But but but sputters Mr. Erik Loomis: it doesn’t move the music forward so it can’t be any good!
Kidding aside by the time I started listening to jazz in the mid-90s Marsalis was a tool and I ignored everything he had done or did, so it’s nice to hear at one point he did play some jazz and that it might be worth hearing. Will give this a listen.
That is such a great record. I'm a free player but I went through a heavy Wynton and Branford phase. Black Codes and Live at Blues Alley are his two best as far as I'm concerned. Glad you chose to write about it.
Like a lot of people, I ended up finding Wynton tiresome, and not a great soloist. But I'll argue with anyone that Black Codes-J Mood-Blues Alley-Standard Time Volume 1 was a great run, one of the high points of 80s jazz. I'm hoping, though not expecting, that some day Columbia will see fit to make a box set out of the period.
Good reminder of an album that defined a certain era. Black Codes is great, and I think has more originality, especially rhythmically but also compositionally, than you give it credit for. I saw that band at the Village Gate and they weren't fooling. Watts was tremendous in Branford's band as well.
Before Black Codes, Think of One was a very attractive album, and after it, J Mood was also very nice, emphasizing a slow burn feeling with Marcus Roberts on piano. The quartet albums, with Roberts, Robert Hurst, and Watts, were all about the complex virtuosity, which was kind of thrilling.
I remember how baffling "The Majesty of the Blues" was when it came out in 1989. The long, unlistenable sermon written by Crouch killed it for me. But I saw that early sextet in concert too and they sounded gorgeous. Wynton's bands have always had rhythm sections of the highest order, and they often save the less successful music from dullness. Reginald Veal and Herlin Riley, wow. Riley had already spent time with Ahmad Jamal before joining Wynton.
But both Wynton and Marcus Roberts got stuck into a kind of stodgy attitude, lecturing about the eternal verities and the hushed reverence that must be afforded the great masters. I feel this has gotten in the way of their more personal contributions, which can be superb. They get bogged down in anxiety about proving their correct positioning in The Tradition. Anyway, not simple. Thanks for bringing up the importance of the Black Codes band.
Black Codes is great. Standard Time Vol 1, house of tribes great. For Branford, Crazy People Music is great. Crazy that with Wynton we have less than 10 years of this small group period and then 30 years of the Duke/big band/large works period. I would love a Wynton unaccompanied solo album! or works for trumpet and piano. or anything...other than big band and orchestra works.
Looking back at the big picture, man, the 60s went by so fast, Miles's 2nd quintet went by so fast. It was good that people returned to dwell on that style a bit. In jazz we are all still living in the 60s in a way...
But but but sputters Mr. Erik Loomis: it doesn’t move the music forward so it can’t be any good!
Kidding aside by the time I started listening to jazz in the mid-90s Marsalis was a tool and I ignored everything he had done or did, so it’s nice to hear at one point he did play some jazz and that it might be worth hearing. Will give this a listen.
That is such a great record. I'm a free player but I went through a heavy Wynton and Branford phase. Black Codes and Live at Blues Alley are his two best as far as I'm concerned. Glad you chose to write about it.
Like a lot of people, I ended up finding Wynton tiresome, and not a great soloist. But I'll argue with anyone that Black Codes-J Mood-Blues Alley-Standard Time Volume 1 was a great run, one of the high points of 80s jazz. I'm hoping, though not expecting, that some day Columbia will see fit to make a box set out of the period.
Good reminder of an album that defined a certain era. Black Codes is great, and I think has more originality, especially rhythmically but also compositionally, than you give it credit for. I saw that band at the Village Gate and they weren't fooling. Watts was tremendous in Branford's band as well.
Before Black Codes, Think of One was a very attractive album, and after it, J Mood was also very nice, emphasizing a slow burn feeling with Marcus Roberts on piano. The quartet albums, with Roberts, Robert Hurst, and Watts, were all about the complex virtuosity, which was kind of thrilling.
I remember how baffling "The Majesty of the Blues" was when it came out in 1989. The long, unlistenable sermon written by Crouch killed it for me. But I saw that early sextet in concert too and they sounded gorgeous. Wynton's bands have always had rhythm sections of the highest order, and they often save the less successful music from dullness. Reginald Veal and Herlin Riley, wow. Riley had already spent time with Ahmad Jamal before joining Wynton.
But both Wynton and Marcus Roberts got stuck into a kind of stodgy attitude, lecturing about the eternal verities and the hushed reverence that must be afforded the great masters. I feel this has gotten in the way of their more personal contributions, which can be superb. They get bogged down in anxiety about proving their correct positioning in The Tradition. Anyway, not simple. Thanks for bringing up the importance of the Black Codes band.
Black Codes is great. Standard Time Vol 1, house of tribes great. For Branford, Crazy People Music is great. Crazy that with Wynton we have less than 10 years of this small group period and then 30 years of the Duke/big band/large works period. I would love a Wynton unaccompanied solo album! or works for trumpet and piano. or anything...other than big band and orchestra works.
Looking back at the big picture, man, the 60s went by so fast, Miles's 2nd quintet went by so fast. It was good that people returned to dwell on that style a bit. In jazz we are all still living in the 60s in a way...