Wynton Marsalis's Blog, page 40

Van Morrison, Wynton Marsalis attended ‘Bolden’ screening after closing Jazz Fest on Sunday

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Wynton Marsalis, Van Morrison and film director Dan Pritzker chat at the screening of ‘Bolden’ Sunday, April 28, 2019 at the Cinebarre Canal Place theater in New Orleans. (Staff photo by Sue Strachan)

Jazz Fest headliners Van Morrison and Wynton Marsalis somehow evaded post-fest traffic Sunday night to attend a Canal Place screening of “Bolden,” the new film about the early 20th-century New Orleans cornet player who is generally considered to be the first true jazz musician.

Morrison was the closing act Sunday on the main Acura Stage, his eighth appearance at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival presented by Shell. The singer, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and Hall of Famer concluded his Jazz Fest set with an extended version of his 1964 classic “Gloria,” as a vast audience lingered past 7 p.m.

By 8:15 p.m., Morrison was in the by-invitation-only audience at Canal Place. After the screening, he approached Marsalis, the film’s co-executive producer and composer, to say how much he enjoyed the music and film.

Marsalis, too, pulled off a quick escape from the Fair Grounds. He ended his day at the festival performing alongside brothers Branford, Delfeayo and Jason Marsalis and their father, New Orleans jazz patriarch Ellis Marsalis, in a packed WWOZ Jazz Tent.

He is artistic director of New York’s Jazz at Lincoln Center, a National Medal of Arts recipient and a multiple Grammy winner. He is also the recipient of the first Pulitzer Prize in music for jazz.

“Musically, I’m a descendant of Bolden’s, just by being from New Orleans and being a trumpet player,” said Marsalis, who performed the score of “Bolden.” “Everything that came after him was always music I was interested in, in terms of American cornet solos, the style of them and variation.”

A number of New Orleans notables attended Sunday night’s screening, including clarinetist and jazz historian Dr. Michael White, who wrote the liner notes for the movie’s CD and performed on the soundtrack, along with restaurateur Dickie Brennan, Bethany Bultman of the New Orleans Musicians’ Clinic with son Tristan Bultman, and WWOZ-FM general manager Beth Arroyo Utterback.

New Orleans drummer Herlin Riley got a shout-out when Marsalis, with whom Riley shares a long history, saluted him from the stage as the “best drummer around.”

Also in the audience was Bolden’s great-granddaughter Rita Bell, Don Marquis, author of “In Search of Buddy Bolden: First Man of Jazz” and “Finding Buddy Bolden,” and “Bolden” actors Karimah Westbrook (who plays Bolden’s mother, Alice Bolden), Breon Pugh (Willie Warner) and Kearia Schroeder (Grace)

After the screening, a question-and-answer session moderated by music writer and producer Ben Sandmel featured Marsalis and the movie’s director, co-producer and co-writer, Dan Pritzker.

The “Bolden” that screened Sunday night was the second version of the film. Pritzker scrapped the first version, which starred Anthony Mackie as Buddy Bolden, after lengthy delays made final filming with Mackie impossible.

The film to be released on Friday (May 3) stars British actor Gary Carr as Bolden. Locally, it will be shown at the Broad Theate.

by Sue Strachan

Source: The New Orleans Advocate

Wynton Marsalis on 12 Essential Jazz Recordings

“It’s self-explanatory,” Wynton Marsalis says, pointing toward the papers in front of him. “Basically, if you look at what I wrote, that says everything you need to know.” The trumpeter had entered only about 30 seconds before, walking into a small conference room at the New York offices of Jazz at Lincoln Center. Impeccably dressed in a gray suit, he leaned in for a quick hug by way of a greeting. If Marsalis seemed a tad impatient, he had a point: The document he’d prepped did in fact speak for itself.

It was a two-page list of essential jazz recordings, containing 50 entries. Marsalis had assembled his choices in conjunction with new biopic Bolden, out Friday, which tells the story of Buddy Bolden, the legendary unrecorded first hero of New Orleans jazz, and which Marsalis both executive-produced and contributed music to. Preparing for his meeting with Rolling Stone, he went deep, listing not simply artists and titles, but also characteristics explaining why he’d picked each one: “Insightful integration of the blues with disparate elements,” “Making a horn sound exactly like someone singing” and so on. Marsalis made it clear that his list was an inventory of “recordings” rather than albums, since so many of the early masterpieces of jazz arrived before the LP era.

He may have felt that his work was done in advance, but nevertheless he had plenty to say. For the next 45 minutes, he held forth to RS on 12 of his picks, frequently singing musical passages by way of illustration. Marsalis’ own written descriptions of what sets each recording apart appear in italics before the entries. (For consistency, titles below are listed according to date of recording rather than release.)

King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band with Louis Armstrong, “Snake Rag” (1923)

Otherworldly display of flatfooted improvisational skills

To be given an accompanying part and to hear it and play thematic material that fits in with the material that you’re given with that degree of sophistication, insight and nuance is a great display of skill. It’s very uncommon.

Louis Armstrong played second cornet to King Oliver — it means he’s interpreting internal harmony parts which have to resolve a certain way. He’s playing the alto part basically. King Oliver’s playing the melody. So, no written music: He’s improvising on a complex form: “Snake Rag.”

He makes up an unbelievable part. When you listen to it, how clear and logical it is and how beautiful the resolutions are of internal harmony, and he also improvises a second harmony part to King Oliver’s improvised trumpet breaks. That’s an unbelievable display of reflexes, musical understanding and ability to hear.

So, you’re making up something and I’m accompanying you while you’re making it up and I’m also playing an internal part to a part that you’re improvising. The accuracy of his parts and the clarity that he plays with in an accompaniment role is still astounding after all these years.

The speed and the quickness and the reflexes, it’s not believable. But it’s what he could do and that’s why he’s Louis Armstrong.

Duke Ellington, “Daybreak Express” (1933)

All-time baddest MF

All-time baddest motherfucker. OK? That’s reserved for somebody like Bach. I could’ve picked anything, but I picked train pieces, because I love trains. [Note: Marsalis’ list also included four other train-themed pieces by Ellington: “Choo Choo” from 1924, “Happy Go Lucky Local” from 1946, “Track 360” from 1959 and “Loco Madi” from 1972.] I tried to get one from each decade. We’ve played most of these [with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra].

That level of sustained engagement, that level of technical achievement, the sophistication of what he’s doing, the way he gets the harmonies to sound like trains, the conception of different grooves and moods, the intelligent use of form, the playfulness of it, the diversity of ideas, the understanding of the instruments in their registers.

Young musicians in your band are gonna work hard enough to play stuff that’s that difficult accurately, [like] “Day Break Express” and the early-Thirties stuff? [Exhales for emphasis] Fantastic.

Mary Lou Williams with Andy Kirk and His Twelve Clouds of Joy, “Walkin’ and Swingin‘” (1936)

Manifestation of genius and unparalleled set of unique achievements (playing, composing, arranging, mentoring)

[Marsalis cited examples of each of the above, but he says this piece shows off Williams’ composing and arranging.]

