Wynton Marsalis. Since you’re reading a blog about jazz, I imagine his name will mean something to you. To some, his name rolls off the tongue, dripping like honey with admiration as one of the leading jazz musicians of our day. To others, his name is to be spat out with angry bitterness for how he has tainted their beloved music with his very existence. Whichever of these groups you belong to, you cannot deny that Marsalis has been a driving influence in jazz today, be it for better or worse.
So why is it that Wynton Marsalis now finds himself on the list of suspects in the alleged murder of jazz? He first made a target of himself when he wrote this article in 1988. Marsalis’ greatest sin as an artist is not recognizing the legitimacy of other art and his obsession with a label. It seems what has earned him such disdain is his rigid definition of what jazz is. His faithful clinging to the ways and traditions of the swing era has kept alive the forms of jazz long thought dead, all while claiming his to be the one true jazz.
Now before we take up arms to slay the false prophet in some sort of jazz crusade, let’s do a little evaluating here. There is little question that what Wynton Marsalis plays IS jazz. He has also been extremely successful with it, earning 9 Grammy Awards and one Pulitzer Prize since 1983. This is the point that I think people are angered by the most. Marsalis has essentially ignored every jazz innovation since 1960 (before he was even born) and many still regard him as the single most influential jazz musician living today.
I believe we can put the case of this “jazz heretic” away. Put away your pitchforks and douse your torches, because Wynton Marsalis has been wrongly charged of killing jazz. Go ahead, I’ll wait for you to get back. There, have a seat and calm yourself. I think we get so worked up over this particular trumpet player because he seems to defy the rule. He refuses to let go of the old ways, the beginnings of our art form, and yet he still remains hugely successful in what we know to be a progressive world driven by innovation. If anything, I feel he has done the world of jazz a great service by keeping our roots alive in his music. Yes, perhaps his rigid stance on labels in music is less than infallible but, love him or hate him, history WILL remember him as a great influence in the world of jazz. Yes, music, like all things, will move forward. Sometimes though, we all must be reminded of where we’ve been.
(originally posted on Jazz Heresy)
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