28th August, 1982 New Musical Express - Page 19

that there's a fascinating fraternal was my duty to try and play this sounds like Miles - they can 't make ICEtie.'' game in progress. Branford is all music, on the highest level t.),at I can me a leader. Either I am a leader and "N droll curves, demure peeks into the play iton." the cats will respect me, or I'm not. gaps left by the last soloist, sudden The conditions- I think of the Someone else will come and do it. We're walking up hefts into the low register and a Eu ropean festival circuit, the endless Another cat who sounds like Bird • I from the downstairs bar at forecast thundercloud that never rourid of established clubs and will come. Ronnie's, and Wynton quite arrives. When the two meet in familiar residencies. Is he afraid of " Your plan is what makes you a a climactic, braced charge against\ be.ing trapped in this routil"!e7 leader. The thing that made Miles Marsalis swivels to check my the rhythm you can almost hear the "Everybody's trapped in their great was that he could play. The silvery noo.se. pt course, I tell fire crackling. An excellent rhythm surroundings. My job is to see those publicity he got was bullshit to sell him where I got it (you think section acts as lever to the surroundings improve, for other records. He could play - that's the I'm going to tell you?). adventure. guys. Like, if you expect things- if bottom line on everything. The last you say, Solid - I'm a jazz musician, Urbane to a fault, he pauses to Basically, a hard bop j:fuintet: ten years, I don't know. Maybe he except hard bop was ne~er really like I'll be put in a shitty hotel, then that's just wanted to make some money. sh ake a hand as we file through this. The Marsalis brothers what you'll get. If you say, Fuck this ''The whole genre of shit they call a capacity crowd at the Scott dismantled the locomotive, the - put me in a good hotel, man - jazz fusion ~ some good music Club. Eyes glittering, teeth bared underca rriage intact but a sleeker, then you'll get that." came out of that. I'm not saying it's in a sly grin below a trim wisp of more angular proposition on top. A You have to be good in the first all bad, but compared to this -=- it a moustache, Wynton lights-up mode that had humidity as an place, perhaps. don't stand water, man." another admirer, iust as he had unyielding climate was swept, aired , " If you're not good then you don't , h~l~here a .~hp .~age of great players done minutes earlier in a and recharged In a manner that c{eservea g~ofunk music- has the jazz universe at his feet. Not What does he think about while th8 reason I don't like it much is not since Clifford Brown floored all- he's playing? · because of the music, some of it's Stateside competition ne,arly 30 " Music. It's an abstract art. The hip sometimes-but!hewords ., IGHT, OF COURSE. Taking a years ago has a trumpeter promised object is to attain the highest don't say sh it I What they.count as greater man's lesson ~nd outrag eous is how many curse so much. There's something about expression in that idiom so it will Rproviding your own nuance and the trumpet that's crystallised a stand the test of time and leave an words they can stick into a tune, how embellishment is finer than lunging certain enterprise in the ja'zz spirit: it imprint on history. About thr8e per many dumb phrases they can stick after innovation when it's beyond inside a song. was the burnished, sirlging attack of cent of all music that's played your grasp. " A ce rtain level of stupidity is Armstrong, Gillespie and Brown that around the world does that." "It's like any music. Some of the crea tive. Really stupid lyrics are . unleashed a peculiar sense of Heari ng Marsalis speak - th~ cats caQ play, the rest of them are 1 slight drawl of his nativ~ New fun ny, like Parliament. But who sad. The avant ga rd e now, that's darting into stratospheres, setting w rites great lyrics, ma·n? Rock the ta il of a tempo afire, cuffing Orlea ns toughened to a mostly like 1940s Europea n music musicjans? I check them for the attentiOn to a declaration in w isecracker's edge bY his years in with some blues licks thrown in. New York -furthers the archetype toons . .. Stevie Wonder. Paul ''There are people w ho believe magnesium. of the cool operator. He's friend~y, McCartney does some good things that jazz is not an academic music. The urgent piercing of the onc_e in a