Review Summary: Forward-thinking yet still accessible, Wynton's new album blends many styles of jazz into one. However, he takes the road taken heavily these days and pulls out generic political lyrics and contradicts himself.
Wynton Marsalis was simply born in the wrong time period. He is a traditional jazz musician who immerses himself into the style of the heyday of jazz. Back in the 80s when Wynton was the young phenomenon around the ever-shrinking jazz world, he constantly looked to Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, and many other jazz greats still alive at the time. In fact, Wayne Shorter tells a story to his biographer Michelle Mercer where Wynton showed up at his house unexpectedly so he could sit with Wayne and listen to recordings of the famous Plugged Nickel shows. When Wayne was with Miles in his second major quintet, they played at a club called The Plugged Nickel in Chicago. The rhythm section got the grand idea that they would play “anti-music”, or playing everything the opposite of how they normally played. Miles and Wayne eventually caught on and the band gave brand new life to the songs they’d been playing the same way for too many years. To the greats, even improvisation gets old. The forward thinking of those recordings never really found their way into Marsalis’ music; he has always been seen as too traditional and too “by-the-book”, one of the best representations that Marsalis hates when he lives. His new album, From the Plantation to the Penitentiary, is a compilation of Marsalis’ gripes and complaints, where he puts all his thoughts on paper and even takes a few experimental spins on his music.
Wynton is one of the most knowledgeable jazz artists of all time; he studies extensively in jazz history and grew up in New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz. However, he is also a Pulitzer Prize winner for his oratorio (a musical composition that involves a chorus, solo vocalist, and orchestra, such as Handel’s Messiah)
Blood on the Fields. His constant switch from jazz to classical makes an influence and change in his music, especially in the piano lines in
Love and Broken Hearts, one of the album’s two ballads. Marsalis notes the style of each song in the album’s liner notes, and they give intimation as to the musical complexity of the song.
Love and Broken Hearts simply says “ballad”, and it is one of the simplest song of the album. It is not terribly original, but the talent of the musicians on the album shines. Wynton pulls in a woman jazz vocalist named Jennifer Sanon. This song puts her in the full blown spotlight, with only slight instrumental fills from the sax and a lush rhythm section accompaniment. Like a Billie Holliday of the 21st century, Sanon sings through a story of metaphors and of course, about love.
Love and Broken Hearts proves why jazz enthusiasts disregard “smooth jazz” as a section of actual jazz.
The opening track,
From the Plantation to the Penitentiary, is notated as “6/4 groove, 6/8 naningo, 6/4 swing”. Obviously, the song is much more complex than the average song on the album. The groove revolves around a low piano and bass scale while trumpet and sax play overtop of it. Sanon adds another layer of melody with some more fiery vocals. As interesting the music may be, the lyrics of Sanon’s vocals add the most effect, drawing constant comparison to today’s African Americans to the slaves from the beginning of America. A radical point of view, but the lyrics are well-crafted. However, the overall message of the album contradicts itself later in the album with
Supercapitalism. It takes the opposite spin on American society, saying that we have too much freedom. Musically, the song is very spastic, as it goes from fast swing to a slow shuffle to what Marsalis calls a “Charleston cha-cha”. Despite its creative and dramatic changes in style, the song is rather annoying, especially in the fast swing. Still, the most annoying song is
Where Y’All At? The song blends swing, Motown, and spoken word into one political blend. Marsalis speaks like a prophet through prose and simple rhyme schemes while dainty melodies play under him. His lyrics are very defeatist and just annoying. His complaints are completely baseless and he uses so much slang that it is nearly undistinguishable, even if that is one of the things he complains about.
Wynton Marsalis’ new album is one of his more forward-thinking albums from a musical standpoint. He blends many different genres together and at some points completely abandons his traditionalist styles. The music is very good and also not too abstract because of Jennifer Sanon’s vocals. However, the lyrical concepts and contradictions detract from the album heavily, as well some of the subpar musical tracks such as
Supercapitalism and
Doin’ (Y)our Thing. Wynton’s trumpet playing is spot on as well as the rest of the instrumentalists, with some fantastic soloing that comes in good amounts of moderation. The album is certainly listenable all the way through although it is nearly an hour long, but paying too much attention to it is difficult because the contradictions and repetitive grooves get tedious.
Recommended Tracks:
From the Plantation to the Penitentiary
Find Me
Love and Broken Hearts