“Walkin’ and Swingin‘” — she writes unbelievable soli with trumpet leading the reed section. Unusual voicing, unusual pairing. One trumpet with reeds [sings]. It’s so lyrical and beautiful that the bridge becomes the basis of one of Monk’s songs: “Rhythm-A-Ning.” [Sings] That part is so hard to play. Man, every time I have to play it, I look at it like, “Shit.”

It’s unbelievably difficult to play. We laugh in our trumpet section. We go back and forth on who’s gonna play it [laughs]. ‘Cause when you play it, you can’t help but look at it because it has the beginnings of bebop, it’s in the Swing Era — you could go on and on about it.

The diversity in that arrangement, the call and response. She was very forward-thinking at all times. She was a mentor to the bebop players. Her house was like a salon. “In the Land of Oo-Bla-Dee” is an example of bebop music she wrote that Dizzy [Gillespie] recorded.

They would go to her house, Dizzy, Bird [Charlie Parker], all the heavyweights talked to Mary Lou. Monk, they loved her. She taught them about arranging, she had concepts, she was very philosophical. She’s unsung as a person who really influenced them and when you talk to them — I talked to Dizzy, any musicians from that time — they always say, “Man, Mary Lou, she taught us a lot.”

Benny Goodman, The Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert

Most meaningful concert

[In this concert] Benny Goodman is setting out his concept of what we need to do as a country. He plays his music; he deals with the history of his band; he features virtuosic playing. He brings all the people of different races together at a time of segregation and deep ignorance.

He brings members of Count Basie and Duke Ellington’s band out, he does American popular song, he does original jazz songs. He has a section that covers the history of jazz. He plays the hell out of the clarinet. He has a small group; he has a big band. He covered a lot of ground on that one concert.

That’s also the most meaningful concert because he made Carnegie Hall give him rehearsal time. He was like, “No, no. I have to rehearse this much to get my music right.” It was in America’s premiere concert hall at that time. It signaled a movement away from a type of prejudice that, at that time, there was no way to remove it because prejudice survives all evidence. But at that time, it was a very strong statement from someone. Very powerful to make that statement.

You get your space in the premier concert hall and you make that type of encompassing statement — it’s very powerful.

Dizzy Gillespie with Charlie Parker, “Shaw ‘Nuff” (1945)

Two people who did a lot of practicing (individually and together)

Charlie Parker and Dizzy. It’s one thing to practice yourself; it’s another thing to practice with somebody else. To be able to play parts with that type of clarity and togetherness. Dizzy always said Bird was the other side of his heartbeat. To this day, I don’t know if two horns have equaled that degree of complexity, nuance, sophistication and absolute togetherness. Fire, virtuosity.

When it happened, people knew it was something spectacular. Time has proven to us, yes.

Ornette Coleman, “Peace” (1959)

Uncommon psychological complexity while maintaining a lyrical intention

I was very close with Ornette. Ornette was a shaman. Man, I’d go to Ornette’s house at 1 o’clock in the morning. He said, [imitates Coleman’s reedy voice] “Hey man, pull your horn out, man,” and literally, I would sit across from him and play, with no talk, for two, three hours. Just playing phrases back and forth. Then when he’d tell you stuff, it was always something so insightful about human beings.

This solo, “Peace,” it’s like, you know how you be talking and you raise your eyes, and you have many gestures, you go up and down, you have a landscape of emotions and thoughts and feelings? It’s hard to do that improvising. That’s in that solo.

[Sings] Just the areas he’s gonna take you in and the psychological complexity of his phrasing and what he’s saying and his ability to change the mood and intention in his sound — very complex.

Ben Webster and Harry “Sweets” Edison, “Better Go” (1962)

Destination: Soul

The cover of that album [Ben and “Sweets”] is so soulful, that’s all you need to know. You just put that up as a poster, it just says it all. That’s a swingin’ record. It’s just blues they’re playing. Veterans playing some blues at grown folks’ tempo. That’s about being grown. Kids, stay at home, suck your thumb, play with some video games. This is grown folks.

Charles Mingus, “Meditations on Integration” (1964)

Great consolidator of all past and present (after bebop)

What happens with people is they generally fall into the misconception of their generation. Like, when [Giovanni Pierluigi da] Palestrina was writing music, he’s writing a lot of really thick counterpoint. Five-voice counterpoint, very complex. The next generation wrote very simply, and then that style becomes old-fashioned because you wanna compete with the style. Now, who can come in the era of simplification and add complexity from the past? That’s the question.

Now you’re in America during the middle of the youth movement, the first time you’re able to sell stuff to kids that’s for adults. You’re making a lot of money and you’re going as far away from anything adult as you can go. But you also have the Civil Rights Movement going on at the same time and you are engaged with a lot of stuff in your generation that’s real that did not happen before that because it could not happen. Why would you, in the middle of that, reach back into something that is being discredited, was a source of pain and shame for a lot of people who didn’t know what it was, and bring that into your sound, as you also reach further in the direction that your generation is going in? That’s two reaches. That’s a yoga position.

That’s what Charles Mingus did with all those records he made in the mid-to-late Fifties into the Sixties and Seventies. He has the avant-garde with people talking and playing music; it was considered to be free. He has New Orleans musical pieces like “My Jelly Roll Soul.” He has ballads of unbelievable depth and complexity.

He has long-form pieces like “Meditation on Integration” that gives you the African 6/8. He has traditional bebop songs, he has ironic songs, “Gunslinging Birds.” He has church music. All these elements, folk elements, everything he’s putting in his music. Theatrical elements, and he’s not segregating himself from the music.

Wayne Shorter, “Infant Eyes” (1964)

Extremely sophisticated, yet lyrical melody/harmony combination

What does that mean? That means the harmonic progression is as sophisticated as the melody. Very difficult. Sometimes you have a really great melody and the harmonies are not up to the melody.

“Infant Eyes”: haunting melody. It’s almost like it’s written on one mode. It’s not, but it sounds like that — like something you would sing to a child, like a lullaby. Harmony, very sophisticated.

When you look at the harmonic progression, where he goes, he’s a master of harmony anyway, but he goes to places in the harmony and the harmony is cyclical. It’s the way that the cycle works. I could explain it, but it’s not gonna translate on the page.

But just suffice to say that, if you’re looking at a math equation that’s beautiful as an equation, since math can be lyrical and beautiful, and you look at it and say, “Damn, that’s how the math of this works?” That’s how these songs all are.

John Coltrane, A Love Supreme (1964)

Unprecedented improvised development with least amount of thematic material

Trane set out with A Love Supreme to give as a little thematic material as possible and improvise. So most of what’s on A Love Supreme is like cells, like a minor third and a whole step. So you invert it as a fourth, as a fifth; it covers a lot of different intervals. [Sings themes] Out of the kind of pentatonic sound that connects you to the East.

The exception is the second part. But even that eight-bar form, an unusual form for blues, went back to an earlier form. By then, people were playing 12-bar blues, 14-bar blues, blues with longer forms. Trane went back to the earlier folk form of eight-bar blues on A Love Supreme.

