Jazz Wars: Wynton Marsalis in the Center of a Literary Battle
by Seth Rogovoy

(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., Feb. 20, 1998)THE BEAT -- As if Wynton Marsalis did not have enough to answer for already, what with some analysts accusing him of being at the root of the shake-up that has rocked Tanglewood this past year, the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and trumpeter now finds himself at ground zero in a battle for the heart and soul of jazz, a battle in which he stands accused of nothing less than destroying jazz music.

Controversy has never lagged far behind Marsalis. Ever since he sprang nearly fully-formed on the music scene in the early-1980s, the articulate, outspoken musician has always courted dissent, whether he was dissing Miles Davis as a pop-sellout or penning a fiery rejoinder to some jazz critic who had the nerve to criticize him. And in his ambition to rule the contemporary jazz roost as artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, Marsalis has made himself an easy target for all those seeking someone to blame for what ails institutional jazz.

For those who have been following Marsalis's career all along, none of this is news. But with the publication of two new books, the stakes have suddenly been raised. It's one thing for columnists to offer their vaporous opinions in the fleeting pages of the daily or weekly press. It's another to inscribe them in books that will sit on library shelves where they will be read and re-read for years to come. The battle over whether or not Wynton Marsalis is good for jazz or bad for jazz has now become a fully entrenched war.

The firing shot in this new campaign to discredit Marsalis is the provocatively titled "Blue: The Murder of Jazz," by author Eric Nisenson of nearby Poughkeepsie, N.Y. The land-based, missile defense system is "Blues Up and Down: Jazz In Our Time," by Tom Piazza, a Williams College alumnus, class of '76, and the author of "The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz."

Both books, curiously enough, are published by St. Martin's Press, which missed a real marketing opportunity by not packaging them together. Read in isolation, both are entertaining and informative. Read in tandem, however, they speak to each other and are revealing of a deep divide separating the jazz haves from the jazz have-nots.

Read the Nisenson first. His is a lovingly written, eloquently argued indictment of Marsalis and the "neo-traditionalist" or "neoclassicist" school of jazz he has wrought. In 262 pages, Nisenson revisits the history of jazz with an eye toward its future in the present of today. By doing so, the author is able to make the case that Marsalis, and the ideology he represents, flies in the face of that history, which Nisenson defines as one of perpetual "freedom" and innovation based in the creative response of African-Americans to the specifics of their own historical situation.

I put quotes around the word "freedom" because it is a loaded term, and one at the crux of the argument between Nisenson and his nemesis. Piazza -- whose 194-page book consists primarily of previously published articles, a few of which are very tenuously connected to the issue at hand and thus appear to be included only as filler -- argues that the term "freedom" is tossed around too loosely in talking about jazz, which relies as much on structure and composition as it does on improvisation. There is "a tendency to equate the myth of progress with the idea of freedom, to see freedom as the result of the forward movement implied by the word progress," writes Piazza.

The terms are also racially loaded, and the authors attempt to address the issue of race. Nisenson seems to argue that jazz at its best is the passionate, emotional voice of the black American riffing on freedom; Piazza deems this paternalistic, condescending nonsense. A couple of white guys arguing about jazz and race is the least compelling aspect of these books, which otherwise are required reading for anyone who cares about the state of jazz as it slouches toward the millennium.

While on the subject of jazz reading, a great new comprehensive look at the history of jazz called, aptly enough, "The History of Jazz" (Oxford University Press, 471 pp.), is just out. Written by Ted Gioia, the book is a highly-readable treatment of an exhaustive subject which will appeal both to initiates and old-hands.