't know ... we need really tremendous reforms in the education system - everybody knows that. Now it's up to us, I mean ... people who are older, who are not really into groove to come up with curriculum that would work, and not water down the academic aspects of the program. Like for some reason it seems to me that alot of reforms that take place in the education system always entail students doing less work. Or having time to sit around and socialize ... like I explain to students whenever I go to schools - you're not going be in school your whole life in terms of an acedemic environment. A school is supposed to prepare you for adulthood and is supposed to prepare you to deal with educating yourself throughout the entirety of your life and for pursuing knowledge. And even when you're in school, it's only eight or nine hours a day. That still leaves you another eight or nine or ten hours to do what you want to do. So it's not like those eight hours you spend in school should be social time. And there's this perception that art courses are easy courses or that if you study music, that's an easy course, like something that you take if you don't want to study, and I feel that we have to reform the education system. And I think alot of people think that and are really trying to do that and I think that in the next ten years we will see some reforms that really are actually going have some positive impact and that will work ... the reformers can't constantly think that they should make schools easy for students.
MB: How would you tell a musician to be a better listener within an ensemble. What should they be listening for?
WM: Hey these are some good questions you have, man.
MB: Thank you ... do you want me to repeat the question?
WM: No no, I understand the question. Well, the first thing I ... would explain to the musicians is how all of the parts of the music that they're playing work. Like alot of times you might be in an ensemble and have no idea what everybody else is playing. Well if you don't know what the bass is playing or the piano then you know you can't interact and this is prevelent even in Classical music and all types of music. Maybe you might be reading a trumpet part in a Wagnerian opera and you don't come in for 793 measures so you spend that 793 measures, instead of listening to the music, you might be reading the paper or ... you don't really know how your part related to everything so then you ask somebody after the 700th measure, "What's the count" ... so 750 or so, then you start counting. Well the important thing that music can teach students is how to listen and learn what other people are playing and how that relates in society, it's like learning how to listen when people talk to you. Not only do you have to listen to somebody when they're speaking to you but you have to try to understand their perspective, then you can ascertain how you actually relate to that.
MB: You've had some great musical figures that you've learned from - Art Blakey and your father (pianist Ellis Marsalis) in particular. How do you feel that they really illuminated for you things about improvisation and presentation?
WM: Well first they made me understand the seriousness of learning how to play. Then, they would always put the music in a context, a human context. Other than that (they would) make you understand how the music relates to life. And actu- ally the man who really truly was my mentor in that way was Albert Murray, who's a writer in New York. And his whole thing is always understand the meaning of what you're doing. He always deals with understanding the meaning of things. So this mainly is what I learned from my father and Art Blakey and Al Murray. I just want to add one thing, not just the meaning but the function of things, like how a high note functions in a solo ... what a solo is in relation to a song what a song is in relation to a set of music. Like understand what Be-Bop is in relation to Jazz, understand what Jazz is in relation to Classical music, what Classical music is in relation to the world of music. Like that was Al Murrays conception: always becoming more and more comprehensive.
MB: In the way things relate and so on.
WM: Yeah, and that way you can actually deal with the func- tion of these things.
MB: About the relation between Classical and improvised mu- sic, how have you been able to seem to effortlessly move between those areas and what got you into Classical music in the first place?
WM: I first started liking Classical music because I heard a tape of Maurice Andre when I was thirteen. So I wanted to learn to play like him. I don't really play Classical music that much any more. It is very difficult for me to go from playing Jazz to Classical music. Mainly I play Jazz now and every now and then I'll do a Classical album, but in general I don't really play any Classical music.
MB: Will you continue with that at all?
WM: I'll still record every now and then, but the main thrust of my focus is not on that.
MB: What would you say, as far as events in your personal life or in your career, has had the greatest impact on your musical and personal life? Anything come to mind?
WM: ... Let me see, what would that be? There's been so many I could'nt just come up with a couple you know ... yeah because I mean I've had so many ... influences, you know, mo- ments and stuff.
MB: Who were some of your favorite influences?
WM: Well my father, Albert Murray, Crouch, Stanley Crouch, Sweets Edison, Clark Terry.
MB: The presentation of your music and your sound incorpo- rate alot of evocative vocal like techniques - smears, growls and so on. Is this pretty much a part of the New Orleans tradition that's become part of your conception?
WM: It's part of the whole Jazz tradtion. It's part of the New Orleans tradition.
MB: I mean you really seem to bring it out in your music more than I hear it in alot of other groups that are similar.
