You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Adam & Peter Discuss Wynton Marsalis and Hip-Hop - #140

Episode Date: June 21, 2018

Today, Adam and Peter discuss Wynton, hip-hop, and the media. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Peter Martin and I'm Adam Ennis and this is the You'll Hear at podcast daily jazz advice coming at you. Yes and today might be a little bit of daily jazz controversy coming out to you. Here we go. We're going to wade in some muddy waters here. What do we got? Well, you know, we want to stay relevant here. We talk about a lot of historical documentation and information, you know, old records, new records too. But we want to try to wade into the muddy waters of a recent controversy. with jazz musician Wint Marcellus, our friend, friend of the podcast. Friend of the podcast.

We think up until today. No, Winton did a interview and it was actually a podcast with the Washington Post, Jonathan Capehart, which I didn't know about him, but then I realized, I think I'd heard he's a really good podcaster and I guess a columnist writer for the Washington Post. Nice. But he did an interview with Winton recently, and there was a lot of controversy because Winton said some things in there, especially when they're sort of taken maybe out of context or just when they're taking a sound by sound very controversial. In fact, the title of the article

of the opinion piece in the Washington Post was jazz musician Wint Marsala says rap and hip hop are quote, more damaging than a statue of Robert E. Lee, end quote. What do you think about that, Adam? Well, okay, first of all, I think his premise isn't as far off as some people would like to say it is. Because I do think music has a lot of power. If we don't think music has a lot of power, then what are we doing here? You know what I mean?

But I do disagree with how, with the actual content of what he said. And I think maybe it might be just ignorance on his part that he doesn't know a lot of great hip hop. Right. But I don't agree with that at all. Yeah. Well, and, you know, Winton has,

one thing I would say first about Winton in this, in his whole relationship. or opinion about hip hop and rap is he has stayed consistent since like I first knew him. He's never liked it. Yeah, he's never liked it. And he's always come out against it since like the mid-80s when he was, you know,

in his early 20s, I guess, mid-20s. And he's pretty much stayed consistent even as the music has changed. So for me, it's a little bit, you know, although I think anybody's, especially somebody, you know, anybody's opinion is always much more nuanced than a one-line quote. Absolutely.

And especially somebody as thoughtful and is intelligent and such a cultural commentator as Winton is. And if you've ever heard, and I would recommend everyone to go listen to the entire podcast because then you can hear all this in his own words. You can read the column too

and get a little shorter version of it. But whether you agree with Winton or not, first of all, the whole interview was mostly about this new, you know, massive composition that he's, that he wrote. And I think it's called the Ever Function lowdown, which is a great title.

Yeah, yeah. A commission that he's doing it for jazz and Lincoln Center. So it's not even all about hip hop. He kind of, they kind of go into that a little bit. But, you know, basically his thing is that, you know, our society, our culture celebrates mediocrity or even lower than mediocrity in elevating, you know, hip hop and rap artists to be in these kind of cultural icons. And he just doesn't agree with that.

He's just like Duke Ellington is our cultural ambassador and Lewis Armstrong. And so, I mean, you know, it's easy for us to kind of look at him as maybe a little bit of a caricature of somebody defending things that are old. And then when he mentioned something about Robert Lee in the statue, it can kind of get confused. He was actually involved in, you know, the New Orleans. He's kind of an ambassador for New Orleans. And, you know, he went to high school with the mayor of New Orleans, Miss Landrew. And so Mayor Landry brought him back to kind of help with some controversies when all these different things were going on. So it's a lot of different threads to the story.

He was involved in getting the Robert Lee statute taken down from... I believe so. I know he spoke out about it. And I can't remember the whole thing about it. So it's not like he's like giving props to Robert Lee. Yeah, yeah. No, there was a reason that this came up in the interview. Right, right, right, right, right.

But I mean, look, Winton is publicly, and I would say, you know, privately, you know, I don't think I'm divulging anything in saying that certain conversations over the years I've had with him privately. And just with groups of musicians, he's very consistent. So there's no like, oh, privately he says this. It's like he is very conservative in a certain way in terms of his viewpoints about jazz. So when you go beyond jazz, I mean, he doesn't like a lot of stuff even that we like in jazz that he sees as well beyond the fringes of the music. Yeah, yeah. And so, but I think it's good.

