Wynton Marsalis: Unforgivable Blackness

Wynton Marsalis' music for The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson parallels the fate of America's first Black Heavyweight Champion of the World. From sprightly entertaining to dramatic and intense, his score follows the boxer's fame and estrangement. The blue mood of Jelly Roll Morton's "Deep Creek," featuring Lucien Barbarin's soulful wah-wah trombone, provides a plaintive cry that we identify with the racial struggles that Johnson experienced. "The Jack Johnson Two-Step" adopts different moods, from happy and gay to slow and depressing. With each scene portrayal, Marsalis provides genuine sounds from the period.

This was a time when jazz was first getting its start. Marsalis' score combines ragtime, blues, and traditional jazz with mood-setting circumstances. Johnson, who loved music, played contrabass and sponsored a jazz band in his Chicago nightclub. The "St. James Infirmary" mood that Marsalis offers on "Fire in the Night" clinches Johnson's original love for the music that moved America. His historical feats in boxing deserve to be tied in this manner to the historical changes that were being made in early jazz.

Extending his traditional sextet, Marsalis recreates the sound of history with an expert's touch. Victor Goines, Doug Wamble, Reginald Veal, Wycliffe Gordon, Herlin Riley, pianist Eric Lewis, and Marsalis provide a lovely soundtrack that represents the period as well as the boxer's rise and fall. Highly recommended, Unforgivable Blackness provides an excellent overview of Johnson's place in history.

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