(Burnt Toast Vinyl)
As a teen trying to become more cultured, I went to a Wynton Marsalis concert. I’d heard that adults with taste and brains listened to jazz music. Later I would realize that not all jazz is the same, and that Wynton Marsalis is not really much like John Coltrane. I was acting like an adult, but not the type of adult I wanted to be.
At the concert, Marsalis introduced a piece, “This one’s about education.” At that point, I had no choice but to laugh. How could instrumental music be “about” something? Now, I’m twice as old as I was then, and I still don’t understand.
Four of the five pieces here are inspired by the death of a friend. The fifth piece was inspired by the death of Wesley Willis, a man of color who made a lot of well-off white kids laugh because he was mentally ill. Oh, and their music is also inspired by their, uh, religious beliefs. (If you know what I mean).
c. 2008 LEO Weekly
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