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- 50 great moments in jazz: Wynton Marsalis goes back to basics
He's not without his critics, but Marsalis's dedication to the spirit of jazz is more than worthy of a place in the hall of greats
Like Sonny Rollins, Keith Jarrett and the late Miles Davis, Wynton Marsalis is one of a handful of jazz instrumentalists whose name is known beyond the world of the jazz cognoscenti. But unlike the other three, Marsalis has polarised opinion more than any other jazz artist of the last 30 years.
A consummately skilful trumpeter, an ambitious large-scale composer and a shrewd campaigner for jazz, he has become one of the biggest international stars of a tradition that was already being marginalised by rock and pop-influenced jazz by the time he burst on to the scene as a teenage virtuoso in the early-80s.
By the end of that decade, Marsalis's face was on the cover of Time magazine, which billed him as the chief architect of "the new jazz age". But he made plenty of enemies as well as friends.
Marsalis's trumpet-playing made the jaws of even hardened pros drop, and there are plenty of episodes during the 1980s that his many admirers would defend as a great moment in jazz. But beginning in 1986, the series of albums the trumpeter released under the telling title Standard Time perhaps defined his message better than any others from his early years. In the jazz climate Marsalis entered (touched on in this series's coverage of Weather Report and jazz-fusion and the fiercely exploratory soundscape of Anthony Braxton), the 25-year-old's work sounded like a return to the jazz played before he was born – as he intended it to. Here's the standard April in Paris, from 1986's Standard Time: Volume 1.
The classical-recitalist's uniform and the soberly candid expression on the album cover carried a message as significant as that dazzling trumpet solo: Marsalis was calling time on US cultural assumptions of the 1980s. Jazz musicians, especially African-Americans, had in the 20th century created a unique American art form with global repercussions, and Marsalis was incensed that the music industry, the media and the arts establishment were not only showing it no respect but conspiring to kill it off.
With a zeal and energy to match the virtuosity that allowed him to play jazz and classical trumpet with equal ease, Marsalis was determined to lead a fightback. For this determination alone, whatever the critics who dismiss him as a neoconservative think of his music, Marsalis's 80s work deserves a place in the great moments of jazz. Many young musicians around the world at that time (including Courtney Pine's generation of black British youth) were inspired by both the trumpeter's sound and his coolly charismatic authority, and began to view jazz as a potential life-path.
Wynton is the most famous and influential member of a New Orleans dynasty of musicians of which the patriarch is Ellis Marsalis, a respected New Orleans pianist and teacher who played with Ornette Coleman in the 1950s, and which also includes brothers Branford (saxes), Delfeayo (trombone) and Jason (drums). Wynton had distinguished himself in New Orleans classical orchestras as a child (he could play the Haydn Trumpet Concerto flawlessly at 14), and when he came to New York in 1979 to study at the Juilliard School – supplementing his allowance by playing in the pit-band for Sweeney Todd on Broadway – he was already a phenomenal technician. He began playing with veteran bebopper Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers while still at college, was soon on the road in a Miles Davis tribute band with former Miles sidemen Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams, then launched a solo career from which he has never looked back. But Marsalis was passionate in his belief, in in his teens, that a toxic mix of crass music-industry commercialism and the cerebral avant garde-isms of experimental jazz were consigning a precious tradition to the archives.
Marsalis's tone, technique and sense of narrative shape and direction initially recalled the introspective lyricism of Miles Davis in the pre-fusion 50s and early-60s, but also the polished sound and rhythmic momentum of hard-bopper Clifford Brown. Columbia Records took to alternately releasing jazz and classical albums in which Marsalis was the main attraction. By 25 he was winning Grammys. In 1987, he was appointed head of the jazz programme at New York's Lincoln Centre, named "one of America's 25 most influential people" by Time, and placed in Life's list of "the 50 most influential [baby] boomers". He began writing ballet and movie scores, even jazz operas, and with the accomplished repertory orchestra he created at the Lincoln Centre took eloquent dedications to such innovators as Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk to mainstream audiences all over the world, and into schools and educational institutions too. With family members, he has also campaigned tirelessly for justice and reparation for the citizens of his home city following 2005's Hurricane Katrina.
