Wynton Marsalis – From The Plantation To The Penitentiary

Wynton Marsalis made himself the most visible jazz trumpeter since Louis Armstrong by marrying the literate to the soulful, not just in his playing but in his self-appointed role as a cultural ambassador. Armstrong played the latter role too, but his mission was to spread the full compass of this music on joyful wings. His successor, in contrast, takes an academic approach, both as player and commentator, and tightens his focus more on its African-American antecedents, perhaps for fear that its genesis has been neglected and threatens to become forgotten.

What will surprise those who follow Marsalis is how troubled his message has become. Begin with the title: The journey outlined here is, as Woody Allen once observed about life in general, from the horrible to the miserable, though the scenery along the way is more varied than that theme suggests.

The opening title track offers adventurous changes and inventive harmonies from Marsalis and saxophonist Walter Blanding that answer a dissonant yet memorable melody sung with dispassionate precision by Jennifer Sanon. These elements could convey nearly any kind of lyric, though in this case they accompany a parade of bleak images (“From the work long days to the dope and drinking craze”) and blunt repeated rhymes of “in chains” and “insane.”

From there the music grows more challenging and rewarding, the words more depressing. There are bright moments, most obviously in the lovely ballad “Love And Broken Hearts”, yet these are mere slivers of light; the skies ahead remain stubbornly overcast.

The fact that Marsalis doesn’t spare anyone — neither the “righteous revolutionaries and Camus readers” of the trendy-lefty ’60s, nor members of his own community whose motivations are summed up in the grabby staccato of “Supercapitalism” — may finally, more than anything since Bill Cosby’s notorious rumination, enlighten the ignorant and piss off the complacent.