Sic Semper Tyrannis

Carnaval by Wynton Marsalis (1987)

A Random CD Review from the Stutzman Memorial Library

Carnaval by Wynton Marsalis with the Eastman Wind Ensemble (Conducted by Donald Hunsberger) (1987)

It’s no secret on this site that I am a Wynton Marsalis fan. His legend looms large in my early musical education. Every trumpet player, at some point, has to come to terms with Wynton. There are two streams of criticism commonly issued forth about Marsalis. One comes from college trumpet teachers and similar brass music snobs: they dislike him for having the gall to play in the jazz idiom as well as in the classical world. The most snobbish of snobby trumpet players I’ve known have had all kinds of bad things to say about his technique, knowledge and supposed attitude. (I think there is also a little suspicion of his international fame as well.) All of their pronouncements on his technical ability really went in one ear and out the other for me, for I have always been a music-lover first, musician second and trumpet player…well, about fifty-sixth.

The other criticism commonly lodged at Wynton is that, as a jazz musician, he is too conservative, stylistically-speaking. His music sounds as if the jazz of the seventies and eighties never happened. (If only that were the case! For that was the period of jazz’s great identity crisis, from which it doesn’t seem to have ever recovered.) I was surprised to learn in his book that his first band was actually a funk-fusion band. Obviously, he abandoned that aesthetic.

Anyway, this Carnaval album is one that is sure to make both groups of critics unhappy. What we have here is a collection of standards from the era when the cornet was a solo instrument in vogue in wind band music. The two big names from this period, (the early 1900s I think), were Herbert L. Clarke and J.B. Arban.

Technically, this is “classical music”- wind band arrangements of opera music and theme and variations settings of catchy little ditties- but it was probably closer to pop music in its time. When I was in high school listening to this music, it was mind-blowing purely for the technique on display: these pieces demanded faster and higher playing that I’d ever be able to reproduce with any level of control. And that was the point for the majority of these pieces—show-off music for traveling soloists. It’s a tradition that goes back at least to Franz Liszt and Paganini. In fact, one of the more impressive performances on this album is a transcription of Paganini’s Moto Perpetuo, in which Wynton plays a steadily unraveling string of 16th notes for four and a half minutes without taking a real breath, employing a trick technique called circular breathing.

I have come to realize since my high school days that there isn’t a lot of difference between listening to a piece containing variations by Clarke or Arban and watching a tight-rope walker. It’s the same kind of anticipatory response. The question arises, though: is this an aesthetic, “musical” response? Should the experience of listening to music, of supposedly experiencing beauty, be comparable to watching a circus act? Of course, I don’t know the answer to that. But here’s one thing I do know. When I listened to this disc a couple months ago, I was actually more enthralled with the sounds of the lyrical pieces, like “Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms” and “’Tis the Last Rose of Summer,” than I was with the busy showpieces. After awhile, all of the flash started to just sound the same. The technique that Wynton displays here is still impressive, no doubt. But I was struck by the simplicity and thick sounds emanating from the whole ensemble on the lyrical tunes.

All this raises an issue for me-namely, that of consistency. I’m Mr. Prog-rock apologist, right? Always talking about how I love the music of “impressive” bands like Yes and Genesis, King Crimson, and Rush and all that. How can I fault Wynton and these cornet soloists for the same thing?

I think it comes down to reactions to expectations. No one expects hairy, ugly rock musicians to be proficient on their instruments beyond three or four chords or caveman rhythms. By the same token, it’s assumed that classical or orchestral musicians reach the highest possible levels of technical ability. In the rock world, technique is a breath of fresh air to me, an elevation above convention. But in the classical world, somehow it’s different. Maybe subtlety is the name of the game in that world.

I’m devolving into circularity here, but one of these days, I will get this issue of “technique” totally fleshed out. One thing is obvious, though. It is very educational to give music and musicians some time to be forgotten and then listen to them a little later and see how your perceptions change the experience.

I think this shows that we bring a lot to the table in our aesthetic cardgames.

posted by Mike @ 10:06 AM