WM: Well that's just because after ... in the 1970's, the generation we grew up in, mainly, most of the trumpet players would be trying to play like a saxophone. So in the first two or three years after I started talking with Mr. Murray, he made me understand the importance of actually trying to deal with the history of Jazz - if it's actually something real and like if it belongs to those who play the music. I could hear that in the trumpet players like Louis Armstrong and Red Allen and Cootie Williams. The type of trumpet players that I would never have listened to coming from the Jazz Fusion era. All of these different effects and things that they were creating. I read a book by Sidney Bechet in which he said that he used to practice these things so he could get them down right and I realized that that's an important part of the language of Jazz that I had to learn and try to address if I was going to be a Jazz trumpet player.
MB: They had sent me your latest CD's and I was listening to the `Uptown Ruler' disc ...
WM: Oh yeah...
MB: And I was thinking, you know, this could have easily been recorded way back - even the lack of artificial reverb like you hear on everything these days. It just had a really authentic sound. Was that all conscious? Was that really important to what you were doing?
WM: Well the sound is very important. We're trying to work on getting something authentic, but what I try to do on a record like that is I'll take things that ... were used in earlier music but I'll make them modern. I can say the title track `Uptown Ruler' is like a New Orleans groove but it's in 5/4 (an odd time signature) and it modulates to another key during the saxophone solo - these are things that the musicians wouldn't have done earlier, like play in that strange time signature. And the first Psalm (`Psalm 26') is like a little prayer or something, you know? Like ... different aspects of the Blues tradition I try to deal with or the last song is called `Down Home With Homey' and it's a Blues but it's based on a twelve tone row. And the twelve tone row that forms the melody of the song `Down Home With Homey' is the bassline of the song before that, which is entitled `Harmonique'. You know, I'm always trying to use different devices and effects to unify the music ... (so) it conforms with the tradition but that's also modern, but modern in the truest sense which is not a faddish type of modern but the type of modern that addresses the acomplishments of the past.
MB: So you're trying to apply artificial techniques from various time periods to create that authentic sound.
WM: Yeah, just using ... all aspects of the traditions that I know of and incorporating it into one musical statement.
MB: Does the band itself have much say beyond the arranging process, I mean into composition and so on or how does that work with your group?
WM: Well the band ... we all ... its kind of an equal thing. Like I'll write a song but if they, if somebody hears some- thing different then they'll just say this is what I'm hearing and we'll figure out how to make it work.
MB: When did you know that you'd really stepped out and found your own sound? When were you sure of that?
WM: Well I always felt like I had my own sound. I didn't feel like it was that good but like I always knew that. I always felt that I had my own personality (which) would be projected through my sound. But ... maybe it's just the way that I hear because when I hear young musicians I can always tell who's playing. No matter who, you know - Roy Hargrove or Nicholas Payton or Jamal Haynes or any of these young kids who are around here playing - Peter Martin. When I first heard them play, they were 14 or 15 and they all had things that they did that identified them ... to me. So maybe it's just a way of hearing. I mean I can hear the influences of the people they like but then I can tell that they're just influences, you know?
MB: I was reading a Chicago Tribune review of the Trilogy set and there was one quote where the writer said (in reference to the CD's) they - quote "mark the point at which Marsalis splits from most of those who have followed in his footsteps". Do you think other performers have consciously tried to emulate you? Maybe too much?
WM: Maybe one or two, but not that many. I dont feel they've really tried. I don't think that ... alot of the young musicians ... I don't think they really even listen to my music.
MB: You don't think so?
WM: Or if they do listen to it they don't try to really ad- dress anything that's in it. I don't really hear that.
MB: I'm kind of surprised to hear that.
WM: Me too. My little brother's the first one that told me that, actually (laughs). My little brother Delfeyo.
MB: Maybe he was in a bad mood.
WM: No he was just telling me what he really felt. It wasn't like a negative thing, he was just saying "Man, you know, cats don't really listen to what you are actually playing". He can't hear any of that type of stuff in their music. They mainly listen to, you know, stuff from the fifties.
MB: Do you still work with your brothers or plan to at all?
WM: Yeah, I see them all the time.
MB: Of these up and coming acoustic players, who do you think will be innovators?
WM: Marcus Roberts.
MB: Yeah, definitely. Anyone else?
WM: He's the only one I can comment on for sure. There's a young trumpet player from New Orleans named Nicolas Payton . I think he's gonna be something.
MB: Concerning Civil Rights, do you feel that music, if not other forms of art, has the power or even an obligation to ex- press a positive stance when it can?
WM: Well, that's what the music does express because the music addresses democracy on the deepest conceptual level. The music. You don't have to have words. You don't have to stand around with protest signs. You don't have to march in the streets.
MB: No, there's alot of ways to do it.
WM: That's what the music itself represents. You don't have to have titles for your tunes that are Civil Rights titles.
MB: Do you feel that would be fairly obvious to the listener?
