Section from chapter 1981: Japan Moves Center Stage   [ return to introduction ]

Return to Home Page
By Mervyn Cooke • 325 illustrations,
82 in full color • 256 pages • 8-1/2 x 8-1/2"
Cloth • ISBN 0-7892-0399-5 • U.S. $45.00
Add to Shopping Cart
A child prodigy who matured into one of the most spectacular talents of recent years, Wynton Marsalis has combined careers in classical music and jazz with equal success. [ view larger image ] (Redferns, London)
Wynton Marsalis

In 1981, at the age of nineteen, Wynton Marsalis entered the record books by becoming the first performer to sign recording contracts for both classical music and jazz simultaneously. Born in New Orleans in 1961, he had followed in the footsteps of his illustrious predecessors by playing in a marching band (at the age of eight) before acquiring a formidable instrumental technique that allowed him to play Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto with the New Orleans Philharmonic Orchestra when he was only fourteen. His two careers developed in parallel through classical studies at New York’s renowned Juilliard School and through membership of Art Blakey’s equally renowned Jazz Messengers (• p. 138), which he joined in 1980. Four years later he again made history as the first artist to receive Grammy Awards for both classical and jazz recordings.

His rapid rise to prominence in the jazz world came when he joined the members of Miles Davis’s formidable rhythm section from the 1960s--Herbie Hancock (• p. 201) on piano, Ron Carter on bass, and Tony Williams on drums--to play at the Newport Festival and tour Japan in 1981. The group also recorded for CBS with Hancock as leader. In 1983 Wynton’s older brother Branford joined the group as tenor saxophonist and, under the name VSOP II, the quintet’s debt to the 1960s Davis style became patently obvious. In the mid-1980s Marsalis formed his own quartet, and its performances of standards were soon hailed as the finest of the decade. From 1988 onward he devoted his attention to projects reclaiming the heritage of early jazz, whether the New Orleans style or the masterpieces of Duke Ellington. In the 1990s he made a name for himself as a fluent lecturer and music educator, skillfully presenting a series of television programs for children ("Marsalis on Music") that were given worldwide exposure.

Marsalis entered jazz at a time when it was seriously in need of a new, younger audience to sustain its development. His youthful, fresh image and precocious talents (backed up by marketing on the part of CBS/Sony rivaled only by their earlier promotion of Miles Davis) made him appear to be its timely savior. Outspoken against what he saw as the artistic sell-out of fusion, Marsalis promoted the performance of live acoustic jazz firmly rooted in traditional musical values. As with many of jazz’s most capable technicians, however, his consummate facility has sometimes encouraged him to stray into mere virtuosity for virtuosity’s sake; and his exhortations on his definition of "real" (i.e., historically aware) jazz and its superiority to jazz-rock hybrid styles led to a temperamental clash with his idol Miles Davis, who in 1986 refused to allow him to play with his band in Vancouver. "I was never jealous of him," Miles said, but added in a fit of pique, "the more famous he became the more he started saying things--nasty, disrespectful things--about me, things I’ve never said about musicians who influenced me and who I had great respect for."