Winton Marsalis
The Majesty Of The Blues

THE REVIEW

Winton Marsalis is a top-notch jazz trumpeter. Born in New Orleans in the early '60s, with a pianist father, he grew up amidst the funk, pop, and rock atmospheres of his city. From a young age, he associated the word jazz with obscure and smoky clubs filled with the joy of street people, quite distant from the rigid lifestyle his family observed. And who changed his mind? The great Art Blakey. It was precisely with the Jazz Messengers that Marsalis honed his incredible technique.

Now think of Miles Davis. The great and eclectic trumpeter, always a model for Winton, never adapted to the needs of his record label. Davis indeed preferred the freedom of expression, the pursuit of an aesthetic that was unclear to many. Davis never achieved the goals he had set for himself. Marsalis did exactly the opposite, following the demands of the "record industry giant." Musical prodigy, good looks, always ready to challenge the traditional idea that good jazz doesn't exist without alcohol and drugs.

Winton has always been a scholar, never discriminated against any style, and has always aimed to cultivate all those aspects that lead to the "sensitivity of a complete artist." A classical jazzist, or a jazzman who knows how to make classical music. Determined in seeking expressions, if his early albums could trace back to Davis (with the predominance of Marsalis the instrumentalist), in the subsequent ones, he delights in composing and shifts to flavors of Duke Ellington. In The Majesty of The Blues, one can grasp where Winton's true musical interest lies.

It's a 1988 album that turns its back on the hard bop of the previous work (J. Mood) and deviates towards all the influences assimilated in the past, demonstrating the results of a long reflection by an artist who has learned from the standards and made idioms and structures his own. Indeed, in this record, there is a sense of returning to the origins, listening to "Hickory Dickory Dock", and then moving on to pieces that "open" to new aesthetics, such as the suite "The Death of The Jazz".

In the opening piece, which gives the album its title, Marsalis takes on the role of the avant-garde painter and delivers surreal and incredible solos, with dissonances full of dramatic value, until you perceive a sort of Spanish-South American influence.

An avant-garde work. Perhaps the closing piece, which is divided into 3 parts (one of which is a true orthodox sermon), can come off as excessive. But what music, folks!