WM: Well I mean of course you can do what you want. I mean, you know, there's nothing wrong with that, like Sonny Rollins with the "Freedom Now Suite". Max Roach, you know, I mean there's nothing wrong with that. I like that kind of thing but what I'm saying is the act of playing Jazz itself ... if you really are trying to play real Jazz, which means everybody improvises - respecting what each other is playing you are making a statement about Civil Rights. And obviously the Jazz musician, somebody who's dealing with that level of sophistication, is not going to want to be a part of Racism and ignorance and all these things that keep the country in a backwards direction.
MB: That's right. About Miles (Davis), when you first came on the scene and all and he was just coming back into his ca- reer, there seemed like there was some kind of a rift between the two of you, at least in the press, I don't know if it was manufactured or what. What exactly caused that?
WM: Well, the rift was that I was trying to play Jazz and he was trying to play pop music and use his status as a great Jazz musician to relieve the pressure that the art form of Jazz put on the United States of America in terms of educa- tion. So you know the big debate in Jazz was always - is it just some lightweight pop entertainment which actually has also a race component in it ... or is it an art form that addresses the American mythology and which needs to be looked at seriously? Now at one time he was adamant that it was an art form that needed to be addressed seriously. That was when he was really playing and being serious. That's the Miles Davis that I was attracted to. Then in the late 1960's when Rock came over, when Rock was in the United States of America and it became real popular and they were making all of the money and getting all the publicity - then he switched over and wanted to be a Rock musician. So when I came on the scene, I came out to play Jazz. But I came out in the after- math of a scene that was decimated by Jazz musicians like him who tried to imitate Rock musicians, so that made it much, much more difficult for someone like me to learn how to play because the feel of Jazz had been, I mean, you know what hap- pened. So always there had to be a rift between he and I be- cause I was trying to represent the tradition of Jazz dealing with American mythology and he was trying to make some money and be commercial and sell his position as a great Jazz musi- cian to cosign this, whatever it was that he was doing.
MB: Right.
WM: But you know it wasn't really a personal thing. We both understood ... each other and it wasn't ... a negative thing where we would be fighting with each other or anything.
MB: Right. So there was no personal thing to mend or any- thing.
WM: Yeah, it was like we both knew what was happening, there) wasn't any confusion. He knew what he was doing, and I knew what he was doing and he knew what I was doing.
MB: Throughout his career though he used to rework alot of the current pop tunes of whatever time period it might have been; "If I Were a Bell" or even "Time After Time".
WM: There's a big difference between "If I Were a Bell" and Time After Time".
MB: Right, but just the concept where he's taking a tune that had...
WM: No. I'm going to tell you ... I've read that many times and I'm going to tell you that there's three major flaws ... more than that, but there are major flaws when you say that. Now the first major flaw in that is that when Miles Davis played "If I Were a Bell" ... that pop music. First, those songs were written by people like Cole Porter and Frank Loesser and George Gershwin, so they're on a much higher level. In terms of the construction, romantic content and the harmonic structure of those songs (they) are much stronger because they're written by musicians who were actually studied in music. And even a musician like Irving Berlin who wasn't a studied musician, grew up in that rich tradition, show tradition coming out of the European Art songs and the Viennese tradition of Waltzes. And they were also well versed in Ragtime and Minstrel songs and the John Philip Sousa marching band tradition. Those were different types of musicians. So when he (Miles Davis) played those Pop songs like "My Funny Valentine", he used those songs as folk material on which he would perform the Art of Jazz. When he performed "Time After Time" he was just doing a Pop cover of a Pop song. There's very little improvisation on the song and the general nature of the structure of the song was the same.
MB: So you're saying his attitude changed for the material rather than keeping the same attitude that he had of taking a current Pop tune...
WM: Yeah well, first the material was alot weaker ... there was very little improvising on the material, and the nature of the improvisation was different because the conception of a Pop song in the 1950's or 60's was to perform the Art of Jazz on it and transform it ... whereas the conception of the Pop song of the 70's, 80's and 90's was to cover the hits so that people could listen to and recognize the song and buy the record based on that. So that's another whole philosophy and conception of playing Popular music. Like the thing that we're saying. I've read that many times you know, and that's really not a correct assessment of what was going on.
MB: As far as your avoiding electronics, is there a specific reason for that other than it being outside the tradition?
WM: No. I just ... try to get the most expressive instruments I can.
MB: Would there be any way in which you might work with electronic instruments?
WM: Sure. An instrument is just an instrument. Like you're doing a film score or something ... then the expressiveness of the sound is not ... the most important thing.
MB: We're just about at the end here, is there anything you'd like to add?
WM: No, you ask good questions.
MB: (laughs) That's probably the toughest one right? ...
WM: No. I'm saying that was good.
MB: I'd really like to thank you for your time again and for the insight that you continue to bring to American music.
WM: I really, really appreciate that man, thank you very much.
