Wynton Marsalis - Marsalis Plays Monk

Marsalis Plays Monk

1999 Sony Classical/Columbia<

Produced by: Steve Epstein

Personnel:
Wynton Marsalis - trumpet
Walter Blanding - tenor saxophone

Victor Goines - tenor saxophone
Wessell Anderson - alto saxophone
Wycliffe Gordon - trombone
Eric Reed - piano
Ben Wolfe - bass
Reginald Veal - bass
Helin Riley - drums

I have a love/hate relationship with Wynton Marsalis. I enjoy listening to much of his recorded catalogue, but I have rarely been deeply moved by it. But I hate Wynton the revisionist, Wynton (as one of his former band mates referred to him as) the "Jesus of Jazz", Wynton the 800 pound temporally impaired jackass. Along with his sidekick, the equally pompous, overwrought and generally alzheimered after 1968 Stanley Crouch - who writes the liner notes for much of the Marsalis clan (and at one time, was an actual music writer that mattered) Wynton has been trying to "save"Jazz, a position I would argue is not his to have; not to mention unecessary. Mr. Marsalis would have you think that Jazz - that ever evolving and mutating thing - stopped with Coltrane's My Favorite Things and Miles's My Funny Valentine. He has been on a mission to make all jazz that does not "swing" the way he likes disappear or be forgotten, all the way down to helping Ken Burns make his special Jazz mini-series a marathon of boring histrionics and very little of the actual dirt, grit, beauty, glory, filth and fame that i should have been.

Wynton is good because he is technically an adept player, and he can make above par interpretations of material, even if his own compositions are mostly mediocre. This is bolstered by keeping a steadystable of good sidemen that actually play really well and with conviction. Wynton has on occasion made some really great albums (I recommend J Mood and Levee Low Moan), but this one is not one of them. Marsalis Plays Monk is the first in a series of albums by Marsalis called Swinging Into The 21st, and as a lead-off, good old Wynnie plays it about as safe as he can, which is sad. Sad not only because by playing material from the Thelonius Monk canon not only lends itself to spontenaity and being radical, but Monk would never have 'played it safe' or done it by the numbers. Monk would have said "Pick a cheek and pucker up." while going in whichever musical direction suited him, damn the consequences.

Monk danced with, attacked, ignored, coddled and seduced the piano - usually all at once. He played with dissonance in a way that took the rest of the world a few decades to catch up. Maybe Wynton is a little slow or something...beats the hell out of me. With this group Mr. Marsalis assembles, the result is a beautiful sounding album, but all the daring that permeates Monk standards like Evidence, Thelonius, Green Chimneys, and Four in One is restrained to a phrase of a solo here or there, and an occasional dash of inspiration from Eric Reed, who makes a few musical breaks for it by digging into some of the intervallic insanity that is Monk. He comes close on Brilliant Corners, but that isn't enough to satiate for a whole album. Lord knows, we cannot envy Mr. Reed, as being the pianist on a Monkathon is a big throne to sit in. Unfortunately, Reed in general lacks the sensuous twistedness and disturbing ecstacy that made Monk who he is. Wynton's sole contribution to the album In Walked Monk makes a valiant attempt, but falls quite short of the mark - more travelling of the road more crowded. To top it off, players who have shown the ability to stretch and play up to material of this caliber like Reginald Veal and Herlin Riley just play along to Wynton's half-assedness.


One has to wonder if maybe Wynton ghettoizes himself into his little musical world because he lacks the natural ability of brother Branford (sax), the aggressive smoothness of Delfaeyo (trombone), and the 'I don't have a damn thing to prove' cool laid-back comfort of father Ellis (piano).* He has never shown any real daring, and has viewed actions like Branford' forays into pop and funk (Sting, Bucksho LeFonque, Widespread Panic) as blasphemous and an insult to Jazz. Maybe his heavy-handedness causes his own work to seem so leaden and dull sometimes. He constantly seems to be wanting to prove something...alegitimacy that lingers.

All this being said, it is not a *bad* album, just not a particularly adventurous one. It is still miles ahead of 99% of smooth-jazz sop, and most bop would sound better if it was recorded as well as a Marsalis album, not to mention that Wynnie has a pretty good tone, particularly on ballads and any work that involves a mute. If you are looking for something with a larger sonic codpiece however, I'd say skip this and move to trumpet players like Tim Hagans, Erik Truffaz, Roy Hargrove or Nils Petter Moelvar (or go with the real deal - Miles Davis, Clifford Brown, et
al). If you are a Monk fan, get his new 3cd box set from Columbia...its worth the investment to get the original over an imitation.

* There are others in the Marsalis clan, just those are the ones of major note, although Jason (drums) is moving up the ranks.