Branford Marsalis - Interview - 1990

thanks for staying up later Branford Marsalis is with us tonight this is his new record crazy people music I don't even know what to say anymore when I hold cuz is it a record is it a disc you can't even say it's a guys new album yeah it's it's a CD it's a drag would to see the if if somebody had never heard a Branford Marsalis album be it on vinyl or on disc how would you describe what you do because it's so diverse I can't think of a snappy way to categorize you you can't you can't that's the biggest problem with this music is that jazz music really can't be defined the only way to it's like trying to describe French to someone who's never heard it you know the only way to really playing it is the only way that's the only way that anybody's ever done and people don't even know whether they like it or just I could even know what it represents is to play the album but of course you cross over - yeah played some rock-and-roll you played what people tend to refer to as jazz fusion stuff you get into swing music and big bands sorts of things so in that sense you're a little bit less of a jazz purist I think it's fair to say then your brother Wynton know what was here no I absolutely disagree because I think people like the label wind is that because he doesn't really particularly he's not particularly fond of the music that is the popular medium right and and I think that it's it's they're always accusing him of being a jazz purist whereas you take most of the guys did put him down they don't know one one thousandth of one one thousandth of the music that couldn't get that man off of the music that he actually knows so I consider them more so purist than him because most of the people that put him down for not liking rock they only know about rock and roll actually they don't know anything about some finding music anything about jazz they say they do but they really don't they can't speak on it they they don't really know anything about it they can't describe the music or what it represents or its social significance and when we discuss jazz I am just as adamant about what is jazz is when Ternes if you disrespect the jazz artform then you start to get good reviews be even better reviews make more money or any type of profanity of vulgarity exploitation of teenage sexuality and input sums up the classical music and jazz I always have the option of saying you know hopefully classic music and jazz now I play pop music I play everything you know I'm the universal man and just in general self-promotion in the acceptance of what in our band we call elevation did you just call a big bracket with just about yourself you know what I'm doing this number great the greatest drum playing the whirling I like other forms of music but he says it has a tendency to not really like like pop music that much I can understand why it doesn't like it mostly because of what it represents in our society versus what it really is and I think he's really right when he talks about that wouldn't you agree that there was a time pretty decent stretch of time though when pop music for the most part rock and roll or at least what came under the wide banner of rock and roll was socially significant that it did move there was that small window I think the sixties late film late 60s late fifties it was like goo teenyboppers yeah yeah music you know everybody was in loves and everything was nice and everything wasn't so nice so what about Chuck Berry or Elvis or Little Richard they were playing kids music you know and all of the songs didn't really reflect that reflect the innocence of the times I should say the naivete of the time not so much it you know there were no songs written about the Korean War there were no songs written about in play everything was nice didn't the energy and and the breaking away that are represented indicates something that was percolating beneath the surface it represented a fundamental rift between adults and teenagers yeah I think that's what it was for the first time in American society the teenagers had their own music you know and the music was played mostly by adults anyway but the fact that the teenagers had music that they can embrace and they were probably ecstatic I wasn't born then but they were probably ecstatic that it did not necessarily need the approval of their parents and not only that music either performed by black artists were substantially influenced by blacks he's played by mainstream whites that was there was real well so that was important whether it was intended that way or not that was very it was it was really it was real important that way I think that the greatest the the greatest travesty in that is that there were specific instances in time in that social segment of our country when there were a large number of white artists playing the music of black artists and we're receiving for more recognition because because of the color of their skin than the black artists that they were getting the music from so I think that in terms of black artists being playing music for majority white audiences it was great but in terms of them actually receiving the recognition that was due for doing that I'd never I don't even think that's ever come about yeah there was a period of time especially in the late 50s where white bread white artists were picked to cover songs that had originally been done by black artists and because the radio stations weren't as receptive to playing the performances of black artists and then guys like Pat Boone what do you want to blame him or not no you know I'm walkin and it sells more copies than Fats Domino is sold and in the 50s so that's that's a that's it you don't blame it's almost like you know like like trying to blame Larry Bird for being a great basketball player you know I mean you can't do that that naari birds are better ballplayer than Pat Boone was absolutely absolutely but the amount of emphasis that is placed on unburden his place in society versus how he is as a person that I don't know him personally but I've seen interviews that he's done and I see how the the respect that a lot of ballplayers that I do know they have for him is that you cannot blame the artist for something that is a testimony of our society because they are not conspirators as it were