Month: March 2025

Wynton Marsalis, Hot House Flowers

Album of the Week, March 8, 2025

The good thing about being the hot young artist on a major label is that the label will sometimes throw a lot of resources at your recordings. The bad news is that’s maybe not always the best idea.

Wynton Marsalis burst out of the gates as a performer, performing with Herbie Hancock, signing a contract with Columbia Records (Miles’ home) in 1982 at the age of 20 and releasing three albums—two jazz, one classical—in the first year. In 1984, the Juilliard-trained Marsalis was the first performer in history to win Grammy awards in both jazz and classical. His technique and sound were undeniably wonderful; listening to the early recordings, you hear the soul of Louis Armstrong alongside the virtuosity of a young Freddie Hubbard.

He also had strong opinions, and wasn’t shy about sharing them. And he brought additional voices to the fight along with him. The strongest voice standing alongside him was Stanley Crouch, a one-time poet, avant-garde jazz drummer, and civil rights activist (he worked for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee) turned fiercely neo-traditionalist jazz critic. Crouch felt that jazz fusion and avant-garde were ultimately empty, even phony, artistically and called for a return to more traditional jazz values. Marsalis felt the same, ultimately setting out a sort of manifesto for jazz. To be considered jazz in his eyes, the music had to have the following: the blues, the standards, swing, tonality, harmony, craftsmanship, and “a mastery of the tradition” going back to New Orleans times. The definition left out much jazz between 1960 and 1970 and everything from the fusion era; the albums I’ve reviewed from CTI and much of Coltrane’s work would be out of scope, as (notably) would all of Miles’ work starting with Bitches Brew. Wynton may have idolized Miles, but the reverse was not true; on meeting Wynton, Miles is said to have remarked “So here’s the police…”

With that as a background, Wynton’s third album feels deliberate, a sort of provocative retrenchment into standards, strings, and beautiful melodic playing, the polar opposite of Decoy. It could very well also have been Wynton deciding to record a standards album and the studio adding strings for commercial reasons; we’ll never know. At any rate, in addition to the orchestra there’s a proper group behind Wynton on the recording, and what a group! In addition to his brother Branford on tenor and soprano saxophones, the group featured Kenny Kirkland, who had played with Miroslav Vitouš before becoming Wynton’s pianist; Jeff “Tain” Watts, an often ferociously muscular (but here restrained) drummer from Pittsburgh who had gotten his professional start on Wynton’s first album; and the redoubtable Ron Carter on bass.

But all of that aside: how does it sound? Overall it’s beautiful, but careful. Hoagy Carmichael’s “Stardust” opens with strings backing Wynton’s note-perfect solo. Ron Carter’s bass begins the verse with a simple walking figure, but accelerates into something a little more adventuresome; he’s the only one of the quartet (Branford sits this one out) to come out of the background. Mostly we’re left to a reverie.

“Lazy Afternoon,” written by Jerome Moross and John La Touche for the 1954 musical The Golden Apple, is more band-forward. Kenny Kirkland takes a solo opening, setting up Wynton’s entrance. The trumpeter chooses a Harmon mute, the same that Miles used for much of his classic recordings, and the solo sounds deliberately evocative of Miles. The mood is abruptly changed by the swelling of the strings, who signal a change to a different space. Wynton plays a phrase or two on the unmuted trumpet, setting up Branford for a solo on the tenor which is considerably less pyrotechnic but more evocative than the work he did on Decoy. Ron Carter underscores the second verse with gravely chosen notes accented with slides and vibrato, descending to the lowest tonic as the strings reenter with a chromatic climax. The coda has Wynton playing pointillistic passages over a single harmonic from a plucked bass string. It’s among the more successful tunes on the session overall.

J. Fred Coots and Sam Lewis’s “For All We Know” gives us something roughly in between “Stardust” and “Lazy Afternoon.” There’s almost a duet between Wynton and Ron Carter being played out against the background of the orchestra. The string arrangement feels deliberate throughout, as though walking on eggshells in the adagio tempo, until suddenly Wynton and Carter break into a swing rhythm two-thirds of the way through, giving the tune sudden life. The strings try to get the last word, swooning into a major-key finish, but a portamento plucked note from Carter and a modal riff from Wynton close things out.