That’s a tremendous achievement not just for the depth of engagement that it’s known for but how little thematic material it is, how much improvisation goes on.

Eddie Harris, “1974 Blues” (1969)

A boogaloo church shuffle in a funky 7 — damn!

It’s a boogaloo church shuffle but it’s in seven [7/4 time]. Not only are you playing a boogaloo — which is a rhythm in four — you’re playing it in a church shuffle feel, so you got the secular and the church, and then you’re playing it in seven but the seven is funky. It’s not a kind of awkward beat drop in seven, or a seven that’s like you’re trying to be Eastern European music but you’re always failing because you didn’t grow up dancing to it. It’s like an organic seven. He understood something.

The way that they do it is slick too because the same riff recurs. A groove is based on repetition, so the question of the repetition is when do you go away from it? It’s kind of like what Louis Armstrong does with King Oliver. The key to the syncopation is when they decide to syncopate phrases.

So it’s like the balance of when you’re going to not repeat. This has a brilliant use of repetition in the groove. It accounts for the fact that the seven is an odd meter, so the seven itself is something that will create turmoil in the repetition. You can repeat a lot more without becoming boring.

Betty Carter, “Bridges” (1992)

Sounds of protest throughout time

[Note: Marsalis also cited Louis Armstrong’s “(What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue,” Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit,” Max Roach’s We Insist! and several other recordings in this category.]

This is the sound of protest for our time. [These are] people who decided they were gonna make a statement of protest in music and how the different forms of protest were formed. Louis Armstrong did “Black and Blue”, but the bridge says “I’m white inside, but that don’t help my case.”

[Betty Carter’s “Bridges” is] only scat singing, but the power, the virtuosity of it, the diversity of what she’s singing, it speaks for itself. It speaks on the power of instrumental music. It’s extremely virtuosic in a very free and strong and progressive way.

At one point, she goes into an African 6/8, she’s in four [sings]. The way she spells out the rhythms. So she’s taking us on a journey through different rhythms, and it’s the force of her sound. It is a statement. Because when I say protest, it’s also sounds of freedom.

By HANK SHTEAMER

Source: Rolling Stone

Wynton Marsalis and his brothers salute their pop at Jazz Fest

Photo by Michael DeMocker, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune

Ellis Marsalis, the 84-year-old jazz pianist extraordinaire, was honored at the 50th Anniversary New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival with a concert commemorating his contribution to the crescent City music scene as both a musician and teacher. Ellis was joined on stage by his sons Wynton, Branford, Delfeayo and Jason. Together they are New Orleans’ first family of jazz, which pretty much means they are the galaxy’s reigning first family of jazz.

Ellis, wearing a scarlet vest and panama hat, commanded the piano with seemingly undiminished skill and confidence through several of his complex, moody compositions. The solos taken by his illustrious sons were magnificent, of course. But better yet where those passages when the five men played simultaneously, producing an amalgam of conspiratorial and competitive virtuosity as rare as a sonic unicorn.

In a 2001 interview that marked Ellis’s retirement from teaching, he noted that jazz wasn’t always welcome in college classrooms. “When I was in school, you could get expelled for playing jazz,” he recalled of his years studying piano at Dillard University. “The dean would get a report that we were over there ruining pianos playing jazz on them.”

Thereafter Ellis made a career of ruining pianos, at the Playboy Club in the French Quarter, with Al Hirt’s band, and other professional gigs. More significantly, he devoted much of his life to making sure that the language of jazz was spoken in New Orleans music classrooms.

In his days on the staff of the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts, Xavier University and University of New Orleans, Ellis taught and tutored several future stars, including Terence Blanchard, Harry Connick Jr., Irvin Mayfield, Jesse Davis, Charlie Dennard, Victor Goines, Donald Harrison, and Marlon Jordan as well as his musical sons.

Wynton became the nation’s torch bearer of jazz purity, becoming artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center while accumulating nine Grammy Awards, a National Medal of Arts and a Pulitzer Prize. Branford proved that jazz could be blended into pop culture, accompanying Sting and the Grateful Dead, as well as fronting the “Tonight Show” band on television. Meanwhile, Delfeayo and Jason kept the home fires burning with regular shows on Frenchmen Street.

To see the brothers join together in a rangy version of “The Second-Line” as they left the stage to wander the front aisles of the Jazz Tent playing their instruments was one of those rare treats that makes Jazz Fest magic.

by Doug MacCash

Source: NOLA.com

This festival is setting up for four days of jazz — and Wynton Marsalis is all over it

No one’s going to mistake Charlotte for New Orleans. For one thing, the Big Easy has open container laws that make it legal to bar hop with a beer in your hand. But for one weekend each spring since 2015, Blumenthal Performing Arts has turned Uptown into a jazz destination.

It happens again from April 29 to May 4. This year’s Charlotte Jazz Festival will be part of a larger, two-week Charlotte SHOUT! festival, featuring a battle between DJs; cooking demos; guest speakers on timely topics and giant, inflatable, white bunnies called “The Intrude Family” by their creator, Parer Studios of Tasmania. (Experience the rabbit invasion at its most glorious at night; they’ll be lit from within.) Charlotte SHOUT!’s tagline is “Ideas + Music + Food + Art.” Much of the music component of the equation comes from Jazz Fest.

As always, Wynton Marsalis, a prominent member of jazz’s first family, will play an outsized role in the festivities.

How important is he to the festival? “He’s the guy who thought it up,” said Tom Gabbard, Blumenthal’s president and CEO. “We wouldn’t have launched it without him. He’s a guidepost for all of it — artistically and through his commitment to community and education.”

Marsalis — son of the pioneering Ellis Marsalis and brother of Branford (sax), Delfeayo (trombone) and Jason (drums) — recalled the feeling of community support the festival had even in its infancy. There was no Jazz Tent that first year. Adding it has increased the number of venues — and the number of jazz lovers who can attend. This year, there will be more than 50 concerts, special events and workshops.

The festival has grown incrementally, Gabbard said, and that’s as he intended. “We haven’t gotten crazy ambitious and grown too fast. I’m proud of the events we offer and especially proud that more than 40 of them this year are free. We’re giving families access to great jazz at no cost.”

Marsalis — a trumpeter, teacher and composer—will perform twice this year, yet his influence will be felt throughout the four-day event. His first performance at 7 p.m. May 1 is as a special guest star with Camille Thurman and the Darrell Green Trio. Thurman’s vocals have been compared to those of Ella Fitzgerald; her virtuosity on the tenor sax has earned her comparisons to Dexter Gordon. Darrell Green has become a master drummer and sought-after sideman.

Gabbard noted a special connection Marsalis has to his May 1 venue, the Jazz Garden Tent at Romare Bearden Park. Charlotte native Bearden, perhaps American’s foremost collage artist, was a Marsalis family friend. He designed the cover of Marsalis’ 1986 album, “J Mood.”

Marsalis, then in his early 20s, didn’t like the artwork — but he couldn’t admit that to a legend. When the young Marsalis tried to give artistic direction to Bearden, in his mid-70s, the artist ignored it. “Don’t bring me some picture you drew,” Marsalis recalled Bearden admonishing him.

According to Marsalis, Bearden told their mutual friend, the literary and jazz critic Albert Murray, “Wynton doesn’t like my album cover. But he will.”

Bearden was right. “I wasn’t sophisticated enough to understand it,” Marsalis said. “I didn’t know the history. But Romare was always trying to teach me. He’d give me books on mythology, Joseph Campbell. I used to visit him often at his studio on Canal Street [in New York].”

The schedule

What makes a great jazz musician? “Empathy, earthiness, intelligence,” Marsalis said. “And creativity and a willingness to share. But there’s no mold. You can be upright like a parson or totally wild. Jazz has room for all kinds. There are no rules.”

There is a schedule, though — a full one. On May 2, Marsalis will play with the Future of Jazz Orchestra, which he created, at Knight Theater. Marsalis and other established artists — Rodney Whitaker, Wycliffe Gordon and Dan Block — will be joined by 14 rising stars.

Many of those musicians, in their teens and 20s, have developed through Jazz at Lincoln Center’s education programs and now share the stage with their mentors. The up-and-comers and the pros will perform “Ellington Through the Ages: From the 1920s-1970s.” And it will be one of the hottest tickets in town. “Ellington Through the Ages” is opening in New York the next night at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Charlotte audiences can see it first.

On May 3, “Wynton Marsalis’ Spaces,” celebrating music and dance, will feature the Lincoln Center Orchestra performing Marsalis’ original and highly celebrated composition. South Carolina’s Jerry Grimes will be one of the featured dancers. Marsalis said, “He’s phenomenal. I can’t even put him into a category.”

He said the piece contains, “a groove that evokes the spirit of each animal”—from lions to swallows and from monkeys to bees. “‘Spaces’ was … conceived as a series of zoological portraits,” the New York Times wrote after its 2016 premiere. “Those buzzing kazoos were just one example of … Marsalis’ knack for a sort of musical onomatopoeia.”

Kazoos? As part of a jazz band? It works when Marsalis is in charge. He can elevate a toy instrument to unheard of heights.

From Pageland to Broadway (to Charlotte)

Marsalis is far from the only Jazz Fest performer with star power. Broadway and TV star Patina Miller, a native of Pageland, S.C., will debut a new homage to North Carolina native Nina Simone. (“This is as fresh and new as it gets,” Gabbard said.)

Miller originated the role of Deloris Van Cartier in London’s “Sister Act” — which is where Gabbard first took note of her — and later in the Broadway production of it. She won a Best Actress Tony award for her role in the 2013 revival of “Pippin.”

Another unlikely star: The Jazz Garden Tent—a grand, although temporary, structure at Romare Bearden Park that feels more like a jazz club with panoramic views than a tent. Six concerts will be performed in that lush space — three on Friday and three on Saturday — and, Gabbard said, “as close in sequence as possible.”

“In the past,” he said, “we’ve had an hour or more between each concert. Now, the concerts will follow one after the other to make for a full night of jazz. There are three acts in one evening, and guests can enjoy just one or stay for all three.”

New Orleans may have been the birthplace of jazz, but other cities have become jazz destinations. Marsalis cites New York, Chicago, “L.A. on Central Avenue,” Kansas City, Philadelphia and Newark, N.J.

Could Charlotte one day be among them?

Marsalis mentioned his friends, Lonnie and Ocie Davis, New Orleans transplants who founded JazzArts Charlotte (formerly Jazz Arts Initiative). “Ocie studied with my father,” Marsalis said. “Ocie can swing, you know what I’m saying? I love what they represent and love how the community embraces them. There are great students coming out of there.”

Veronica Leahy (the 2016 Loonis McGlohon Young Jazz Artists Competition winner) is one of those students, he said. “Alto sax player. She can play! When you’ve got young talent, it’s a matter of the community supporting that talent. Anything is possible.”

That’s a good way to describe a festival of jazz, that no-rules, no-holds-barred musical genre that takes improv on an extended vacation. From April 29 through May 4, anything is possible. A buttoned-up bankers’ town could feel like Bourbon Street. Almost.

by Page Legget

Source: Charlotte Observer

How Wynton Marsalis helped resurrect the musical voice of Buddy Bolden

Gary Carr plays Buddy Bolden, and Karimah Westbrook plays his mother, Alice Bolden, in director Dan Pritzker’s 2019 film “Bolden.” (Photo by Fred Norris/Abramorama)

For Dan Pritzker, the decision was a no-brainer. He wanted to make a movie about New Orleans cornetist Buddy Bolden, the mysterious, nearly mythological figure credited with having pioneered the improvisational music form that would become jazz, and he needed someone to provide the “voice” of Bolden’s horn.

And who better to help tell the story of one of the greatest practitioners of early jazz than one of the greatest practitioners of jazz today?

So Pritzker arranged a meeting with Wynton Marsalis, the New Orleans trumpeter and artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center whose litany of honors include nine Grammy Awards, a National Medal of Arts and a Pulitzer Prize, and who will perform with his father and musical brothers at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival on Sunday (April 28).

To Pritzker’s surprise, Marsalis jumped at the chance to come on board, agreeing to compose the music for the long-gestating drama “Bolden,” which, after 11 years of shoots and reshoots opens May 3 at The Broad Theater.

As easy as a call as that might’ve been for Pritzker, the decision-making would be decidedly more complex for Marsalis. That’s because, while actor Gary Carr portrays Bolden on-screen, Marsalis plays all the cornet parts for the film. Consequently, it fell to him to figure out what Bolden’s playing actually sounded like.

There’s just one glaring problem: As legendary as Bolden is, no recording of his playing is known to exist. We know he played loud, and we know he played like nobody else. But that’s about it. So, the question becomes, how do you imitate the musical voice of a man you’ve never heard play?

For Marsalis, the answer would involve a bit of informed speculation and no small amount of musical detective work.

“I just wanted to write music, and Dan wanted the same thing, that showed the range of music that Bolden played,” Marsalis said, calling recently to talk about his work on the film. “I wanted to play with a lot of energy and fire and play the hell out of the cornet. I wanted to play with a rhythmic intensity.

“A person who’s playing with more intensity, and emotional intensity, is going to seem like he’s playing loud. The intensity and emotion is going to make it feel loud. It’s much like the effect with the way Charlie Parker played, or Louis Armstrong.”

The thing is, “rhythmic intensity” is a fairly broad description, one that still can be interpreted in a number of ways. To zero in on a more detailed, refined version of what Bolden might have sounded like, Marsalis would have to dig deeper.

So, he said, he explored the music of some of those musicians who played with Bolden, and were thus influenced by him, but who — unlike Bolden — did, indeed, record. Three players in particular provided key inspiration, becoming a sort of musical composite character, Marsalis said.

There was Bunk Johnson, who was known as one of the city’s best trumpeters between 1905 and 1915. There was also King Oliver, whom Marsalis describes as playing “with a great amount of dignity.” And there was Freddie Keppard, a Creole cornetist who played more of a ragtime style but with a certain musical sophistication.

“You put those three players together, and I figure you get a sense of Buddy Bolden,” Marsalis said.

“A sense”: Those are the operative words. Because, just as Marsalis can only speculate about what Bolden’s playing sounded like, Pritzker — though enlisting the help of Bruce Raeburn of the Hogan Jazz Archives at Tulane University for biographical details — had precious few verifiable facts about Bolden’s life with which to work.

We know he was born in New Orleans in 1877. We know he was so revered on the local music scene that he earned the nickname “King.” We know he liked booze and women in equal measure. And we know he was a musical supernova, his career over by the time he was 30, which is when he was sent to the state mental hospital in Jackson after being diagnosed with alcohol-induced psychosis. That’s where he would live out the remainder of his days; he never played publicly again.

Bolden would die at age 54 and be buried in Holt Cemetery, a potter’s field in New Orleans. No one is sure which grave is his.

It’s a story that is as fascinating as it is tragic, but the lack of verifiable details makes the task of trying to turn it into a feature film a tricky one. There are so many blanks to fill in that any filmmaker brave enough to tackle it must by necessity employ a certain amount of literary license, which as often as not invites criticism.

But when Pritzker explained his vision to Marsalis at the first meeting, he used a word that it turns out was key as far Marsalis was concerned: myth.

“He said, ‘It’s a mythic story,” Marsalis explained. “If you’re going to do a movie about Buddy Bolden, it’s got to be a myth.”

In other words: Rather than running from the gaps in knowledge about Bolden’s story, Pritzker wanted to embrace them by filling those gaps with exaggerated elements that, while perhaps not reflective of actual events in Bolden’s life, hint at the sort of larger-than-life figure he has become.

For example, early in the film, Bolden’s manager talks him into raising his profile by parachuting from a hot-air balloon and into a swanky lawn party. Bolden reluctantly goes along with the plan, blowing his trumpet as he floats down from the sky. When he lands, he’s greeted by a crowd that follows him around as if he is the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

Did that really happen? Of course not. But it does provide a certain context, capturing the sort of hold Bolden had on audiences, the sort of musical magnetism he generated.

Marsalis also singles out a sequence set in a factory in which a young Bolden hears the machines whirring away — and hears music in them. There’s no way to know if that actually happened to Bolden, but Marsalis says he’s spoken with other musicians who as children remember appreciating the musicality of a whooshing washing machine or other appliance.

“I feel like it’s one of the most straight-forward uses of music, where the filmmaker wasn’t trying to run from the music,” Marsalis said. “The music is central (to the film).”

Despite the obvious passion and reverence on Pritzker’s part, “Bolden” still has to be seen as a risky project. After all, Buddy Bolden is an icon. People don’t like it when you tinker with their icons.

But when asked if that gave him pause when deciding to participate, Marsalis shrugged it off. Intimidation, it would appear, isn’t part of his game.

“I don’t go into things with a fear of things being wrong,” he said. “You go to the dance, you dance. You don’t go to sit on the wall.”

An Ellis Marsalis Family Tribute, featuring Wynton, Branford, Delfeayo, Jason and Ellis Marsalis, is scheduled for 5:40 p.m. Sunday (April 28) at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival’s WWOZ Jazz Tent.

Mike Scott is the movie and TV critic for NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune. He can be reached via email at mscott@nola.com or on Twitter at @moviegoermike.

By Mike Scott

Source: Times-Picayune

Wynton Marsalis on Bringing the Story of Jazz Originator Buddy Bolden to the Big Screen

Gary Carr stars as Charles “Buddy” Bolden

Like many music fans, even now, Wynton Marsalis did not grow up familiar with the Charles “Buddy” Bolden story. But the dramatic tale of the singing cornetist — a key figure and to some the inventor of jazz — eventually became an inspiration that made Marsalis the perfect choice to helm the music for Bolden, the upcoming biopic based on his life.

“I grew up in the ’60s and ’70s — the Civil Rights movement, Motown, James Brown, Marvin Gaye,” Marsalis, whose rendition of “Funky Butt” you can hear below, tells Billboard. “I was playing in a funk band. I didn’t know anything about (Bolden’s) story or who he was or what he played. I didn’t have proper respect of the music. I didn’t respect historical things in general.” But Marsalis did learn — through his father, Ellis Marsalis Jr., and by getting into Louis Armstrong, which led the then-fledgling Marsalis back to Bolden, partially via Donald M. Marquis’ famed biography In Search of Buddy Bolden. The latter in particular was primary source material for Bolden director and co-writer Daniel Pritzker, chronicling the musician’s life during the early 20th century in his native New Orleans, leapfrogging off ragtime to create his own style of music that influenced dozens of other musicians before Bolden was diagnosed with schizophrenia at the age of 30, living out the final 24 years of his life in the Louisiana State Asylum.

Over the years Bolden has become as much myth as man, which Marsalis and Pritzker both found appealing for the film, which opens May 3.

“It is a myth because we don’t have a recording of him,” Marsalis explains. “(Pritzker) wanted to do it as a mythic story and just tell the tale and show what Bolden put together and his place in mythic America. And I think on a certain level our myths are important because it’s what we will recreate. There’s a certain reality to his story, most of which is what he put together to invent jazz. And with Dan also being a musician, I like the direction he spoke in.”

Marsalis — who was approached about Bolden, via management, by co-producer Jonathan Cornick — recorded the 26-track soundtrack in New York, deepening his knowledge and understanding of the repertoire as he composed and arranged the pieces.

“We knew what he played,” Marsalis says. “We knew his repertoire; Musicians played it and people talked about it. I did a lot of research — we even know what he opened his set with. So there was knowledge of him and who he was and what he played. As I’ve grown older I’ve tried to fill in gaps in my knowledge, and this was a perfect opportunity to do that. I did figure out how to make the alignment of the band with two clarinets so it worked. We have Michael White, who’s our real, true historian, is playing like a wild man on the record.”

Bolden stars Gary Carr in the title role, with Reno Wilson as Louis Armstrong and Ian McShane as the villainous Judge Leander Perry. Marsalis’ hope is that bringing the story, and the music, to the big screen will vault Bolden to the kind of deserved stature in music history that’s eluded him so far — at least with mainstream audiences.

“I just hope it brings people’s attention to who he was and highlights his genius and achievement — plus it puts the issue of mental illness in front of people some more,” Marsalis notes. “It may be the kind of film that lets people understand the kind of conflicts that we have in our country, and that we’ve had them a long time, and what we need to do to become more harmonious and in tune with the best of what our traditions are. Ultimately I hope it makes a statement about expression and that we don’t have to segregate ourselves from ourselves and to appreciate something great, no matter where it comes from.”

by Gary Graff

Source: Billboard

JALC Gala Traverses the History of Jazz

Jazz at Lincoln Center felt more like jazz at Preservation Hall during the April 17 JALC concert and gala dinner.

