The Marsalys Family

You think about jazz and, almost automatically, somebody with Marsalis last name comes to it to the head. The trompetista Wynton is the diamond most brilliant of the family consisting of the pianista Ellis Marsalis and owner Dolores Ferdinand, in New Orleans, the historical cradle of the jazz little more than a century behind. Pianista, professor and educator celebrate, Ellis, today with 73 years, formed each son with special affection: the saxofonista Branford, the trompetista Wynton, the trombonista Delfeayo and the Jason youngest child, baterista. But Ellis was well more than what a father of great familiar talentos. It also initiated in music names as the trompetistas Nicholas Payton and Terence Blanchard, beyond the singer and pianista Harry Connick Jr. All born in New Orleans.

In last the three decades the domain of this dynasty of musicians born in the same city of Louis Armstrong on the jazzística scene is undisputed. It is truth that the specialized tribes more of jazzísticas auditoriums costumam to twist the nose for so great success. Still more that pparently the Marsalis sounds passadistas. They had constructed its careers basically cultuando the past. However, pparently the conservative of Wynton now only leaves to see indistinctly its artistic goals in way more clearly. I can be been deceptive, but I feel for the first time that reizinho of the Marsalis is operating the miracle to take the jazz, historically verbal music, for the domínios of written music.

Twisted of nose they are only demonstration of I make rancio. A fast peep in the first semester of this year does not leave doubts. They dominate the scene exactly musical. Patriarch Ellis Marsalis finishes to launch the COMPACT DISC An Open Letter you the Thelonious, mature and personal a tribute the Monk, encircled for a trio where the Jason youngest child is distinguished in the battery (ELM Records). Wynton attacks in some fronts. Its last launchings are wonderful: the DVD the Congo Square, where its Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra joins forces with the Odadaa group! of percussionistas and singers of Hunger; e the COMPACT DISC, launched simultaneously in U.S.A. and Brazil (Blue Note/EMI) intitled Two with the Blues, congregating quinteto of Wynton Marsalis and country man Willie Nelson.

Moreover, Sony-BMG does not lose time, appeals picadinhos Lavoisier and relaunches the all moment, over all of Wynton and Branford. This month had arrived at the international market the coletâneas Standards and Ballads, of Wynton, and Classic Branford, where the brother oldest only interprets classic music, of Rachmaninov the Villa.

The music of the Marsalis in general comments and if it feeds of the birth, evolution and climax of the jazz as a universe to the part. They play with the styles as erudite musicians polish of the baroque one for the romantismo or the classicismo. Would be this a after-modern attitude? The thick way, faces Armstrong and Ellington as founding parents of the sort, beboppers Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk and Dizzy Gillespie as classic modern and entronizam hard bop as arrival point. More than what this: Wynton is always placed as the accountant of histories. But it is musically uneasy, renews it all instant. While Ellington piled up subjects, it gave suggestive headings to them suíte enfeixava and them in one, Marsalis makes of the narration of a history or the multiple boarding of a thematic o nucleus of its formal more extensive workmanships. He was thus with Blood on the Fields, its first and more ambitious incursion in the long forms, in 1997, it took that it to be the first musician of jazz to gain a Pulitzer. In three hours, the spectacle congregates vocal and instrumental solistas to count the history of the African blacks of some etnias enslaved in U.S.A. Central thesis: the slavery defines the American identity.

In the passed year, Wynton launched a brilliant COMPACT DISC, unexpectedly current and chocking: From the Plantation you the Penitentiary (Blue Note) brings current its quinteto and the invited singer Jennifer Sanon, of 21 years. A fierce and acid x-ray of the current American society. The songs, letter and music of Wynton, practically transform the great trompetista into rapper jazzístico in terms of letters (it confers Supercapitalism). Musically, the attitude is after-modern, in the direction to take a walk for the historical jazzísticos styles.

The Congo Square, now launched in DVD from a presentation in the Festival of Jazz of Montreal of the passed year, is a masterpiece of two hours of duration estreada in 25 of August of 2006 in the Congo Square, the square of New Orleans, accurately one year after the tragedy of the Katrina. Recria, in a magnificent meeting between the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and the Odadaa group! of Hunger, what they would be musics, the percussion, the dance and the letters sung still in African dialects, in the central square of New Orleans, in 19 century and 18.

If it had been born in century 19, with certainty Wynton Marsalis would be composer of operas. " Dramma in musica" , this is its irremediable destination. In this direction, it constructs a curious bridge with said music classic. While its formal extensive creations entirely are written, exceeding so celebrated orality of the jazz, of another side a composer contemporary as Osvaldo Golijov writes a Passion Second Is Marcos, in 2000, adopting a popular writing clearly. Somebody remembers the Mass Criolla de Ariel Ramirez there? It mixed popular and folclóricas musics in a formal project sacro. Therefore Golijov goes more far: it mixes some popular traditions, it convokes the Luciana Brazilian Souza, it puts pitadas of sefardita Jewish music, emphasizes the percussion. The partnership with the Odadaa group! of Hunger in the Congo Square it suggests that Marsalis goes in the same direction.

Without a doubt, a welcome convergence. A historical dichotomy falls for land enters musics of verbal tradition and of tradition written. The partition in classic music is the script of an ideal musical workmanship, that Platão would say to be in the world of the ideas and that the interpreters never pursue without reaching its essence. In verbal musics, it is mere reminder to save time, as Duke Ellington said. With Marsalis, the jazz arrives what the Frenchman Christian Béthune calls " second oralidade". That is, the partition starts to be so rigorous and complex how much of classic music the European white; but it is not more the script of an ideal musical workmanship to there the Platão. It fixes the collective moments, but she opens space for the improvisation against this organized cloth of deep. Without forgetting swing, it is logical. Because today composers as Wynton Marsalis and Osvaldo Golijov do not have more the shame that the philosopher Walter Benjamin felt in years 30, to if pilhar marking the rhythm with the feet when hearing one big band: " This does not beat with mine education".

SUCCESS BROTHERS

WYNTON MARSALIS: The great star of the family was born in 1961 and started to study trompete to the 6 years. To the 14, already it touched with the Filarmônica de Nova Orleans and, to the 17, it was changed for New York, where it frequented the Juilliard School. After that, it worked with legends of the jazz: Herbie Hancock, Sarah Vaughan, Dizzy Gillespie and Sonny Rollins. Beyond the career of interpreter and composer, it at is since the end of 90 years artistic director of the series Jazz Lincoln Center, to the front of which it has promoted research on the history of the jazz. It created and it presented diverse programs of television. JASON MARSALIS: Been born in 1977, the baterista developed a style fruit of the association of the inherited musicalidade of the family with the formal studies in the Loyola University. Some of its better works had left the partnership with the pianista Marcus Roberts.

BRANFORD MARSALIS: The saxofonista is oldest of the Marsalis brothers. The career of years 80 started at the beginning touching in big band of Art Blakey. It also worked with Miles Davis in its last public appearances e, during some years, following the Sting singer. Branford also participated of shows with the band Grateaful Dead. It created a stamp, the Marsalis Records and, currently, it works with the Branford Marsalis Quartett. The Grammy of better instrumentista of jazz in 1993 earned. In recent years it has if dedicated to collect deep for the victims of the Katrina.

DELFEAYO MARSALIS: Trombonista, acted in big band of Art Blakey and with Ray Charles. To the 43 years, it is still dedicated to the function of writing engineer, working with artists as Harry Connick Jr. Is author of ballet inspired by a Called Tram Desire.

Credit > João Marcos Coelho