Leigh Harline and Ned Washington’s “When You Wish Upon a Star” is a welcome surprise: an uptempo introduction in the bass and drums, Tain finally given a little room which he uses to underpin the melody with massive snare hits and cymbal accents, and Carter providing a pedal point on the dominant and its octave. We’re not out of the lugubrious yet though, as the orchestra drags things down to a rubato with each entrance. On the third one, Wynton uses it as a way to switch to a hard-swung tempo that the strings punctuate rather than swamp. Branford takes a tenor solo that points up the rhythm, then swings into the strings and a sort of trading eights between the horns and Kenny Kirkland. If this kept on the same sort of boil as the opening it would be exhilarating, but the temperature cools down past a simmer as the musicians bring the work to a close. I’d love to hear a small-group reworking of this arrangement minus the strings and the rubato; the opening bars show just how much this particular group could cook when given the chance.

“Django” gets the same lento opening tempo as in the classic Modern Jazz Quartet version, but with just strings backing up Wynton’s introduction we don’t get the rhythmic imperative that drives the John Lewis classic until Carter, Kirkland and Tain swing into the verse. The band points up a tango-like rhythm under the solo, driving it forward to a climax and then a final orchestral swoon. Wynton gets the last word, as always, playing a tart tag.

Duke Ellington’s “Melancholia,” first recorded in a trio on his 1953 recording The Duke Plays Ellington, gets a muted introduction from Wynton leading into a rubato string section. There’s not much special going on here aside from some nice playing from Wynton throughout. “Hot House Flowers,” the sole original here, seems doomed to the same fate. There’s an orchestral swoon that’s interrupted by a series of puckish outbursts from the trumpet and drums, but we seem firmly stuck in low gear until about a minute and a half in when things get interesting. Carter and Kirkland propose a circling rhythmic figure that drives us forward to a bracing flute solo from Kent Jordan. Carter then takes a solo of his own, playing against the rhythm with a series of sallies, that circles to a conclusion with a final sting from the orchestra. As a composition from a 23 year old it’s highly promising start, and one wishes for more of it on this album.

“I’m Confessin’ (That I Love You)” starts with an orchestral jog into a swinging solo from Marsalis. Here the orchestra functions less as a blanket and more as a punctuation, with both Kirkland and Tain underscoring the melody. Wynton concludes his solo with a high stretto, leading into a solo for Kirkland. Kenny’s style is instantly recognizable, with block chords and runs in the right hand that give a percussive emphasis to the chord progressions while also making them more interesting with swerves into minor, blues, and modal moments. Branford takes a straightforward solo that swings its way around the melody before taking a run of off-beat hits. The band plays an intricate 12/8 interlude and then swings to the finish, with Wynton playing a 16-bar passage in triplets without a breath, and finishing with a run of deliberately breathless leading notes leaning into the submediant (6th) over Carter’s final pizzicato.

Hot House Flowers is a frustrating album. One can’t help but think there’s a pretty good quintet performance here, if we could just get the orchestra out of the way. But it’s not a bad way to hear why Wynton was both praised—that trumpet tone is extraordinary—and derided for what is ultimately an extremely buttoned-up sound. He would record far better records, and we’ll hear them soon. We’re going to give Miles one more word first, though.

You can listen to this week’s album here:

A UVA bibliography

In the course of writing Ten Thousand Voices, I had the opportunity to read a lot of other histories of the University of Virginia. It occurred to me that others might appreciate the reading list of books I have consulted and found, so I pulled together this bibliography. In some cases I’ve quoted my reviews of the books from Goodreads.

Note: I’m going to keep this a live post as I identify additional books worth adding (or move things on my shelves and discover some more…).

Older

Adams, Hubert Baxter (1888). Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia. The earliest full history of the University, this handsome book (which you can read on Google Books) contains plates of photographs and architectural drawings of the University. It’s also the first to quote Emerson’s epigraph, “An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man,” in the context of the University.

Bruce, Philip Alexander (1921). History of the University of Virginia, 1819 – 1919: The Lengthened Shadow of One Man. The granddaddy of all UVA histories, this five-volume book used student magazines and newspapers, official records (at least, those that survived the 1895 Rotunda fire), and a great many other sources to tell the story of Mr. Jefferson’s University. His coverage of the Glee Club was one of the reasons I started pulling together the history that ultimately became Ten Thousand Voices. Best way to read it is online, so you can search for the parts you want rather than having to read the entire thing.

Dabney, Virginius (1981). Mr. Jefferson’s University. A single (large) volume, it’s much more readable than Bruce’s work—and more contemporary as well. Dabney does a good job of covering the University’s transformation in the 20th century from a school for wealthy Southerners to a world class university, including its integration in the 1950s (of which Dabney was a strong proponent) and coeducation in the 1970s. Bonus: Dabney legendarily wrote about the best way to make a mint julep.

Patton, John S. (1906). Jefferson, Cabell and the University of Virginia. Another early 20th century attempt to tell the history, by the University’s librarian. There is accordingly additional detail about the history of the library as well as student groups and publications—and one of the earliest retellings of the 1895 Rotunda fire.

Clemons, Harry (1972). The University of Virginia Library, 1825-1950: Story of a Jeffersonian Foundation. Completing a tradition of two, following John Patton’s 1906 UVA history, Harry Clemons confines his writing to the history of the library. His engaging history tells the story from the beginning but also describes the creation of Alderman (now Shannon) Library.

Wood, Thomas Longstreet and John W. Fishburne (1890, rev. 1894). Arcade Echoes. A collection of student poetry from the University of Virginia, works spanning 1856 to 1890 and most originally published in the Virginia University Magazine (later University of Virginia Magazine, later Virginia Spectator). Relatively little UVA specific content, but if you want to feel the gulf of years between today and the students of more than 135 years ago, this is your best bet.

Rothery, Agnes (1944). A Fitting Habitation. Dodd, Mead & Co. A page-turner from 75 years ago. This is the history of author Agnes Rothery, her husband (and Virginia Glee Club conductor) Harry Rogers Pratt, and the houses of their married life, which included a former slave quarters behind Pavilion III that they christened The Mews. By turns funny, insightful, old fashioned, modern, and touching. Fun read.

McConnell, James Rogers (1917). Flying for France. A short, thrilling and sobering memoir from McConnell, who writes briskly and unsentimentally about his life as a volunteer aviator for France in the American Escadrille. He died in aerial combat a few months after the book was published, shortly before America officially entered the War. UVa friends will know McConnell (king of the Hot Feet, member of the Seven Society) from his statue on Grounds.

Vaughan, Joseph L. (1991). Rotunda Tales: Stories from the University of Virginia, 1920 – 1960. This book was on sale in the University bookstore when I was a first year student. Engaging (if occasionally quite dated) stories of life in the first half of the 20th century at UVa.

Clover, Cecile Wendover (1995). Holsinger’s Charlottesville. Spectacular collection of the work of early photographer Rufus W. Holsinger and his studio, which forms an invaluable record of life around the University and the town at the turn of the century and into the 1920s.

Contemporary and still available

Aprey, Maurice & Shelli M. Poe (eds) (2017). The Key to the Door. Thorough and engrossing history of the integration of the University of Virginia and first person histories of some of the trailblazing African American students. Should be required reading for those interested in Mr. Jefferson’s University and its imperfect embrace of the promise of his preamble to the Declaration of Independence.

Barefoot, Coy (2001). The Corner: A History of Student Life at the University of Virginia. An engaging, well-researched and photographed history of the other side of the street from the University, invaluable when you’re playing the game of “what was there before it was …?” that inevitably marks my visits to Mr. Jefferson’s stomping grounds.

Bowman, Rex and Carlos Santos (2013). Rot, Riot, and Rebellion: Mr. Jefferson’s Struggle to Save the University That Changed America. A great read about the riotous behavior of the early students at the University, and how the culture was ultimately changed.

Briggs, Frank (2021). The Old U(Va) and I: 1961 – 1965. A memoir fascinating, funny and infuriating by turns. I was a UVA grad but not part of the fraternity system, and Mr. Briggs’ stories about pledging Beta and some of the subsequent hijinks recounted remind me why I made that choice. Points given, though, for the honesty with which he recounts his attitudes as a student toward matters such as desegregation and the Civil Rights movement. It would have been very easy to tell a rosy story in hindsight rather than acknowledging the painful truths that these matters received no attention from most UVA students in the early 1960s, including himself. Ultimately the honesty and depth of story means that it’s a worthwhile read even though it left me not knowing whether to yell at Mr. Briggs or to shake his hand.