while." ' trumpet's treble tone can spark a unfailingly sharp in conversation. Whafl have to tell them is that once His history can be nutshelled in a J\nd in jazz? a tradition has.been established an magically abruptinvolvementfrom moment: firsttrumpet at six, " Miles in the" '60s, not in the '70s. listener-aod pla"yer alike: a academy ha s to go along and classical lessons till 12, studying at That's not jazz. T~ar,e, Birq,J ou_is support and deve lop it. My Cfescendo in chrome effects the Juillafd at 17 and a job._with.Art Armstrong, Glifford, Clark T8rry- I technique has co me from studying transfouriation Of the moment. BlakeY'sJazz MesSerlgers, the like a lot of people, man. Anybody that tradition. You want to be a jazz Marsalis understands that, has the make-or-break workshop for hot w ho can plaY !'like." , cd mposer? I saw Wayne Shorter sit ignition of exciter:nent down hot an d young talent. Marsalis stunned I decide to wave a label under his down and play Thelonious Monk cold - but the most remarkable everybody. If you can get hold of 'Art nose . What made him decide on tunes for an hour -he understands, thing about him is the way he pares Bl akey And The Jazz Messengers' on hard bop? because he studies the masters. You a prodigious technique to such Ki ngdom Jazz or the debut album for " I'm not playing hard bop. There etched and polished detail. There's say you want to play something CBS (which I was a little too cool on) w asli't no be-bop licks in that set. new, that doesn't sound like anyone no ta utological grabbing, no you w ill be too. Hara bop is like . . . " He goes into a else, and that's what you sound like needless flurries of·recourse to " It's the hardest music to play. superb exposition oj. bopscat. .,, -nothin'." flamboyant rhetoric: People look at things in two·different "You know wha\ l'm saying? Our Is this an ex~lusively black - In an enthralling 90 minutes it was ways. Some people look and say, music's like a combir:--B$ion of three tradition for him? as if the hornman was shaping c! • this ca n't be dOne;.some say, it can, different '60's groi.Jps- Miles Davis, " Oh no, man, music has no c'o/our. single solo, retreating into the it's just that nobody's doing it. That's Ornehe Coleman and John Coltrane. It's just that the majority of good shadows of rhythm,-reconnoitering how it alw ays is. I decided I wanted I' Some of it's what they used to call playJ!rS are black. If this w asn't a the possible strata of melodies an d to db this because nobody else was avant garde-there's no titles for black-white thing it wouldn't be no tactically unfolding the lotus until it really doing it.Jt'~ something that's thismusicyet." I issue. Music is music. It's the exact w as time to close up. going down the drain-the tradition It'll come. If there's one thing the opposite of racism. It ca me·o\Jt of Hi s brother Branford on tenor sax is s.o' great, but there's so many jazz establishment' loves it's a / people's_d esire to express w hat they is so elegant a foil it's a disgraceful Teenage misconce ptions because of the players' school. Marsalis, thoui:Jh, co uldn't do in words. Do you realise pleasure. Superficially reserved, nature of musicians arn:t the seems set t6 be immortalised: how how much pain motherfuckers've trumpet major even hesitant, it eventually dawns co nditi0ns they have to play'in. It does he feel about that kind of had to deal w ith? You know w hat it's attention? like w hen you've been assigned an WYNTON " No critic can ma'ke me a star, inferior position in society - w hen make me into something I'm not. you realise something ain't right?" .MARSALIS You understand what I'm saying? Marsa lis sounds uncOmmonly The musicians give me respect. rational on the breaks. But w ill he When cats wlio've been playing the burii himself out-starat20, · lights up music for 40 years, wlio don't give a scuffler at 25? shit about me or anyone else- " That's not gonna happen, man. I another w hen they come up to me and say, ca n't hardly play yeti It's amazing Ma n - you swingin'I That's what that I'm 20 and I can do what I can admirer, makes me feel good. do, but that doesn't make it stand up " People who've heard some against the greats. Maybe I'll get to RICHARD COOK records and read a couple of jazz that if I keep going .. . " books and hear me and say, tha,t And Wyhton went out to play

- '.r!':.~4~

I ' ...... __..... -... f • I :! . . _, ,.