Wynton Marsalis vs. Robert Glasper

One would be hard-pressed to find two people in the jazz world with more polar-opposite views as to what jazz is and should be than Wynton Marsalis and Robert Glasper.  Marsalis is the figurehead of the traditionalist movement; his mission is to preserve the music of the past.  Glasper is the figurehead of the Hip-Hop/Jazz movement, and believes we must move on from the jazz of past decades.  

On Hip-Hop

Marsalis has little to no respect for Hip-Hop.  In fact, he often compares it to minstrelsy.  In a recent interview, this is what he had to say on the subject: 

“Hip-hop for me is a throwback to the minstrelsy. After the Civil War, white folks were offered minstrel shows that offered ‘real coons from the real plantation’, and to me that’s like rappers today, with their talk of keeping it real, giving themselves a minstrel name, boasting about how they can degrade their women.”

You can read the full interview here: Wynton Marsalis Interview

His disdain for Hip-Hop goes beyond its social and moral implications.  He simply does not think Hip-Hop is music.  He often talks about “high” music and “low” music; Hip-Hop is a very low form of music to him.  He speaks of the lack of skill of its musicians; they don’t play real instruments and do not know much about music.  To Wynton, traditional jazz music is a much higher art form.  He doesn’t think combining jazz with Hip-Hop or anything else is needed for the music to stay relevant.  Marsalis believes that to gain an audience for jazz, the public must be educated about it.  He compares jazz music to sports, posing the question that if we didn’t have commentators telling us what was happening in a game, would we be interested in it at all?  He has done a number of things to attempt to educate the public, such as the Essentially Ellington Jazz Competition.  In this competition, high school bands across the country come together to play the music of Duke Ellington, and are judged based on their interpretations.  The competition allows these young people to be steeped in Ellington’s music, therefore (hopefully) creating educated jazz fans for the future.  To find out more about Wynton, check out his website, http://wyntonmarsalis.org/.  Pay special attention to the Education page to see exactly what he is doing to educate the American people on jazz.

Glasper, certainly a legitimate jazz pianist, uses Hip-Hop as the basis of his music.  He thinks it is important for jazz to stay relevant, and to him, the way to do that is to use influences from today’s music.  He argues that the jazz innovators of the past weren’t trying to replicate the music of decades before, so why should he?  To Glasper, the system of jazz education in the US is hurting young musicians’ creativity with its over-emphasis on learning old standards.  Glasper wants young musicians to write their own music based on what they like, not what they are told they should play by an institution.  He believes trying to learn the entire history of jazz is a detriment to the creativity these young people have inside of them.  He fears that jazz is becoming a museum piece, and soon enough it will die if people only associate jazz with the past.  Robert Glasper delves deep into the subject with this interview from NextBop.com, which I encourage you to check out in it’s entirety. 

Robert Glasper Interview

A Historical Perspective on Jazz’s Outside Influences and Fusions

The music loosely known as Jazz is constantly changing and evolving.  One of the main ways it evolves is through fusion with other musical styles.  When one mentions the term “Jazz Fusion” it usually means the Jazz-Rock fusion music of the seventies.  However, jazz has been fused with a variety of musics long before and after that decade.  As I mentioned in my previous post, jazz traditionalists (or jazz police/nazis, as their critics often refer to them) are often reluctant when artists bring in outside influences into the music.  This reluctance has been present in every decade when artists have introduced new ideas into the music.  Decades later, these styles become widely accepted by the jazz community, while whatever is happening at that time is being met with criticism.  This is by no means meant to be a complete list of the history of jazz’s stylistic fusions; just a discussion on some that interest me and the issues surrounding them.  

Hard Bop Of the 1950s and ’60s

Hard Bop can be seen as a reaction to the Bebop movement that preceeded it.  Bebop was often very fast in tempo and extremely technically demanding for its players.  Its complexity could sometimes be inaccessible to the average listener.  Hard Bop slowed the music down, focusing on simpler, catchier melodies and elements of Gospel and Blues.  A tune such as Horace Silver’s “The Preacher” was one of the most blatant, obvious fusions of jazz and gospel music.  

Horace Silver- The Preacher

The melody and chord progression of the song could easily have been an African-American spiritual, but it was played in a jazz aesthetic.  The rhythm section swings and the members of the band take turns improvising on the changes.  This type of performance is typical of a jazz group; the tune would not be performed in this way in a church.  

Soul Jazz

Soul Jazz is like a cousin of hard bop, but it incorporates influences of African American popular music (Soul/R&B) and blues even more heavily.  Much of the time, it actually applies the rhythmic grooves and feel of these types of music, not just the melodic and harmonic material like “The Preacher.”  The drums often employ “backbeat” grooves, where the snare is played on beats two and four of every measure.  The feel of soul jazz is rooted in the   R&B/Soul of the ’60s but the music is performed in a looser and more improvisational way, and centers around acoustic instruments such as the grand piano and acoustic bass.  Here is Ramsey Lewis playing “The In Crowd,” a hit tune of the time, in his soul-jazz trio.  Lewis’ version of the tune was a big hit in its own right.

Ramsey Lewis- The In Crowd

Bill Evans and French Impressionism

Bill Evans is one of Jazz history’s most important pianists and composers, and is seen as a major innovator.  A highly trained classical pianist as well as jazz musician, Bill incorporated influences of European classical music in his playing and writing.  The classical style that appeared most often in Evans’ playing is the French impressionistic style of Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, and Gabriel Fauré.  These composers influenced the way Bill Evans played chords, and in turn the playing of the majority of jazz pianists following him.  Evans would use these harmonic techniques on American standards (Great American Songbook) in addition to  his own compositions.  This version of the standard “A Time For Love” sounds like it could almost be a piece by Claude Debussy.