Gardner, Joel B (2018). From Rebel Yell to Revolution: 1966 – 1970. The back half of the 1960s are represented by Joel Gardner’s work, about which I wrote, “Full marks for the thoroughness and generally balanced nature of Mr. Gardner’s history of the transformation of the University from ‘Old U’ to its more modern incarnation. Points off for occasional unevenness of tone.”

Graham, Chris and Patrick Hite (2014). Mad About U: Four Decades of Basketball at University Hall. Good history of Virginia basketball during the University Hall days. Pluses: the coverage of the women’s basketball (hail Debbie Ryan! Hail the Burge twins!). Minuses: ends with Dave Leitao.

Hitchcock, Susan Tyler (1999). The University of Virginia: A Pictorial History. Hard to believe this one is twenty-five years old now. A turn of the century update on a popular staple, the coffee-table history.

Howard, Hugh (2003). Thomas Jefferson, Architect. A well-photographed book on the architectural side of Jefferson’s legacy. I wrote about it in 2020, “Not bad for a used bookstore find. There are better books on Monticello and the Academical Village, but the chapters on the Virginia Capitol and the private houses that Jefferson may or may not have designed were worth the price of admission. Nice photography too.”

Howard, Thomas L. and Owen W. Gallogly. Society Ties. This well-researched history of the Jefferson Society was (together with Michael Slon’s history of the Cornell Glee Club) what spurred my determination to write the history of the Virginia Glee Club. If a book could be published about the oldest student organization at the University, I reasoned, surely one could be published about the oldest student musical organization.

Spencer, Hawes (2018). Summer of Hate. A summary of the events of the “Unite the Right” march on Charlottesville and the University. Spencer’s shifts in time, topic, and perspective are disorienting and frustrating, but might just be a good way to process the chaos of the awful weekend of August 11 and 12, 2017. It could use an update for what happened to the rioters afterwards: the few convictions, and then the participation of some of them in the January 6, 2021 insurrection and attempt to steal the presidential election.

Willis, Garry (2006). Mr. Jefferson’s University. A slimmer re-telling of the origin of the University. Not as meaty as Dabney’s work but still a worthwhile read.

Wolfe, Brendan (2017). Mr. Jefferson’s Telescope. A slim coffee-table book showing 100 artifacts from the University’s history. Fascinating read.

Miles Davis, Decoy

Album of the Week, March 1, 2025

It was bound to happen. After two months of pop music we’re right back with Miles. That’s no accident; as Sting left the Police behind for a solo career, he sought out jazz musicians, and found several of them in Miles’ band.

The last Miles album, in his recording chronology, that we wrote about was Champions, recorded in 1971. Miles’ fusion years were musically exploratory and often fruitful—a listen to “He Loved Him Madly,” Miles’ tribute to Duke Ellington from the compilation Get Up With It, puts the lie to any assertion that Miles was slacking as a composer during this time. But by the same token, his worsening physical health was leaving him in constant pain, and his various addictions were taking a toll on his emotional state. Following appearances at the 1975 Newport Jazz Festival and the Schaefer Music Festival in New York, he dropped out of music.

He spent the next few years wallowing in sex and drugs, but also in finally getting a long postponed and much needed hip replacement. After a failed attempt to form a band with guitarist Larry Coryell, keyboardists Masabumi Kikuchi and George Pavilis, bassist T.M. Stevens and drummer Al Foster, he withdrew again. Finally getting back into the studio in 1980 and 1981, he released his first new album in six years, The Man with the Horn. Touring with a new group consisting of Foster, saxophonist Bill Evans (no relation), bassist Marcus Miller, and guitarist John Scofield, he recorded a few albums but suffered a relapse with alcohol that led to his having a stroke. His then-wife Cicely Tyson helped him recover and also helped him finally give up drugs and alcohol.

He also heard what his erstwhile collaborator Herbie Hancock had been doing in the studio. Realizing that Herbie had achieved mass success and a new audience by combining jazz and hip-hop on “Rockit,” Miles set out to do the same thing on his new album Decoy, adding more synthesizers and more prominent bass, this time played by Darryl Jones, who went by the nickname “Munch.” The band was also joined by saxophonist Branford Marsalis, Wynton’s older brother; the brothers had played together in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and Branford was playing in Wynton’s quintet; he recorded his debut record Scenes in the City the same year that he joined Miles in the studio.