they're not getting together than hey let's take these black dudes music and do this and do that and do the other it's kind of like watching the new kids on the block you know it's like we as Americans will send our children to watch some little white kids dance like black kids and seeing black songs where we will not do the same thing for a group like a new addition was the original New Kids on the Block 10 years earlier you know you don't blame the guys in that group you don't blame new kids on the block they're not it they're not at fault I mean it's just it's a very interesting statement about how we as Americans choose to live and how we see the world see that's my voice it's most of the people that are successful in our country are manufactured absolutely but I think that's basically the nature of the beast I don't think that you can point to a time when people ever knew who was legitimately good and who wasn't do you think that it's possible that there's so much actual racism historically and at present that it's almost always possible that the black person has been victimized in a given situation by racism and so then it becomes convenient to use as an explanation when further examination might reveal in a given instance racism is not at work absolutely man is this the coolest thing in the world you know it's like you're in a debate like in debate class somebody's getting the best you all you have to do is say racism I mean our Zionism or you know anti-semite it's that same shield you just say though it's really convenient to lean on you know but uh and it works it works I mean I've seen certain political instances when the guy was politically very inaccurate and really not together and he would say all racism and everybody would just back off and say no not me I'm I'm not a racist yeah it can be a shield for scoundrels it's absolutely a shield for skunk you know criticize me and you're only possible motive is because you're a racist not because I as an individual could possibly deserve to be criticized I agree yeah that a lot of people of goodwill find that frustrating white and black because it impedes the the free interchange of ideas no it doesn't I disagree with that totally it really depends on how courageous you are see that's what it is if you were courageous enough to stand up and spot your convictions in the face of the backlash then then I don't see where the problem is and if I've never seen that chart directly made in any of those instances I've never seen it maintenance or no but that's not the issue and I refuse to allow you to bring it down to that level but what I do see is a situation like a friend of mine Spike Lee write does this movie more better blues right and as these two caricatures are to Jewish store owners right so certainly he's an anti-semite there's a big thing in the New York Times Spike Lee is an anti-semite now the one thing that he should never have done was written in a letter to the New York Times defending his position because that position needs no defense I mean from the time that movies have been made from the from The Birth of a Nation as far back as the first movie when black people were all portrayed by white people and all of the the in the enemy wasn't the good black man who was either the service master but the Samuel Otto who really wanted the white man's woman in the white man's word that was a gross caricature right from the time a movie like crossing Delancey Street which I think was made by a Jewish director and he has some awful caricature character whatever that was that word stereotypes of black people now see I for one think that stereotypes are funny for the most part I like them I find they're very interesting I'm not offended by them and the thing that's good about a stereotype it lets you know how what a person is thinking at a given time what I'm saying is so Carlos Spike Lee an anti-semite or a racist for those caricatures is to condemn a large number of revered and respected highly with directors and they should be called racist as well you know as bad as Indians running around for you know I mean to the to the brother who was to the Charlie Chan movies which won outright disgrace right so the black guy in the Charlie Chan movie was shaking his legs every time the ghost covers there oh lord have mercy you know to Rochester I mean I think we're talking about a lot of things here we're back now with Branford Marsalis when somebody is a musician first and foremost a musician not an entertainer right what what what's the relationship is it possible to describe the relationship between the musician and his instrument it's not really the instrument I don't even think the instrument matters it's the music I mean it could be a kazoo to give you saxophone or trumpet or violin the instrument is just a medium that you've chosen you know to express whatever ideas you have it's really impossible to explain the aloneness that one feels when you're when you when you're in in when you're dealing with art and I think that when you say alone most people think you're in a room by yourself like the movies I'm sitting at the piano at an away at being Moody and you know because there's always an alone let alone this deep inside of you there's a spot that no one can ever get to no matter who that person is in you find yourself retreating to that spot at baseball games or in the middle of a meeting or at a wedding or wherever you just you can't control it you can't control it it controls you is that spot usually a sanctuary or is it simply a spot that you're compelled to visit and it might be a place of turmoil it might be a place of peace you know no it's not a spot like that Sun SPOT you go to it comes to you see what I mean is like when you hear a song you hear a song it's like it's not like I feel bad today I think I want to hear a song you could be anywhere in the song comes to you a guy could crunch on a piece of popcorn and it will strike something in you and at that point you're no longer way you are you're somewhere else and nobody else knows it nobody nobody else generally knows it is you're gone that's your musician is really difficult I mean you know it's kind of like you know it's not like anything that I can really explain you know because you're thinking of things you're trying to think