Wynton Marsalis call & response – Mr. Good Time Man 2020: Video, Sound, Photos

Trumpeter, bandleader and composer Wynton Marsalis will be next up for the Living Jazz Call & Response series, a unique series of intimate conversations with interesting jazz musicians.

Those icons speak candidly about the inspiration behind their music, but also about their struggles and triumphs, about the current climate for musicians during these difficult times, and about what’s to come in the future. There will be questions and an active participation during the Q&A section, facilitated by Frank Barrett, professor of Management at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.

The event on November 8th will be moderated by Andre Kimo Stone Guess, who was VP and Producer for Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York, among many other things. The series will continue with intimate talks with Kurt Elling on November 22nd, and Regina Carter on December 6th and you can sign up here.

Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, “Mr. Good Time Man”

The Ever Fonky Lowdown, a grand satirical opus by Wynton Marsalis, doesn’t go in for simplicity or subtlety. It’s an indictment of the age-old American tradition of political hucksterism, wielded for the sake of profit and at the cost of human freedoms. On the album, as in the piece’s 2018 concert premiere, actor Wendell Pierce provides running commentary as Mr. Game, a devilish master of ceremonies who plays to the public’s prejudice, insecurity, fear and tribal loyalty.

“Mr. Good Time Man” is a piece that folds in Marsalis’ critique of contemporary Black culture. (In a preamble titled “They, Too, Want to Be Winners,” Mr. Game declares: “Losers have two choices: entertain us by playing out our vision of them as meek, emasculated jesters… or excite us, playing out our vision of them as dangerous captured savages.”) The ideas play out in the arch lyrics of the tune, sung in turn over an old-time New Orleans groove by Camille Thurman, Ashley Pezzotti, and Christie Dashiell.