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  • Wynton Marsalis, Skain’s Domain - Review

    Posted on April 14th, 2000 in Books, Review

    At this point in time, Wynton Marsalis is a work in progress, a brilliant trumpeter who throughout his still-developing career has seemed to find controversy at every turn. When he first hit the national scene in 1980 with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, the 18-year old was considered a phenomenon. Two years later he had gone out on his own and in 1983 he won Grammys in both jazz and classical music. The general news media was soon portraying Marsalis as the symbol of jazz, an up-and-coming master of the future. However others in the jazz world correctly pointed out that at the time the trumpeter lacked an original sound of his own, being too close to comfort to Miles Davis of the mid-1960’s. In addition, some of his statements in interviews seemed a bit arrogant, dismissing much of the music of the 1970’s, post-1965 avant-garde and fusion. Since then the pro and anti-Marsalis camps have only grown in intensity as he has continued to grow in stature, in recent times with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and with his Pulitzer Prize winning epic work Blood On The Fields.   Keep reading »