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Jed Novick meets Wynton
Marsalis
Brighton's not a bad place to
be a jazz fan, but when was the last time you saw a big name
jazzer? Let's try that again. When was the last time you saw a
big name jazzer whose name wasn't Courtney Pine? Well, get
your credit card ready, that's about to change.
Wynton Marsalis, gifted and
feted and controversial in equal measure, is coming on a rare
visit, playing Swingin' The Kingdom, a series of dates based
around the centenary of the birth of Louis Armstrong with The
Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra.
Was Armstrong a particular
influence? "I wasn't really attracted to his style when I
was growing up, wasn't that much of a fan." So why the
tribute? He's a great figure, but there are plenty of great
figures. "He's the progenitor of our style... a
gargantuan figure of artistic significance and we're just
gonna be playing some of his music, not trying to recreate it
or paying a tribute to him. We're just playing his
music." It's a stupid question, I know, but what's the
difference? You're playing his music but it's not a tribute.
"A tribute means it's more personality oriented, whereas
if you're just playing somebody's music you're saying that
their music has some value greater than their personality.
Like I wouldn't say I was paying a tribute to Beethoven if I
was playing his music. I'd just be playing his music."
Wynton doesn't like doing
interviews. He doesn't, I get the impression, trust the Press.
Perfectly polite and all, you understand. But how can you say?
Some people offer you tea and some people offer you tea and
biscuits. Wynton would probably figure if you wanted some tea,
you'd make some tea.
Born in New Orleans in 1961, he was a proper teen prodigy - he
was playing with the New Orleans Philharmonic at 14 and was a
member of Art Blakey's Messengers by the time he was 18 - and
awards? We're not even going to talk about awards. Listen,
he's had to buy a separate house to store all the accolades
and awards that have been thrown at him. He's clearly a
fantastically talented, wonderfully gifted musician, but
loved? No, not loved. Portrayed as the worst kind of suit,
he's seen as a reactionary force in a radical world, an image
not helped by his spat with Miles Davis in the Eighties:
"That motherf****'s not sharing the stage with me!"
Miles famously said in 1986. When he was made artistic
director of Jazz At Lincoln Center, J@LC in New York seven
years ago, his role as jazz's headmaster was secured.
I don't know. This is getting
too convoluted for a simple lad like me. I went for the 'Let's
be friends' tactic. Wynton is big on education. Whenever he
travels, he does jazz workshops in schools: "It's
important. What you take out, you've got to put back. You've
got to build on what you're doing." And so I made some
reference to how maybe he wasn't paying tribute as such, but
he was opening people's eyes, how it was a kind of education.
The sigh... You probably heard it.
"We're just trying to
entertain people with the music. We're not trying to recreate
it, we're not going to try and sing like him. No one can sing
like him." I wasn't going to ask if you were going to do
a stand up version of Hello Dolly. "Er, no."
Lincoln Centre Jazz
Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis play at the Corn Exchange,
Brighton on Feb 13.
copyright New Insight
2001
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