That said, it’s a synth bassline that greets us first on “Decoy,” played by Robert Irving III, who wrote this track. There’s not much tune here, but there’s a lot of funk. When Jones’ bass comes in, it anchors and propels the track along with Foster’s insistent drumming. Miles’ trumpet is in fine form, but he spends the track interjecting two bar riffs. About halfway through, Branford Marsalis takes a solo turn on soprano saxophone. Breaking free of the robotic rhythm, he seems to fly above the dense robot-funk texture. Scofield is just another part of that texture on this track until his solo, where he raises the interest as well, but ultimately the constrained modal scale doesn’t provide enough of a melody to make the whole thing work.

Miles seems determined to keep us in robot-funk land, with the appropriately named “Robot 415,” this one a scrap of a tune that nevertheless gets him a co-writing credit along with Irving. Here he gives us another not-quite melody over the difficult meter, one that comes and goes in less than a minute.

“Code M.D.,” while still on the robotic side, has a little more of a blues melody across the two-chord vamp. It helps that Scofield is let loose much earlier on the track; his first solo enlivens the song, lifting it from something that feels like mostly backing track to a blues inflected raga. When he steps back and it’s just the horns in the pocket on the track, it feels like a holding pattern. Branford’s solo doesn’t soar quite as much here; he’s only given about sixteen bars. But we finally hear Miles take a solo, and he essays up into the upper end of the horn range, tailing off into a wistful melody at the end, and playing a modal scale against the funk. He sounds properly enlivened, in fact, right up until the track’s fade-out.

“Freaky Deaky” is credited solely to Miles, and he’s at the synthesizer over Foster and Jones, as well as playing a trumpet run through an effects pedal joining to add a little textural interest. It’s a noodle, nothing more, a sort of aimless jam, but the melody played by the trumpet is at least ear-grabbing while it’s there. I don’t know why they put it on the record, to be honest, especially after hearing the recording session version on the Miles Davis Bootleg releases, a burning blues jam in two parts.

“What It Is” shifts us into a very different gear to open Side 2, which is entirely co-written by Miles and Scofield. Recorded live at the Montréal Jazz Festival in 1983, the energy level is off the chart, and if Irving seems to be leaning against the keyboard on his cluster chords, at least there’s plenty going on in that acrobatic electric bass part, providing a proper hook. It’s saxophonist Bill Evans (no relation) here rather than Marsalis, and he plays with more abandon and less piercing fire. Miles makes the interesting choice to overdub an additional trumpet line over his solo, setting up an almost-conversation. It thickens the texture and somehow strips back a little of the urgency from his actual solo. It stops abruptly.

“That’s Right” gives us the slow-jam version of the music that Irving has been providing throughout the whole album, with a slow but funky pulse in the bass and a drum hit that mostly stays out of the way. It’s all the better to let Miles rip out a melodic line that pushes against the weird tension between the bass line, which mostly hugs the dominant (the fifth) of the scale so that the rest of the players can shift between major and minor at will, and the synths, which hover on every other degree of the scale. Scofield’s guitar is a force of nature here, beginning the solo with a bluesy skronch but quickly shifting to a more virtuosic expression and then back again. When Branford comes in, he hews more toward the virtuosic, with an occasional blues lick near the top of the range to establish continuity with Scofield’s concept. What’s interesting is that, even in this context, Branford swings, playing against the rhythm in a way that the other players don’t. It’s an interesting collision of swing and funk, which insists on a strong rhythmic pulse on the One. When Miles comes in, it’s an echo of the soaring melodies that he would have played ten years prior on tunes like “Honky Tonk.” But there he was playing against a firm rhythmic footing and a halo of odd electric textures that translated to something that was 100% blues; here the timbre of the keyboards seems to sap some of that rhythmic energy at the end.

That’s okay, because “That’s What Happened” has energy in spades. Another live track from Montréal, this seems to pick up where “What It Is” left off, acting like a coda to the earlier track, and very much in the same spirit. It closes out the album with a funky flourish.

Miles may have set out to record “Rockit,” but that definitely didn’t happen; between Scofield’s virtuosity, Branford’s imagination, and the odd harmonic statements of Irving, this band was still firmly in a jazz space. But this material did keep him exploring the boundary between jazz and more popular forms of music—something he leaned into even further on his next release. Before we go there, we’re going to hear how other voices—and coincidentally another Marsalis—tried to pull the form back to something closer (perhaps) to its roots.

You can listen to this week’s album here: