Posted at 8:00 a.m.
At the late Soleil Levant (Rising Sun) in the early 1980s, we witnessed, in this jazz and blues club located on rue Sainte-Catherine, the first show of the Marsalis brothers, Branford – on saxophone – and Wynton – on trumpet – in their very early twenties, without their mentor Art Blakey. So full, the box of Doudou Boicel, that our tables touched the knees of young New Orleans men dressed like princes. It was hot !
“Oh man! I will never forget that! I remember people I met that evening and who are still my friends, ”recalls Wynton Marsalis in videoconference.
The great Jazz Chapel would welcome into its ranks at least two other hungry young guns, Donald Harrison and Terence Blanchard, buddies from high school. “We went to school together, he says about the latter, he always played T [c’est ainsi qu’il désigne la trompette] and he was always serious about jazz. »
A family matter
His first concert at the International Jazz Festival took place in 1982 at the Théâtre St-Denis, while a Jazz dans la nuit series was introduced in smaller venues such as the Gesù. We also saw it with the VSOP II collective, still on rue Saint-Denis. We went there to see Wynton Marsalis, who later became a great world jazz star.
Coming from a family of musicians in New Orleans, including father Ellis, pianist and composer (who will delight many during a memorable show on July 5, 1986 at the FIJM), Wynton, serious, resistant to the currents of time, has become a great jazz star in its most classic definition. Just imagine: Louis Armstrong, New Orleans, the cradle of jazz, the evocation is powerful.
In New Orleans, my father had every difficulty in attracting an audience and our family was no different from other musical families there. What started it all for me was when I arrived in New York, while I was playing with Art Blakey [le batteur] and the Jazz Messengers.
Wynton Marsalis
Marsalis has lived in the Big Apple for 43 years now and rarely returns to Louisiana.
“I saw Betty Carter and Woody Shaw and all that mattered to me was the feeling of jazz and not being obsessed with funk and pop, genres that musicians of my generation were embracing in the late 1970s. When I became better known, the opinion of observers [sur le jazz classique] was not favorable. Popular favor was not won. It was not related to my way of playing as such, but rather a form of social pressure to conform to what jazz was going to become. And it became what it is today. We strive to maintain this integrity towards jazz and it is difficult. »
PHOTO IVANOH DEMERS, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
From left to right: Ellis Marsalis, Branford Marsalis, Wynton Marsalis, Reginal Veal and Delfeayo Marsalis during a show at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier in 2003, in Montreal
According to the artistic director of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, the somewhat romanticized image of jazz has withered. The pioneers, those who filled the programming of the FIJM over the years, have left us. Even if the LCJO offers a variable geometry offer with seven, eight and nine musicians, its Montreal concert at the opening of the 42e edition will be done with the full complement of 15 musicians.
Identity search
Finding your own sound on an instrument, your own personality, remains, according to Marsalis, the greatest challenge. “There are a million ways to play an instrument, that’s the beauty of jazz. »
The teacher also applies this principle. “You can’t expect a student to play like Clark Terry [le trompettiste]but you can tell him: find your way, find your thing. The biggest challenge for a music teacher is not to transmit or impose your own tastes on your students. I remember when [feu] Roy Hargrove was young, the older ones told me that the new generations were all the same, without any real personality. »
I disagreed, Roy Hargrove doesn’t sound like all the others, but you have to listen to him over a long period of time to see that.
Wynton Marsalis
Coincidentally, his brother Branford, a touring musician with Sting in the mid-1980s, will be at Maison symphonique with the Obiora Ensemble on August 12 to perform the Fantasy for saxophone of Villa-Lobos lasting 11 minutes. The two brothers have acquired a certain wisdom.
What can we expect for this umpteenth stopover? ” We’re gonna be swingin’, we’re going to play some jazz. »
What would he say today to the young Wynton of 1983, who launched his record Think of One and who won a Grammy award? Learn how to play, man.
Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis June 30, 7:30 p.m., Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier