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The great innovators of jazz who lived long enough to encounter controversial trumpeter Wynton Marsalis had mixed reactions to him. Late Miles Davis drummer and fusion founder Tony Williams—an early supporter of Marsalis who engaged him for a time in V.S.O.P. and who played on Marsalis’ 1981 debut album—loved his tone but felt that “every lick he played was recycled Miles.” Davis himself threw Marsalis off the stage when he came out unannounced to perform with him, and though bebop patriarch Dizzy Gillespie acknowledged Marsalis’ lack of innovation, Gillespie felt that “you can’t take anything away from that boy, ’cause he can play.” Today Marsalis can indeed still play, though having developed no particular musical voice of his own, he has instead raised his verbal voice to preach a narrow, evangelical and traditional view of what “true” jazz is and has vast and influential supporters, particularly filmmaker Ken Burns, who bought the Gospel of Wynton hook, line and sinker in his embarrassing PBS “Jazz” documentary series. Marsalis returns to familiar terrain, that of Duke Ellington, by exploring love songs written by and for Ellington and his band with the virtuoso fifteen-piece Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra in a concert appearance (Friday night) and a special “Jazz For Young People” event (Saturday morning) that will feature Marsalis evangelizing on “What Is Swing?” with live examples from himself and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. Bring the kids for the music, cover their ears during the talks. (Dennis Polkow)
Friday, January 18 at Symphony Center
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