Bill Evans- A Time For Love

Lionel Loueke’s Jazz By Way Of West Africa

Lionel Loueke is a jazz guitarist from the West African country of Benin.  He is equally fluent in jazz and the music of his home country, and his original music incorporates both styles.  In my opinion, Loueke combines jazz with external styles for the right reasons.  Too many artists  seem to use influences from popular music to try to make more money, but Lionel’s music is an honest combination of jazz and African music because that is what is inside him.  I’ll leave you with a video of Loueke playing and singing Benny’s Tune, my favorite of his compositions.

Lionel Loueke-Benny’s Tune

Jazz: Tradition vs. Innovation

Jazz is an art form that is known for bringing people together from all backgrounds and walks of life.  I’ve seen it for myself: for over a year I was the house pianist at the Barbara Morrison Performing Arts Center’s Monday night session.  It was not uncommon to see teens sitting in with musicians in their eighties, and though the center is located in a predominantly black neighborhood, the session was teeming with racial diversity.  While these types of situations certainly exist, the jazz community at large today is very divided.  The center of this division is the idea of tradition vs. innovation.  It is common to hear older musicians (and younger traditionalists) complain that new “jazz” music doesn’t sound like jazz.  While there can be no true definition of jazz, I would like to examine the elements of the music that these traditionalists believe are essential to jazz and are lacking in the music of some of today’s new artists.

Swing
Swing is a rhythmic feel that has been present in jazz since its inception.  It is difficult to define, but one can start by saying that the eighth notes are played unevenly, which gives it a “lilting” feel.  Swing often has to do with how the drummer and bass player play.  The bass player will often “walk” which means to keep a quarter-note pulse by playing on every beat.  The drummer keeps time with the ride cymbal, playing variations on the common jazz cymbal pattern, while using the drums for accents and color.  This is a good example of a “swinging” band.

Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers “Moanin'” Live In Belgium 1958

Listening to Blakey and the band play “Moanin” explains swing in a way that written language cannot.  A lot of modern jazz does not employ this feel; it uses a “straight” rhythmic feel.  This video of Ambrose Akinmusire, a rising star on trumpet, and his band is playing a straight feel in this clip.

Ambrose Akinmusire Quintet at the Jazz Standard

Another criticism traditionalists have of modern jazz as that it appeals more to the head than the heart.  They argue that a lot of new jazz music is technically impressive and virtuosic but does not attempt to draw emotion out the listener.  To them, traditional jazz “feels good” while modern jazz does not.  I happen to love both Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and Akinmusire’s quintet, but I often find myself with traditionalists on this issue.  A lot of modern jazz leaves me a bit cold, but there are definitely some artists such as Akinmusire who don’t swing in the traditional sense but still arouse deep emotions in me.  Jason Marsalis had a few choice words on the issue in this video about young jazz musicians.  He describes a  international “club” of jazz musicians he refers to as “JNI,” or Jazz Nerds International, who in his view are playing the music for the wrong reasons.  Marsalis thinks they are too caught up in the technical side of jazz without understanding the meaning and emotional center of the art form.  He says that they’re lack of respect for jazz tradition results in boring music that is more interesting for the musicians themselves than the audience.

Jason Marsalis on JNI

There is also debate as to whether it is OK to incorporate influences from popular styles in jazz.  Many musicians today are combining hip-hop and jazz, the most prominent and controversial of which is Robert Glasper.  After establishing himself as a jazz pianist, he released the album “Black Radio” in 2012, which does not sound like traditional jazz at all.  The album did not contain very much improvisation (an essential element in jazz) and featured guest spots from artists in the R&B and hip-hop world such as Lupe Fiasco, Erykah Badu, Mos Def, and Lalah Hathaway.  None of the music contained a swing feel either; Glasper opted for R&B/Hip-Hop grooves for the album’s entirety.  Other jazz artists have incorporated other styles into their music as well.  Kneebody incorporates influences from rock in their sound, and have collaborated with hip-hop artists such as Bus Driver and electronic musicians such as Daedalus.  Here is a video of the latter collaboration:

Kneebody ft. Daedalus 

Little in this video resembles jazz in the traditional sense, although there are jazz instruments such as the saxophone and trumpet and some improvisation that represents the jazz language in an abstract way.  On this track, Nate Wood, the group’s drummer, seems to be taking more inspiration from electronic beats than jazz masters such as Art Blakey and Philly Joe Jones.

I’ve had a lot of experience both playing traditional jazz music and modern jazz.  To me, the best way to think about the issue is not to worry about whether music is labeled “jazz” or not.  In other words, if the music sounds good, I like it.  I agree with much of the criticism that traditionalists have of modern jazz music, but I think it’s wrong to dismiss all of it.  It seems that my favorite modern jazz musicians have studied traditional jazz and know it well before they branch out and incorporate other influences.  This, to me, grounds the music in tradition and therefore avoids the soullessness that some modern jazz is plagued with.  Gerald Clayton is a good example of this.  The son of John Clayton, famous bassist and outspoken traditionalist, Gerald spent his development playing more traditional, swinging jazz like his father.  In recent years, he has released albums that break away from the tradition but still have their roots in it.  I will conclude this blog with a recording of Gerald Clayton playing the old standard “If I Were A Bell.”  There are elements of hip-hop, but the ultimate feeling is not so different than the music of the masters of yesterday.

Gerald Clayton: If I Were A Bell