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Genius Guide to Jazz
Dr. Strangehead, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Ken Burns
Jeff Fitzgerald, Genius
Jeff Fitzgerald is AAJ's resident genius and is often consulted on jazz-related matters of national unimportance.“ Wynton at last came into his own as jazz's foremost figure; equal parts cheerleader, oral historian, artist, educator, and vodka with a dash of Angostura bitters, Worcestershire sauce, and a pearl onion. ”
Properly, the Roundheads were supporters of Parliament during the English civil war. They were opposed by loyalists to King Charles I, known as Cavaliers. I was a supporter of Parliament right up until Bootsy Collins left the group, but as a native Virginian, I am also inclined to support the Cavaliers. Never mind that I live in a part of the Commonwealth generally loyal to the Virginia Tech Hokies; and myself attended Virginia Commonwealth University, home of the Rams.
None of which matters.
Wynton Marsalis, whose head couldn't get any rounder if Charles Schultz himself had drawn it with a compass, and who is known for his somewhat cavalier attitude, was born on October 18, 1961, in New Orleans. His father, renowned jazz musician and educator Ellis Marsalis, named him after pianist Wynton Kelly (who himself, oddly enough, was named after obscure New Orleans tambourinist Marsalis Wynton). While it might be said that jazz was in young Wynton's blood from birth, the DNA testing required to confirm that statement wouldn't become a practical reality for another thirty years.
In the meantime, young Wynton (not that one, the first one) grew up in a household surrounded by jazz. His older brother Branford took up the saxophone at an early age, and younger brother Delfeayo found the trombone to his liking. Six year-old Wynton was given a trumpet by his father?s employer, the famed trumpeter Al Hirt. At first, Wynton was not interested in the instrument, preferring instead to pursue his acting career. Few people know that he originated the role of Franklin in those great Charlie Brown specials of the sixties, and was the only cast member who did not need to be animated.
Only four more Charlie Brown-related gags to go, kids. Collect the whole set.
At the age of 12, Wynton heard the music of John Coltrane. How he managed to go 12 years without hearing Coltrane in a house full of jazz is beyond me, but we?ll let that go for the time being. The important thing is that he did hear Coltrane, and it filled him with such an overwhelming passion for jazz that he dedicated himself to studying and practicing his instrument from then on. I personally believe his discovery of Trane was in fact all part of an overall scheme to nail Frieda, whose naturally curly hair had been fueling his pubescent fantasies since Play It Again, Charlie Brown (1971).
I disavow any and all knowledge of that last paragraph.
As a teenager, his thing for Frieda still unconsummated despite the magic of Coltrane's sax, Wynton turned his energies to playing classical music as so many young boys often do(?). By the time he was 14, he was already playing with the New Orleans Civic Orchestra, and attracting the attention of prestigious music programs from all over the country. Branford and he also formed a funk band, making my Parliament reference from the first paragraph seem eerily prescient now that you think about it.
After high school, the world was Wynton's oyster. The Tabasco? sauce on that oyster was a scholarship to the renowned Tanglewood Music Center in Boston. And while most young people in his position would simply have eaten that oyster then and there with some French fries and a few beers, Wynton took it a step further. He decided to make Oysters Rockefeller, using New York's prestigious Juilliard School as the spinach and Paremsan cheese. Upon graduation, he realized that even Oysters Rockefeller weren't intended as entrees and in spite of his thusfar charmed life, he was still hungry.
Enter Art Blakey, a hard-drinking, two-gunned U.S. marshal with hide tough as leather and a heart as big as Texas.
No, wait. Apparently, my computer is infected with the Louis L'Amour virus, which randomly Westernizes text in Microsoft Word, pardner. It?s still better than the sensuous, swollen, creamy, heaving Danielle Steele virus I had last year.
Meanwhile, back at the Ol' Drinking G Ranch.
Enter Art Blakey, the veteran drummer who had been at the helm of the Jazz Messengers since the 1950?s. The group was a de facto jazz boot camp, a working apprenticeship, meant to train young musicians and then send them out to make their own contributions to the music. Blakey and company had pioneered a style called Hard Bop, which sought to bring the black audience back to jazz by creating a melodic blues- and gospel-influenced sound with a more driving, straightforward rhythm.
Blakey also created Soft Bop, which used foam rubber instruments so that the kids could play jazz indoors without breaking anything. It never caught on, stylistically, but the concept was later sold to the Hasbro toy company and renamed Nerf. The royalties from this discovery kept Blakey in gravy until his death in 1990. And on a side note, it should be stated that in no way can Blakey be held responsible for the incredibly Nerf-like Kenny G, who himself should be repeatedly hard bopped.
And now back to our story.
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