It's easy to typecast Wynton Marsalis as a neoclassicist, fearful of the future and fuelled by the desire to restore order, proportion and harmony to a fragmented world. In earlier years, particularly in his proselytising collaborations with the traditionalist jazz critic and academic Stanley Crouch, he has more than justified that impression. But Marsalis is changing, and becoming increasingly involved through performance and educational projects with artists outside his own culture (notably in Europe) who bring different influences to jazz. "Jazz is about joy to me – about things coming together," he once observed. "Affirmation and celebration – those are the qualities of jazz that attracted me first." Maybe for the first time, this driven and contradictory music-maker is hearing the widest implications of his earliest convictions.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Fixers – Here Comes 2001 So Let's All Head for the Sun
Four sparkling new songs from Oxford's answer to Animal Collective
We've been intrigued by Fixers for some time. Part of Oxford's Blessing Force scene, their Van Dyke Parkes-esque single Iron Deer Dream won over our podcast team at the start of this year.The band's new EP, Here Comes 2001 So Let's All Head for the Sun, is full of giddy ideas. Take opener Another Lost Apache, for instance, which starts off with a cappella harmonies a la Fleet Foxes before a barnstorming beat kicks in and a vocal line that could only be more Brian Wilson if it started playing piano in a fireman's hat. There's a playful desire to muck around on the mixing desk here, but these are still pop songs before anything else. Oxford's answer to Animal Collective? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - New music: Beth Jeans Houghton – Dodecahedron
Beth Jeans Houghton is back with – what else? – a song about a polyhedron with 20 vertices and 30 edges ...
As we all know, a dodecahedron, in geometric terms, is any polyhedron with 12 faces. You don't need me to tell you, either, that it always has 20 vertices and 30 edges. What you may not know, however, is that it's also the name of the new single – the first since she signed to Mute – from Newcastle-born Beth Jeans Houghton, whose last EP was released in September 2009. So why the wait? Apparently it's due to "unforeseen circumstances" and the fact that she's fallen in love with LA. Thankfully, she hasn't started writing songs about plastic surgery and her accent is still pretty obvious as she tells the story of a dream she had over rat-a-tat drums, swirling backing vocals and twinkling xylophone. Her album – produced by Ben Hillier (Depeche Mode, Blur) – is out in the autumn.
Dodecahedron can be downloaded for free from the player above.guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Moon Wiring Club's fitting tribute to Wills and Kate
There's a royal wedding on, apparently, but how best to soundtrack this great event? With an album about a fox marrying a phantom cat-bride, set to a reggae beat, of course ...
The royal wedding has prompted many musical tributes, from the balladeering of Blake to Taking Over the Dancefloor by Nadia Oh, who, presumably unlike Carol Ann Duffy, rhymes "Kate Middleton" with a popular tequila brand. But best of all is Moon Wiring Club's Somewhere a Fox Is Getting Married, which refracts the already odd pomp and ceremony into a parallel dimension where "greedy, wryly unwholesome, non-paying animal-faced entities" attend a phantom wedding on 31 April 1911.
"Often in charity shops you'll find royal wedding souvenir LPs," explains Ian Hodgson, aka Moon Wiring Club. "My favourite one is for Princess Anne and Mark Phillips: you have this lushly produced gatefold souvenir of a marriage that didn't work out. But this year I can't see there being an official BBC souvenir vinyl LP, so I thought I'd do one. People's reactions are just, 'I hate the royal family' or 'Isn't this absolutely joyous', but no one is saying, 'Well, what is this?'. The whole thing is quite peculiar.
"There are centuries-old carriages that have been locked away and are brought out just for the royal wedding," Hodgson continues. "You see aristocrats you never see in other circumstances; it seems to be the same people who are dusted down and brought out each time. And you see the magazines at the newsstands referring to it as a 'fairytale wedding'. I find that interesting – a lot of fairytales are incredibly disturbing. So when you have these headlines that say 'inside the fairytale', my thought was: 'What if it really was inside a fairytale?'"
Simon Reynolds discussed MWC's work on this blog recently (he's also written about the royal wedding, oddly enough) but to be brief: Hodgson's sample-heavy music (composed entirely on a PlayStation 2) is set in Clinkskell, a fictional village full of sinister spirits, beautiful women and quaint sweet shops. His last album focused on a card game in which the winner would get to marry into royalty; on this album, the fox-faced spirit who won is claiming his prize, a dotty feline called Princess Jackie. "Composing music for an insane, fashionable phantom cat-bride, set to a reggae beat, or for what a cavalier fox is thinking while being trapped in a hat-prison: I can do that," says Ian.
The resulting imagery and music is rich with references to English folklore and aristocratic idiosyncrasies, from phantom weddings in the Lake District to links between the ruling class and the lowly fox. "I'm not making a political statement, but one of Britain's most recognisable, popular creatures is something that is brutally hunted by the aristocracy, so if the fox plays a trick and becomes heir to the throne, he's disturbing things," says Ian. "In fact, since I decided that the groom would be a fox, I've noticed that Prince William has started to look more like one. I was in the Co-op and he was on a biscuit tin, looking a bit foxy."
Has Moon Wiring Club let loose a mischievous vulpine spirit, keen to hijack Kate and Wills's big day? Probably not. But amid the bland patriotism and kneejerk republicanism, he has managed to capture some of the gilt-edged, inbred weirdness of this rare national event.
Somewhere a Fox Is Getting Married is available to pre-order now as a souvenir LP with commemorative poster. You can hear Sly Gavotte, a track from the album, here.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - New music: Damon Albarn's 724th project this year ...