The theme of the annual fundraiser for the New York cultural organization was “The Birth of Jazz: From Bolden to Armstrong” and featured an array of New Orleans’ brightest performers: pianist-singers Harry Connick Jr. and Jon Batiste, pianist Sullivan Fortner, and guitarist/banjoist Don Vappie, complemented by other specialists in early jazz, including singer Catherine Russell. Three outstanding young trumpeters, alumni of JALC’s nationwide big-band competition, Essentially Ellington, also got a chance to show off their skills.

The music might have been vintage, but the prices were not: tables of 12 were going for as much as $200,000 with the money going to support one of the world’s most important promoters of jazz and jazz education.

The concert, hosted by former Crescent City Mayor Mitch Landrieu, included three of the four performing Marsalis brothers: Wynton on cornet and trumpet, older brother Branford on tenor saxophone and Jason, the youngest brother, on drums. A fourth brother, writer and photographer Ellis Marsalis III, showed up, as well, to recite a poem in tribute to his father, pianist and educator Ellis Marsalis Jr., and to accept the Award for Artistic Excellence on behalf of the family patriarch.

Also honored with the organization’s Ed Bradley Award were philanthropists Art and Becky Samberg.

The evening also effectively served as a preview of the new movie Bolden, a fictionalized biography about the legendary inventor of jazz, Buddy Bolden, whose short career around the turn of the 20th century changed the course of America’s cultural and social history. Wynton Marsalis contributed original music to the film that conjures the Bolden band, of which there are no extant recordings.

The affable Landrieu, who served eight years as New Orleans’ mayor, came onstage holding a trumpet and quipped, “I thought that, instead of running for president, I’d audition for the JLCO.” In addition to giving birth to jazz, he said, “New Orleans invented poker and movie theaters. You’re welcome.”

He introduced the orchestra, and Bolden’s “Don’t Go ’way Nobody” followed, featuring Wynton on cornet. Landrieu then brought out Russell, a favorite of JALC audiences, whose newest album, Alone Together, had just finished five weeks atop the jazz radio charts. Her thoughtful, nostalgic rendition of “Basin Street Blues,” Spencer Williams’ 1928 masterpiece, featured Armstrong-inspired soloing by JLCO trumpeter Kenny Rampton. Russell, whose father, Luis Russell was Armstrong’s longtime musical director, scatted the ending in a style that would have made Pops proud.

Joe “King” Oliver’s “Snake Rag” featured two of the young trumpeters, recent Julliard graduate Noah Halpern and fourth-year Julliard student Anthony Hervey, who improvised deftly over the classic chart, punctuated by a shout of “Oh, sweet mama!” by bandmembers. Vince Giordano achieved a hat trick on the Armstrong hit “Mahogany Hall Stomp,” playing successive solos on acoustic bass, bass tuba and bass saxophone with vigorous support from New Orleans banjo virtuoso Vappie, and trumpeter Marcus Printup and trombonist Vincent Gardner.

Landrieu then introduced Batiste, who played a haunting “St. James Infirmary Blues,” a track off his latest disc, Hollywood Africans, inhabiting the lyric with an affecting vocal. He lightened the mood somewhat with his line, “She’s never gonna find another sharp-dressing piano-playing man like me,” earning appreciative laughter.

Connick was next up, complaining, “It’s not fair to have me follow a Julliard piano player.” He then launched into a jaunty, if rather sloppy, barrelhouse piano solo on “Tico Tico.” He did much better with “Stardust,” crooning it movingly and with humility, caressing each lyric. In this he was abetted by eloquent tenor commentary by Branford Marsalis, who took a gorgeously constructed solo with a proper beginning, middle and end.

“Our dad was different,” Branford said, in remarks before a filmed tribute to the senior Marsalis. “Unlike many people today, he had no grievances … . At a certain point when we were in our teens, Wynton and I were making more money playing in a Top 40 band than he was playing jazz. One day, I asked him how he felt about that. He said, ‘This is my choice.’”

Introducing pianist Fortner, Landrieu told how Ellis Marsalis Jr., had discovered him as a 12-year-old piano prodigy, exclaiming, “We got another one!” Now 32, Fortner fronted the JLCO in the lilting theme “Timelessness,” a tune from Wynton’s score for Bolden, a song that sounds like it could have been an early Ellington band composition. At one point, Wynton, wielding a plunger mute, and Branford on soprano saxophone traded fours, creating some musical fireworks, while Fortner’s solo was, characteristically, loose as a goose and tight as a drum.

One of the final student performances was by trumpeter Summer Camargo, currently a senior at the Dillard Center for the Arts in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Playing Ellington’s “Portrait Of Louis Armstrong” (from New Orleans Suite) with the backing of the JLCO, she impressed with her improvising chops, from lyrical passages to audacious blasts. Her fellow trumpeters, Halpern and Hervey, returned, along with featured clarinetists Dan Block and Victor Goines, to perform “Second Line,” from the same Ellington suite.

As Landrieu commented, referring to the array of young talent, “Turn off your TVs. Now, how does the future look?”

By Allen Morrison

Source: Downbeat

The Dignity Of His Sound: Wynton Marsalis Talks About The Buddy Bolden Movie

Wynton Marsalis describes the movie Bolden, which is directed by Daniel Pritzker, and will be released on May 3, as a “mythical account” of New Orleans cornetist Buddy Bolden.

“The man is mythical; we don’t have recordings of him, we only know what people say Buddy Bolden was like, but nobody really knows,” says the Grammy-winning trumpeter and composer who acts as the film’s executive producer and who composed and performed on its soundtrack, which will drop on April 29.

Marsalis is also heard playing the cornet when actor Gary Carr is depicted blowing the horn. He switches to the trumpet when Louis Armstrong, played by Reno Wilson, enters the picture. “This is not a historical drama or a biopic,” Marsalis reiterates. “Dan [Pritzker] had a vision of Buddy Bolden and of those times, and it deals with different issues. It’s not a sanitized version that makes Buddy Bolden seem like he was a preacher.”

Cornetist and bandleader Bolden, who was sometimes referred to as King Bolden, was born on September 6, 1877, and gained a city-wide reputation for his musical talents and the strength of his blowing. He struggled with mental illness for much of his life and died in the Insane Asylum of Louisiana, on November 4, 1931 at the age of 32.

“When I was growing up I heard his name. I heard people talking about him,” remembers Marsalis, who around 1980 read author Don Marquis’s highly researched biography of Bolden, 1978’s In Search of Buddy Bolden: First Man of Jazz. “I love his book, and him,” Marsalis offers.

Though Marsalis has been deeply involved with the movie, he is quick to point out that it is director Daniel Pritzker’s project. “He called me to see if I was interested in doing it,” Marsalis explains. Of course, he was.

Likewise, the movie isn’t based on Marquis’s book, though it certainly played a very important role as an authoritative factual reference. Pritzker also consulted with the author.

The importance of the film to the New Orleans audiences who have long heard about the legend and love the history of their city is paramount. Knowing that Buddy Bolden, who used the music to bring joy to his people and community, will be shared with the world also brings a certain satisfaction.

“I think it makes people aware of that history, and that a man named Buddy Bolden lived and he created the music that he believed in, that dealt with issues of freedom and negotiation of a group,” Marsalis offers. “That’s made clear in the movie. There are racial tensions in America that are still with us today. Destroy their souls and they destroy themselves. The movie also made it clear that Buddy Bolden didn’t grow up in a playground. This isn’t Walt Disney.

“It also sheds a light on mental health issues, because Buddy Bolden lost his mind—and that is a fact—and mental health is an issue today for many people. So, I think it’s good for it to be the subject of something. How a guy with that level of creativity ended up.” That subject is also focused on in the fictionalized novel based on Bolden, Michael Ondaatje’s 1976’s Coming Through the Slaughter.

Following the publication of Marquis’ biography on Bolden, there seemed to be a change of heart by many who had argued that New York or Chicago was the birthplace of jazz. The movie might finally seal the deal that New Orleans owns the rights to that claim.

“Most of the greatest jazz musicians came from New Orleans,” Marsalis states. “It’s like the earliest bones that were found were from Africa. If you want to go back and forth about it [jazz’s birthplace] you can and it’s fun to do that. Are you going to argue with Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong—we could go on and on, the list is endless. Why waste time on that besides the fact that it’s fun to talk about something in a heated fashion especially if there’s no proof and there’s not going to be a resolution to it.”

“Yea, I think New Orleans was well represented in the movie,” Marsalis reflects. “You could see that it was the city and the places and the people, yea. The movie is so internal, and it’s really about the interaction of the characters, but still you know you’re in New Orleans.”

Marsalis was gratified that director Pritzker “let the music play” in the movie; Marsalis felt that, too often in films about jazz, the music tends to take a back seat.

“Dan knew a lot about the material, he did a lot of research, and [clarinetist] Michael White of course knows a lot about this material. We talked for years about what Bolden played. His repertoire, it’s not like it was mysterious; he played music from the church, hymns, he played light marches, he played ragtime.”

Perhaps surprisingly, many of the tunes on the soundtrack were newly written by Marsalis for the project. The familiar classics that appear, songs like “Tiger Rag,” and “Basin Street Blues,” were arranged by the trumpeter for an ensemble that included several musicians from New Orleans, including Marsalis, White, reedman Victor Goines, and guitarist/banjoist Don Vappie.

“I play loud on it,” says Marsalis of one of the ways he approached the cornet with Bolden in mind. King Bolden boasted a huge reputation for blowing the instrument hard.

“What I was doing, I actually idealized his sound—no you can’t recreate it,” Marsalis says of what is heard in the movie and on the soundtrack. “What I tried to do is composite three trumpet players who I know were influenced by him. The first assumption is that the person who invents a style is going to play it better than the people who come right after them. People could play after [saxophonist] Charlie Parker but he played his style better than them. [That’s true] throughout time. Armstrong, Monk, you can go on and on.”

“A person who can barely play is not going to be called the king in New Orleans where people could play. Buddy Bolden was called king at a time when people could play, in a city where people played a lot of music. That means to me, he could play.”

“He also invented more than trumpet parts. That’s why they called him the guy who invented jazz. When he talked to musicians, he was talking about more than the trumpet. If that weren’t the case, he wouldn’t have had that kind of status. He would have just been a good instrumentalist.”

“Another thing, the people who came right after him and actually heard him and competed after him, they could play. Look at who they are, people like Freddie Keppard. People would have a tendency to think that since Buddy Bolden was from a black area uptown, he was not harmonically sophisticated. Not harmonically sophisticated? Environment doesn’t lead to those conclusions. King Oliver is a direct descendent of Buddy Bolden. He heard him all of the time and was inspired to play by him. That makes me know that Buddy Bolden also had dignity in his sound.”

Marsalis went on mentioning the sophistication of Jelly Roll Morton and how trumpeter Bunk Johnson would whistle, incorporating diminished chords that Marsalis credits as having been inspired by Bolden.

By compiling the sound of New Orleans trumpeters who immediately followed Bolden, Marsalis says his aim in blowing his cornet was to represent not only Bolden but the instrument’s tradition in America.

“I made him play rough and with a lot of attack,” Marsalis explains. “I made him louder than anybody and with a lot of dignity. I included arpeggios because every cornetist has to play them,” he adds.

Louis Armstrong, who it’s been claimed, heard Bolden when he was five years old, enters the movie when Bolden hears Satchmo on the radio, while incarcerated in the asylum. Marsalis describes the moment in time as the rise of Armstrong and the decline of Bolden.”

The release of Bolden comes at an auspicious time in New Orleans as there is a renewed focus and effort to restore Bolden’s double shotgun home at 2309 S. Liberty Street. Presently owned by the Greater St. Stephen Full Gospel Baptist Church, the house was by cited by the city for neglect, and threatened with demolition. Keyboardist/vocalist PJ Morton, who is the son of Rev. Paul S. Morton, the bishop of St. Stephen and his wife, Dr. Debra B. Morton, the church’s senior pastor, stepped up and formed the non-profit group, Buddy’s House Foundation, aimed at restoring the legend’s home [read more in OffBeat‘s November 2018 cover story on PJ Morton]

Naturally, Marsalis is aware of the effort and in support of its goal. “I think that it is important for cities to have a sense of significance about their places, the architecture, the physical,” says Marsalis, who compares such locales to part of a “family album.” “Where historical figures lived, their impact on the city and their achievements are great enough to deserve to be commemorated, remembered and preserved. That’s because that achievement and the preservation will create more achievement of the same level of quality and insight.”

by Geraldine Wyckoff

Source: OffBeat Magazine

Wynton Marsalis performs in tribute to Ellis Marsalis at Jazz Fest

Last week, Ellis Marsalis Jr. was honored in New York at the gala for Jazz at Lincoln Center, which was founded three decades ago by his son Wynton Marsalis.

Wynton is in New Orleans this week to perform in a Jazz Fest tribute to Ellis, along with brothers Branford, Delfeayo and Jason. The performance will focus on songs written by Ellis, reaching back to the 1970s with songs like “The Garden.”

“I like the sophistication of a song like ‘Nostalgic Impressions,’” Wynton says. “And the beauty of ‘Orchid Blue.’ It’s in a difficult key and it’s hard to play the harmonies — it has a tricky chord progression.”

The selections show the range of Ellis’ compositions.

“We’ll play ‘12’s It,’” Wynton says. “That’s a great tune to blow on because of the cyclical nature of the form. It doesn’t really end. It just goes around in a cycle.”

The Lincoln Center gala also celebrated music from Charles “Buddy” Bolden to Louis Armstrong. Marsalis wrote and arranged music for “Bolden,” director Dan Pritzker’s biopic drama about the creator of jazz. The soundtrack was released April 19, and the film opens May 3 at The Broad Theater.

