Wynton Marsalis and Eric Clapton Play The Blues

[Charles Drago]

I have a quote tucked away somewhere from Marsalis on excellence, Juilliard and the Yankees from a PBS show on Juilliard: http://www.thirteen.org/pressroom/release.php?get=188

Wynton Marsalis Live at the Royal Albert Hall 2002

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqOOO74MHAM

This is the song that slowly made me wake up and realize the greatness in Mark Knopfler:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64vvX6-d_...grec_index

Maralis playing "Cherokee" at the RAH tells us all we need to know about his limitations and intentions. His double-time runs are absent all internal logic and musicality, and his physical posturing, including facial contortions, are evidence of the intent to deceive.

And he has the balls to call Miles Davis a poseur!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ren8bO5EKs

Listen to Clifford Brown's "Cherokee" ... hear the balanced "stanzas" and ever-lengthening lines ... the mini-melodies used as motifs to build upon ... dig the lovely melodic bit used at the beginning of the bridge during the trading of fours with Max Roach ... BEAUTIFUL!

Listen and compare the Marsalis and Brown readings often enough, and you'll appreciate the differences. And think about this: Eventually you'll find that you can hum many of Brown's lines. Marsalis's lines are just notes.

It's the difference between writing and typing.

Then go to the ultimate: Charlie Parker playing "Koko," his take on "Cherokee" changes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_ZajJd-1kY

In the '70s a five-saxophone group calling itself "Super Sax" recorded harmonized arrangements of Parker solos, including "Koko." They were able to do so because Bird's improvisations were supremely logical in their development, overall structure, and sheer melodicism even at the most hellish of tempos.

Compare these to Marsalis's ersatz concoction.

Underlying all of my thoughts about art is my conviction that it can be evaluated via the application of objective, universal standards. I appreciate the fact that Marsalis agrees with me. He is a fairly gifted if infrequently eloquent teacher.

One more point: The great alto saxophonist Phil Woods has referred to Ken Burns's "Jazz" documentary as a "travesty." I wholeheartedly agree. The series is at best the equivalent of a razor-thin Wikipedia entry designed to raid the discretionary incomes of the congregants of the Avatar of the Armanis.

One case in point: To "explain" Charlie Parker and Bebop, Burns trots out Marsalis. Now bear in mind that the powerfully articulate Woods and his contemporary and Parker protege Jackie McLean were available to offer their extraordinary first-hand insights into Bird's music and the social context from which it emerged. McLean, the distinguished educator who founded the Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz at the University of Hartford's Hartt School of Music, does appear for a total of two minutes or so. Woods, another world-class educator as well as epochal altoist, is among the missing.

But Burns does give us Marsalis, who shamefully reduces as important and towering a period of musical evolution as any you can name from any genre to a series of "boop-be-da-doo-beeeee" nonsense syllables delivered in a faux drawl.

"Jazz" is to jazz what "Ultimate Sacrifice" is to JFK assassination truth and justice.

And Wynton Marsalis is its ideal Facilitator.

[Keith Millea]

I know Charlie will never warm to Clapton and even I am more a Santana/Hendrix aficionado even Harrison though there a small part of my world for Beck and Clapton. But I agree with you that the world needs more art and jazz being a huge part of that. Otherwise we end up with........crushingly dull and turgid marching songs

Yes,and there's that rumor of Miles Davis and Jimi Hendrix getting together for a boiling pot of Bitches Brew.That sure would have been interesting.....Ah,but fate.....

[Charles Drago]

More "Cherokee" this time from Warne Marsh (tenor) and Lee Konitz (alto).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDmgTzlt2...ture=share

[Ed Jewett]

Thank you , Charles. The enjoyment of the audio portion of the lesson will have to wait until I return from my prior commitment to Damariscotta oysters....

[Charles Drago]

Better me than you.

[Ed Jewett]

Turns out the oysters were from Duxbury... not up to the same standard as Damariscotta. And the mussels weren't up to their usual standard either. But the lobster bisque was reminiscent of the tea house at Jordan Pond. And the listening will have to wait as the house is asleep... but good things are always worth waiting for.

[Ed Jewett]

I know Charlie will never warm to Clapton and even I am more a Santana/Hendrix aficionado even Harrison though there a small part of my world for Beck and Clapton. But I agree with you that the world needs more art and jazz being a huge part of that. Otherwise we end up with........crushingly dull and turgid marching songs
[video]

omg, it seems just like some American discussion boards, competitions to see who can raise and straighten their arms the fastest, the straightest, the most earnestly....

[Ed Jewett]

... eventually you can hum any of Brown's lines. Marsalis's lines are just notes.

It's the difference between writing and typing.

As I listen to Brown here (finally), and read your notes, I recall a line somewhere about the beauty in something is often the space between the notes... Alas, on this song, I am afraid I am forever "warped" by listening too often to Dave Brubeck's version of Cherokee.

[Ed Jewett]

.... Ken Burns's "Jazz" documentary [i]s a "travesty."

Listening to Parker on "Ko-Ko", I feel like I am back in History of Film in college. I fully appreciate that to appreciate, understand, or critique later-day film, or attempt to do something in the genre, one has to understand the history, and the roots. One has to watch Eisenstein and, god help us, even D W Griffith.

And I'm not a fan of Burns' "Jazz" either... though I do kick myself each time I recall that I studied film production a very short distance away from him during his college and early production years. I give him some props for trying to take on the subject, and trying to warm America to its musical greatness. That it was not received well by those who played the game says a lot. It makes me wonder how people who have a deep appreciation for the game (not the MLB variety of it) of baseball would regard his treatment of "Baseball". [I stuck to playing it, seeing my kids play it, coaching my kids playing it, watching some masterful amateurs, reading The Encylopedia, SABR, baseball quotes, watching some flicks abut the game, and calling games in a single-ump system in fastpitch softball at the 12-18 level.] So when I hear some of the old masters... some of the early recordings of Satchmo and many others come to mind... I can appreciate once in a while the greatness but more the spirit. My ear needs further training. Sometimes I do not appreciate why so many revere Coltrane (though there are two songs that are moving me in the same direction), but give me time.

[Ed Jewett]

More "Cherokee" this time from Warne Marsh (tenor) and Lee Konitz (alto).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDmgTzlt2...ture=share

Ah, much better.. which brings to mind where I was going with the film analogy (it doesn't work in baseball) about the state of the art in any given decade or era about acoustics, recording technologies and the like.

A good player is a good player no matter who hears or watches, or how they hear or watch.

But I am still looking to top my experience watching Bobby Millitello chanting over the mouthpiece of his flute with the Dave Brubeck Quartet in Saunders Theatre doing an extending rocking version of "Koto Song".

It's about being in the moment, for listener or player/listener, and tapping into the eustress of the audience, the other players, and the music, and then letting it lift you to a higher plane.