For his next trick, the workaholic musician collaborates with Dan the Automator and Kid Koala
Never one to take a moment's respite, Damon Albarn's latest collaboration with producer Dan The Automator and turntablist Kid Koala has leaked online after being played by the latter on New York radio show Beats In Space. The track is as yet untitled, but is expected to feature on Dan The Automator's forthcoming album. The trio have previously worked together on Deltron 3030 – a sci-fi hip-hop concept album from 2000, which also included rapper Del Tha Funky Homosapien.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Beyoncé's way of telling you to eat your greens
If anything's going to persuade America to get fit then it's Beyoncé jumping around to dancehall in a school canteen
When the UK tried to get serious about healthy eating recently it involved some plasticine figurines talking about sausages in northern accents. America, it seems, is one step ahead. And several dance steps ahead, too. Here's Beyoncé in a school canteen, reworking Get Me Bodied with a new video to encourage kids to hurl their Turkey Twizzlers in the air and shake their stuff to a bit of R&B and dancehall.At least that's what Michelle Obama's hoping – the track is part of her Let's Move campaign, which has been thrilling US conservatives.
It's brilliant – and possibly more exciting than Beyoncé's official single, Run the World (Girls), the video for which we still await – so let's just ignore the fact that, were you to try this in your own school canteen you'd get royally bollocked.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Ask the indie professor: Is All Tomorrow's Parties really different?
With festivals becoming increasingly corporate, no wonder people love an event where you can play poker with the artists
Indie professor, will you please explain the appeal of this May's ATP – I'd love to know your take on that festival.
HurricaneEdwardDestination music festivals with their interchangeable lineups have left space in the market for boutique events. Many festivalgoers are becoming increasingly annoyed with overcrowding, corporate sponsorship, high-priced merchandise, perceived organiser indifference, and vendors attempting to squeeze every pound, euro or dollar from them. At Leeds, you have to buy a copy of the lineup to find out what times bands are playing.
All Tomorrow's Parties has been able to present itself as a brand that doesn't feel like a brand. It has done so by adhering to stringent values of independence. It is a point of pride that the festival doesn't have sponsors nor does it try to maximise profits at the expense of the fan. ATP is a deliberately small festival. For example, at their site at Butlins in Minehead, the venue capacity is 10,000, but they sell only 5,000 tickets. Upon arrival you get a booklet with set times and the information about special events such movies or a pub quiz.
One of the festival's specifications is that the price is all-inclusive. Everyone who comes to the festival stays onsite, including artists. This egalitarian approach produces a communal atmosphere where artists and audience members are treated equally: no VIP area, no tiered ticketing. The housing is the same for everyone. Artists can be seen walking around, watching other bands play, even partying with festivalgoers. The ability to meet some of your favourite artists is particularly valued: playing poker with Steve Albini, trying to win on the quiz machine with John Cummings of Mogwai, or having Kelley Deal teach you how to knit, sets ATP apart from festivals where the closest you get to an artist is having water hurled at you from a stage protected by barricades and security guards.
This intimacy extends to the promoters themselves. Unlike most festivals, the promoters are not faceless. Barry, Deborah and other members of the small ATP crew personally respond to emails. They sign their names, give contact information and tell fans to come to them if there are any concerns. ATP fans feel like they have full access to promoters, artists and other festival attendees. The experience is the antithesis of being a faceless consumer feeling exploited or disrespected.
ATP has been successful in making each festival seem special. This is quite a feat when you consider that there are at least four ATPs each year in the UK. ATP chooses kitschy locations that are evocative of the past and childhood, tapping into the nostalgia that is redolent within the indie community. Each festival has its own special twist. Festivals are guest curated, generally by a highly regarded ATP band, like this year's Animal Collective, but curators have also included cartoonists, film-makers and music producers. The festival has instigated bands to re-form and play classic albums in their entirety. This idea has spawned a trend of re-formed bands touring cult albums.
In some ways, ATP itself is a curator. By consistently choosing some of the most avant garde and artistically minded artists, fans have a general idea of what an ATP band will be like. They trust the promoters to put together something they will appreciate. This makes ATP a throwback to the era of independent record labels such as 4AD, Creation or Factory, where people would buy records without ever hearing the band just because of the label. Fans feel ATP is a seal of approval for a specific style of music.
ATP has used the values of the independent community: anti-corporation, artistic integrity, intimacy, and equality for their commercial enterprise. The boutique festival makes participants feel like they are part of a small, egalitarian community, having a distinctive experience. All Tomorrow's Parties has created a successful alternative to the mainstream destination festival.
•This article was amended on 28 April 2011. In the original, bottles of water were said to be selling for $10. This has been corrected.
If you have a query for the indie professor about the music industry, indie or anthropology please leave a comment below, email her at theindieprofessor@gmail.com or inquire via Twitter @indiegodess
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать
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