Tags : None

Quincy Jones: When it comes to hip hop, Wynton Marsalis blows it

Monday, October 6th 2008, 4:00 AM

Wynton Marsalis blows a trumpet like an archangel, but Quincy Jones thinks he could still use a music lesson.


The last time we ran into Jones, we complimented the winner of 27 Grammys on the way he and Marsalis have tried to wake up hip-hop artists to their jazz and blues heritage.
("Most rappers you ask wouldn't know who Duke Ellington or Charlie Parker is," Jones once declared.
)

But to our surprise, he started going off on Marsalis.


"Wynton doesn't want to hear any other kind of music," said Q.


He argued that Jazz at Lincoln Center, the program for which Marsalis is artistic director, should show its students the link between jazz and hip hop.


"He won't let students play other kinds of music," added Jones, who went so far as to say that "no trumpeter in America wants to play like Wynton in his style.
Every great trumpeter - Louis Armstrong, Roy Eldridge, Miles - borrows from someone before him and adds his own thing. But nobody wants to play like Wynton.
"

He added, "Wynton knows how I feel.
"

Apparently not.


"We've never had that discussion," said Marsalis sternly when we told him what Jones had said.


He admitted, "Hip hop is a form of music for which I don't have much respect. But I always recommend that my trumpet students play all kinds of music - funk, classical, all kinds of jazz.


"That's what my father taught me. He used to say, 'Earn your prejudices. Don't be prejudiced against something you don't know about.
'

"Before [Run DMC member] Jam Master Jay got killed, he and I were talking about having a deejay academy in my House of Swing," said Marsalis, who has out a new book, "Moving to a Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life.
"

"But it's incumbent on the hip-hop community to develop their own musical initiative," said Marsalis. "There's no need for a jazz person to be called upon to do it.
"

Whatever his beef with Q, Marsalis remains America's tireless jazz messenger. On Nov. 6, 7 and 8, he and his Lincoln Center Orchestra will unveil "Nursery Song Swing," new arrangements of traditional songs for kids. His big band will include a couple of teenagers who probably wish they could play like Marsalis.


Return to Davey D's Hip Hop Corner
Return to Davey D's Hip Hop Corner


Last Edited By: mrdaveyd 10/06/08 10:20:45. Edited 1 time.