The movie follows Bolden from boyhood in New Orleans through the end of his life at a mental health institution in 1931. The film imagines Bolden’s impressions of the world, sometime in surreal visions, some beautiful and others featuring stark imagery surrounding relationships and rivalries as well as his struggles with alcohol and drugs.

There are no recordings of Bolden’s music, and his legacy owes much to Donald M. Marquis’ book “In Search of Buddy Bolden: First Man of Jazz.” Despite the lack of recordings, Bolden’s role is clear, Marsalis says.

“He invented the music because everybody who could play around that time said he invented it,” Marsalis says. “The three trumpet players who were influenced by him, whose music we have recordings of, said he could play. … Bunk Johnson, Freddie Keppard and King Oliver — all three recorded in some way, Bunk Johnson albeit at a later time. Buddy Bolden had to play better than them.”

Bolden played in parades, for dances and in the clubs around South Rampart and Perdido streets, including the so-called Funky Butt Hall.

“The most telling thing about Buddy was a quote from a lady who was one of his contemporaries,” Marsalis says. “She said, ‘Every time Buddy played, his heart broke.’ That tells you he had the kind of sound we equate with a trumpet player like Miles Davis — a really personal sound that touches you when you hear it. That was his ultimate skill.”

by Will Coviello

Source: TheAdvocate

Director Daniel Pritzker talks about his new movie, “Bolden”

Dan Pritzker and Wynton Marsalis

We at The Syncopated Times are excited about the potential the new Buddy Bolden movie has to excite people about early jazz, and have made a decision to be there for people who see the movie and want to learn more. As part of our extensive coverage of Buddy Bolden, the man, the legend, and his music, I interviewed the director of the film, Daniel Pritzker.

The making of the film is a saga that might well be the plot of a movie itself. One with a happy ending. Pritzker got the idea for a film not long after first learning of Buddy Bolden and began writing the script in the late 1990s. Filming itself began in 2007, and after casting changes more film was shot in 2014. Much happened in the interim. That the movie was completed at all is a credit to Pritzker’s devotion to the project. Here we are in 2019, with the film premiering on May 3rd. Hallelujah!

TST: What were you trying to accomplish with the soundtrack, and how did your conversations with Wynton Marsalis about the soundtrack play out?

Daniel Pritzker: Wynton and I started working on the music a year and half before I started shooting. We discussed the balance between historical accuracy and appealing to modern sensibilities. Bolden played his last notes more than 100 years ago. Since then we’ve heard Armstrong, Miles Davis, and Dizzy Gillespie among others. Our ears are tuned differently now. Wynton devised a way to portray early New Orleans jazz that covered the narrative but has an edge that keeps modern ears engaged.

TST: Much of Bolden’s life remains a mystery and many of the few things we thought we knew about him have proven to be rumor. Given how little is known conjecture is inevitable. How did you go about researching Bolden and how did you balance that with the need to make a compelling film?

DP: The first time I heard Bolden’s name I felt that the story was bigger than the man. Bolden’s story is American mythology and I wanted to paint a picture of the fabric of the time in which Bolden made his music. I had no interest in making a “biopic” on Bolden. The dearth of history was critical to my interest in making this film. I read everything I could find on Bolden and the era in which he lived. The essential book is Don Marquis’ In Search of Buddy Bolden. I went down the rabbit hole of 18th and 19th century American history. It was clear that Bolden’s birth year, 1877, the year President Rutherford Hayes pulled federal troops from the south, ending reconstruction and beginning the era of Jim Crow, was auspicious. (The election of 1876 was an uncanny parallel to Bush/Gore – which happened as I was writing the script.) Black Americans had made in-roads into politics in the 19th century (Frederick Douglas) and education (Booker T Washington and WEB Du Bois), but Bolden was one of the earliest Black Americans whose individual talent propelled him to (local) notoriety. By the time Bolden was incarcerated in the asylum (1907), Jim Crow was in full swing.

I have loved and listened to music all my life. All kinds of music. My parents took me to see/hear Armstrong at Ravinia (outside Chicago) when I was about 5 years old. I have long recognized the link between Louis Armstrong and the rock and roll of my era. When I first heard Bolden’s name I was shocked that I had not heard of the guy that had such a deep impact on me and millions of others. It seemed to me quintessentially American to relegate to anonymity the Black American man that changed the fabric and tempo of the country. It struck me as tragic and poetic. This was American history and tragedy of mythical proportion. From the outset I saw this as an opportunity to make an allegorical story about the soul of America.

TST: I listened to some of your music from the early 90s. Cool stuff but not exactly early jazz. How did you become interested in jazz- were you familiar with jazz history before you started on your Bolden journey?

DP: I loved New Orleans music since I was kid. My dad loved the popular music of his era, Pops, Benny Goodman, Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington et al. We both loved Armstrong and Billie Holliday. But I was a product of my generation. I started to listen to John Coltrane because of Jerry Garcia.

TST: You have also described having an image of Bolden in the state asylum listening to Louis Armstrong on the radio, something that has made it’s way to the final film. What does that flashback narrative mean to you?

DP: The first book I read was Don Marquis’ book, ‘In Search of Buddy Bolden’ and then I read an Armstrong biography where I saw that Armstrong played at The Suburban Gardens in New Orleans in June 1931 – and was broadcast on the radio. I realized this was about 5 months before Bolden’s death (d. Nov. 4, 1931). Imagine schizophrenic Bolden hearing Armstrong on the radio. That’s what I did.

TST: You directed a silent film about Louis Armstrong, with Wynton Marsalis and a jazz band performing the music live on a theater tour. The imagery of a young Louis puts that film in the same years as Bolden’s activity. Was that a spinoff of the Bolden movie? If not, where did the idea come from and what were you trying to say.

DP: Bolden’s last public appearance was said to be Labor Day 1906. He actually entered the asylum in spring 1907. Armstrong was born in 1901 (thank you Gary Giddens). The silent film shows a young Louis Armstrong running after the cart that is taking Bolden to the asylum in 1907 – the year Louis turned 6 years old. The silent film was a whimsical, Chaplin-esque piece to follow the darkness of Bolden. Dessert after a heavy meal…but I finished dessert first.

TST: The trailer seems to capture the landscape and spirit of turn of the century New Orleans. The parachute scene references a real guy for example. And the houses despite the dusty streets were newer then. Tell me about the detailing that went into creating the look of the film. How much was put into creating historical accuracy in that respect?

DP: Great effort towards historical accuracy of the sets, costumes, etc. But I was making something along the lines of allegory which I felt allowed me certain latitude… We shot a number of exterior scenes in NOLA as well as two club scenes, one of which was shot at Preservation Hall. Most of the interiors were shot in North Carolina and Atlanta.

TST: Our readers will hope people become interested in early jazz when they see the film but what do you want a wider theater going public to learn from Bolden’s story, is there a greater message?

DP: This is story about America as much as anything else. The fabric of the times has changed but the parallels between the early 1900s and today are heartbreaking.

by Joe Bebco

Source: The Syncopated Times