Feb. 25, 2007 — Jazz legend Wynton Marsalis is about to release his most political album yet. "From the Plantation to the Penitentiary" condemns complacency and calls on citizens to act.(italics and bold added by me)
Wynton Marsalis: Apathy is the enemy. Participate. … With the song, "Where Y'All At," I'm just asking the question. It's really, "Where are we at?" Because I know with the generations, we always want to blame a younger generation. … What are we giving the younger generation? So the question of "Where Y'All At" started with all you '60s radicals, world beaters, liberal students.
Song lyrics: Liberal students, equal rights pleaders, What's goin' on now that y'all are the leaders. …Where y'all at?
Marsalis: American people means something to me. I've been around this country. I've been in people's homes, all kinds of people, taught people's kids for many years. Our country, we always had so much problems; we still have. … Instead of asking, "What can we do about it?" we have to be spurred to action — collective action. … Jump in there. Find out where the tax money is going. Find out why something's happening. Write to people. Just be a participant. Go down to your school and see what people are doing. Do your thing, you know.
Marsalis from New Orleans could not have not been impacted by the apathy shown by the government of addressing New Orleans families devastation from Katrina. With the slang Marsalis goes street and drops a challenge to hip-hop rappers to create some meaningful lyrics. Marsalis subtle title can be interpreted to mean that plantation may no longer exist, but the streets serve the same purpose. On the plantation African-Americans struggled against being lynched, and on the street African-American struggle to survive by dealing and killing going straight to jail..from the plantation(street) to the Penitentiary(modern day lynching)
From Mr. Greg's Musing
The title track on this begins with periodically discordant, almost avant-garde instrumentation (from pianist Dan Nimmer and drummer Ali Jackson Jr. especially) and singing (from Jennifer Sanon) and I think Marsalis' first trumpet solo has kind of a Lester Bowie thing going. (He switches to Don Cherry later.) I still hear the blues, New Orleans and Duke Ellington in sections. It is a Wynton Marsalis CD, after all. But it's got hard edges I haven't heard a lot from him since "Black Codes (From the Underground)" or "Live at Blues Alley" or maybe his Jazz Messengers days.
Also reminds me of his Pulitzer-winning opus on slavery, segregation and racism "Blood on the Fields," and the songs with lyrics generally have a political or social message; the disproportionate number of black men in prison, the homeless, the unfulfilling nature of consumerism (in the form of a frenetic Sanon scat on "Doin' (Y)Our Thing"). I think he's going to get some flak for "These Are Those Soulful Days," which takes a poke at the gangster end of hip-hop. But the message is worth considering and the music the message is wrapped around is wonderful. It's followed by "Where Y'all At?," on which Marsalis bends rap, second line style, to his own purposes.
Not every song is overtly message driven. "Find Me" is a pretty, bluesy ballad. "Supercapitalism" had me thinking of children's songs, Freddie Hubbard's '70s stuff and Gershwin. Go figure?
Some nice sax playing by Walter Blanding (tenor and soprano, where I can hear some Coltrane in his playing) as well, both solo and in the ensemble.
Maybe a tad too much singing for my tastes, but very interesting all the way through. Music writer at work loaned me a review copy of this. (Comes out in March.) I will buy it.
Everyone is not so arts guardian is not so kind.
