[Dixielandjazz] The New Wynton Marsalis CD - Reviewed in NY TIMES

[Steve Barbone]

Slightly off topic, but a fun read. The Rap content in "Where Y'ALL At?" is
delightful, in my ears. Maybe the jazz poets on the list could infuse some
of this into some new OKOM songs? (Read the last two paragraphs below)

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

WYNTON MARSALIS - ³From the Plantation to the Penitentiary² - (Blue Note)

>From his landmark album ³Black Codes (From the Underground)² through his
Pulitzer Prize-winning oratorio ³Blood on the Fields,² the trumpeter Wynton
Marsalis has always found avenues for social critique. But his new quintet
album delivers a fresh jolt to the system, by blowing apart the refuge of
allegory. Oh, and he raps. But we¹ll get to that.

Mr. Marsalis delegates most of the album¹s vocal duties to a remarkable
newcomer, Jennifer Sanon. Singing in a clarion tone with minimal vibrato,
she projects a timbre not unlike Mr. Marsalis¹s trumpet, carrying the album
the way that Abbey Lincoln carried Max Roach and Oscar Brown Jr.¹s ³Freedom
Now Suite.²

But that was a cry for civil rights; what troubles Mr. Marsalis is the state
of civility itself. His lyrics disparage a culture of heartless poverty,
chic misogyny and rapacious greed. He delivers the sharpest jabs himself,
quasi-rapping on a track called ³Where Y¹All At?²:

All you ¹60s radicals and world-beaters
Righteous revolutionaries, Camus-readers
Liberal students, equal-rights pleaders
What¹s goin¹ on now that y¹all are the leaders?

Don¹t be fooled: Mr. Marsalis still has no amicable feelings for hip-hop,
the genre his lyrics elsewhere deride as ³ghetto minstrelsy.² But while this
album builds on blues and jazz traditions ‹ by way of a band that has
studiously conquered them ‹ it also hungers for relevance.

³You got to speak the language the people are speakin¹,² barks Mr. Marsalis,
³ ¹Specially when you see the havoc it¹s wreakin¹.² But he seems aware that
fighting fire with fire, in some cases, might only fuel the flames.

NATE CHINEN