Blood on the Fields
Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Centre Jazz Orchestra
Columbia/Sony
Three CDs, $49.95
Review by Norm Dixon
The long-awaited release on CD of Wynton Marsalis' epic jazz odyssey about slavery was preceded by the controversy that seems to follow the opinionated wunderkind of the jazz trumpet whatever he does.
The adoption of the 35-year-old Marsalis by the usually myopic US high-brow cultural establishment — marked by his appointment as jazz director of New York's prestigious Lincoln Centre for the Performing Arts, (which commissioned Blood on the Field), his winning of the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for composition, and presenting a lavishly funded TV and radio series on the history of jazz — has hardened the battle lines between the anti- and pro-Wynton factions.
Reviews of live performances of Blood on the Fields — which premiered in April, 1994 — either lauded Marsalis as one of the great US jazz composers, rubbing shoulders with Duke Ellington, or dismissed him as boring and "emotionally anaemic".
A listen to this monumental three-hour work, however, quickly establishes that both views are off the mark. Marsalis is not in the same league as Ellington, the greatest jazz composer of all time (who, by the way, in 1965 had a Pulitzer Prize withheld at the last minute because the big nobs were horrified that "jungle music" might be equated with "European" classical music). Nor does he yet rank with the likes of Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, Max Roach and dozens of other significant composers of extended works on the theme of the black experience in North America.
In interview after interview, Marsalis scoffs at the idea that he is in that exulted company, but admits that it is his goal. He readily admits that his generation of jazz musicians were handicapped by a lack knowledge and experience of the basics of jazz, and the opportunities to hone their skills with regular gigs. That generation's emergence owed more to record companies in the 1980s signing up anybody in a sharp suit with obvious talent.
The young Marsalis recognised that African-American youth had lost touch with the blues tradition — the foundation of jazz — and as soon as he entered the limelight he launched a crusade to revive interest in the jazz tradition and reconnect young African-American musicians with their musical heritage. He launched a verbal assault against the many self-serving and corrupt professional — overwhelmingly middle-class and white — critics who appointed themselves the "buffer" between artists and audiences. They miseducated many about jazz and its heritage.
Unfortunately, Marsalis put off-side many who sympathised with his drive to renew interest in the African-American heritage of jazz and agreed with his condemnation of the jazz "industry" when, during a bout of foot-in-mouth-itis, he ruled avant-garde and jazz-fusion outside the jazz canon because they were not strictly blues-based.
This ignored the fact that these forms too evolved out of the black community, reflecting the moods and concerns of the community, and had also fallen victim to the intolerance of the jazz police. (Marsalis' foot-in-mouth-itis is a chronic condition. His latest ill-directed broadside was on hip hop and attempts to fuse jazz with it.)
Gleefully, the critics hypocritically branded Marsalis a "neo-conservative" — a swear-word in the days of Reagan and Bush — and a narrow-minded purist attempting to arbitrate what is and is not jazz. Which was partly true, except that Marsalis' motivation was to protest the jazz industry's suppression of talent and respect for the heritage of jazz in favour of the latest money-spinner for promoters and record companies to which many critics had sold their souls for a quick buck writing album liner notes and promotional material.
Marsalis became the darling of the US cultural establishment, not because they agreed with his views on how black music had been marginalised, but because Marsalis' narrow, ahistorical definition of jazz complimented their need to institutionalise an officially sanctioned jazz divorced from the contemporary black community.
The reviews of Blood on the Fields reflect the convoluted whirlpool of opinions and debates over the place of Wynton Marsalis in jazz, as much as the merits of the work. Which is a little sad because Blood on the Fields is musically a beautifully crafted and formidable work, on a par with some of Duke's, Mingus's and others' extended jazz works.
Without mechanically following the time-line of African-American music styles, Marsalis and the youthful Lincoln Centre big band meld bebop with the blues, field hollers, gospel, and New Orleans trad. Cassandra Wilson's, Miles Griffith's and Jon Hendricks' vocals add great depth to lightweight lyrics which nonetheless convey well the dark underbelly of US history.
The story is of two Africans forced into slavery: Jessie (Griffith), a traditional prince, and Leona (Wilson), a commoner. Together they experience the horrors of the middle passage, the humiliation of being sold on the auction block, the overseers' lash and the recognition that this brutal exploitation laid the foundations of the US (illustrated aptly by the blood-streaked US flag on the album cover).
Jessie, who has known a freedom that Leona has never experienced, either in Africa or America, is militantly determined to be free and tries repeatedly to escape over the next 14 years. After many beatings, the wise man Juba (Hendricks) advises Jessie to love the land as his own, reach out to others (such as native Americans) who are also oppressed, and know what to do with freedom once it is attained.
Sadly, the quality of the message of Blood on the Fields does not match that of the music. Marsalis' view of the struggle against black oppression turns out to be a liberal one, reflecting that of the black middle class and no doubt coloured by his own invitation to hang out with high society.
Jessie's militant opposition to slavery — painted as elitist and selfish — is counterposed to Leona's and Juba's striving to achieve as much individual freedom as possible despite the oppressive system.
"Freedom ain't no simple thing ... Freedom is in the trying", sings Juba, the wise old Uncle Tom. Or as Marsalis wrote in the program notes of the work's premiere: "Blood on the Fields details in music what I feel it takes to achieve soul: the willingness to address adversity with elegance."
No wonder the dapper Wynton can't figure out hip hop!