I mean, I think it's, I don't agree with it. But there's so much more that I do agree with him. I mean, I love Duke Allenton. I love Louis Archer. I love how they celebrate Duke Allington at Jazz and Lincoln Center. in a way and keep it relevant and keep, you know, you know, documenting the scores to have it, bans all around the country, you know, the educational side of things. I mean, it's all wonderful and great stuff, but you don't have to agree with everything he's saying to say he's doing some

nice things up there. Yeah, don't you think when stuff like this happens, I always feel like, well, I'm glad there's someone out there, like holding down the fort for that, even though if I don't agree with them at all. Right. There's somebody with some integrity still, even as we all just chase after the buck. I think there's room for holding on to some hard opinions on things. And I think that's okay. And I think that's actually really good for our culture, you know, for the culture of the music and for the culture of jazz. And I appreciate Winton and what he does for that as a traditionalist. I don't know if he would define himself as that, but I think a lot of jazz fans would kind of say he's keeping the tradition, you know,

alive and really has lifted it. I mean, a lot of young players are into older jazz than we were into from a younger age because of him. Well, it's interesting in calling him a traditionalist. I think that, you know, I don't think there's anything derogatory about that. No, no, no. I think probably Winton is a little bit sick of being, because he's just like, no, I'm relevant. And he is, and he's an amazing musician and composer. I think some people kind of throw that around as a negative thing, but I would agree.

I mean, he is a traditionalist. But, yeah, I mean, he was instrumental for me playing this music because I met him at a very pivotal time, and he gave me some traditional advice that was invaluable. I mean, just like, you know, check out Thelonious Monk. And I was like, man, I didn't really know. I kind of vaguely knew the name. So had I not heard him play and I knew he had playing credibility and Kenny Kirkland played with him.

So I'm like, I'm going to listen to whatever he says. Right. for a portion of the music, I guess, is like he has a big problem with the vulgarity, the sexualization of parts of that music. Well, and then it's bad. There's parts of it that are really bad. Yeah.

You know what I mean? But that's because it's so popular. Right. You know, there's a time where jazz was so popular that there was a lot of crap. Right. There was a lot of, like, I mean, it was much more veiled,

but vulgar, bad songs. Right. From bad players. Right, right, right. And, you know, we just don't remember them. Yeah. Because they were bad. Right.

And we're not going to remember the bad people today either. You know, 50 years from now, it's just not going to happen. Yeah. But, I mean, for whatever reason, Wynton just sort of, he really puts it all, everything in the hip-hop and rap world pretty much all together. I mean, he says, and he says in the interview on the podcast, at one point, he kind of says, well, not all. I never said all. But he pretty much does. And that's okay.

I mean, you know, he pretty much is just like he has no use for it. But you know what? My hat tip to him for coming out. standing for something, you know what I mean? Yeah. At a time when everybody wants to be politically correct in terms of, I love everything. Everything is great.

Everything is equal. Everything is artistically the same. Witnessing is like, no, this isn't. Now, you don't have to agree with him, but he has his hierarchy, his Mount Rushmore of musics. And I don't think rap and hip hop is on Mount Rushmore for him. Well, not yet. But you know what?

For him, I'm saying. Yeah. It's a little unfair because jazz has been around for 100 years. Yeah. And hip hop has really been around for, like 35, really, 40, you know, tops. Yep. And mid-70s, late 70s?

Yeah, late 70s really is when it took off a little bit. But it's still in its infancy when you consider like where jazz was in its first 40 years, you know, that's like, I don't know. I really think that there's artistic hip-hop being made now and having been made for the last 30 years and there's going to be much more and it gets better and better. I don't know how you can listen to Kendrick Lamar and not think that that's really, really solid, good music, you know, for me. I agree, I agree.

I mean, I know Winton is not impressed, but, you know, to each his own. It's all good. It's why it's so great. That's right. Cool. Oh, good. I think, do we make it out of the hearsay? I mean, I feel like we could go more controversial if we want to get some listens.

No, but I think that, you know, to really take a cue from Winton, I would just say, it's good. We're speaking our mind. I think there's too much of, like, in the jazz. world and certainly beyond that, but just kind of this is the world that we live in, there's too much of everybody saying, oh, everything is great and being afraid. Like, we'll say things privately, but we won't say things publicly. So, like, when it stays consistent with that, like, what he says privately, he says publicly.

Whereas a lot of other musicians are scared. Well, I don't want to piss off this person or, you know, by saying this because I might lose a gig or something. No, it's like I said, man, I'm glad someone's out there doing it. Yeah. You know, that's great. Cool. Well, thanks very much.

you know, leave us an angry rating review if you disagreed with anything we said. It's about as controversial as we're probably going to get as far as a podcast would go. And we appreciate any five, six or seven stars. Should we push for eight though? You know what? There's no controversy in five and up stars. That's the one thing we can all agree on. Hey, if you like jazz, leave us five.

If you like hip-hop, leave us seven. That's good. If you like them both, leave six. That's right. Compromise. Yeah, and we're still going to run our special here. for the All Access Pass. So that's the Open Studio All Access Pass,

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Good stuff. Yeah, yeah. Well, you'll hear it.