of ideas in music there are so far-fetched from the average person you know the kind of music that we play a so far removed from what the average person thinks about you're already out there by yourself you know is being an entertainer and being a legitimate musician with some scholarship with some reverence for the past with some appreciation of quality are those two things mutually exclusive or just seldom in the same place at the same time I think that the biggest problem with being an artist is that in the end you are an entertainment because the people that are paying to hear you there's a very very very small percentage of them in either symphonic music orange as that actually know what you're trying to do they actually do know and the rest of the people that are there are people that are like in the middle they're kind of like both they like one they're like the other you know they pop music they're like jazz they like fast but any of those people who are like the public television crowd they only watch Public Television they only go to some funny concerts and you know it's what it represents to them they don't know either they don't know what they're listening to so at that point there comes a certain part of you and the showman side where you have to find a way to pull them in so it can happen one of two ways you can be like the everyman thing you can be really you know nice or congenial or or you can be a complete jerk a Butthead you know you can become what's that word that they use to describe people with lousy attitude aloof no Oregons no Schmucks mm-hmm no what is it it's a really nice word that they use for like people like Picasso eccentric you know you become eccentric you show up to a concert and they go on a play now and you leave or you play with your back to the very temperamental very abrasive I mean it's - Sonny Sonny Rollins and Miles Davis Sonny's that kind of settle I'd say I didn't say he was temperamental did Sonny used to put us up behind a post right mm-hmm and like he would like you couldn't even see him he's like you're playing from behind a post that wasn't killer that wasn't intense he wasn't doing that on purpose he was really like that yeah what I know from people that you know it wasn't a put-on it wasn't the point on most guys I think as a foot on back now with Branford Marsalis without sounding overly complimentary I have it's pretty obvious that the Marsalis family is a remarkable family is there any is there any single influencers there any common thread that runs through it that you could identify oh it's my parents I think they made the difference for different reasons my father is an absolute perfectionist so as my mother and and with that she brings a tremendous will that I haven't really seen in very many people your father an accomplished musician your brother went and who we've mentioned several times another brother del FeO another musician but then there's a brother who's in his late teens early 20s Mboya yeah and boy is artistic that was a I think that was really tough for my parents you know it really wasn't so tough on me because I was a kid you're the oldest right yeah I'm the oldest I think he was born in 1970 uh and about 1972 he was ruled you know like a regular baby 7 71 72 he started acting strange but I was going to school so the only time I ever really saw him boy it was after theory and sometimes after seven or eight so it really makes a difference when you have brothers that are that young you know it really doesn't the impact isn't that doesn't hit you until later like now I feel closer to employer then I have a good as a teenager my parents went through a lot of hell over that too a lot of reflection you know because they went through the things that everybody go through they've been they didn't really go through denial I don't think I think they just went through who do we blame for this first I think they blamed each other then they started blaming themselves collectively or it's our fault and sometimes our even hear my mom say well if we weren't doing this at this time and boy you might not be inch you can't you know that can't be proven you know so I think it was tough on them but the thing that I'm I about my mother is how she made the decision to keep him boy at home she was not gonna institutionalize him but believe me there's no way to really explain how hard that is to keep an autistic child at home especially when they get bigger and they're stronger and she's really made the difference in his life you know she's made the difference in his life you've promised your parents though that he'll never be institutionalized that you'll take care of I made a promise to my mom that I'll take care of him you know when they die you know because I'm boy he's not gonna it's like a hard thing to think most people think of handicapped so you know it's like a handicapped child it's like not going he's not gonna go away can't wish him into the cornfield you know it's not gonna be as difficult on me I think there's been on my parents you know why not well I have better resources than they have you know my dad we raised us on like $26,000 a year I still know you did that you know especially with an autistic child and uh I mean I have a larger house and all these things you know my parents don't want to leave the house they've they've they've been in all those years they're great people man a really cool they're amazing I mean it's just even if they want my parents you know I just I'm proud of the way that they are because they're really different they don't they don't live through us at all did Branford Marsalis play Billy Crystal's friend and throw momma from the train yes did he contribute to the soundtrack of mo better blues yes was he in school days Spike Lee's earlier film yes will we talk about that and other things if he comes back another time yes yeah just say see you later and we're at achates see you later bye Sports Kennedys and comedians journalist dick joins Bob tomorrow on later

Channel: chamesrichalds

Views: 28,575

Rating: 4.9553905 out of 5

Keywords: jazz, rock, wynton, marsalis, purist, racism, history, music, american, popular, culture, values, relations, influences

Id: 7SDLZUdyRJo

Length: 18min 45sec (1125 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 02 2011