A. Kori Hill
Editor’s Note: This account is written in a fictionalized first-person perspective, drawing upon information from Marsalis’ website and public sources on the composer-trumpeter’s career.
As I said to you all before, I love classic jazz. To me, nothing beats a handful of swinging woodwind and brass players coming together to form something larger than us all – a good old-fashioned big band. If I could listen to that all day, I’d be a happy man.
But that’s not all I listen to. I also love the blues, fiddle tunes, and Latin music, and I’ve taken to incorporating them into the music I write.
In my early years I wrote a lot of tunes in the jazz style. These were often for solo trumpet with a jazz combo to back me up –– piano, double bass, and drum set. But like many composers, I don’t “stay” in one stylistic lane all the time.
Check out my tune Bayou Baroque, for instance. I recorded this in 1992, and it’s in the style of New Orleans jazz. We got ragtime rhythms, grittier, more reedy timbres from the brass (thanks to mutes), and an almost goofy character. I also use contrapuntal motion in how the melodies fit together. And you’ll notice this is still for a big band; a reminder that certain composition techniques don’t have to be glued to certain styles: I wrapped up stuff from classical music, New Orleans, and big band jazz, and it worked great!
Same thing with my oratorio, Blood on the Fields, that won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1997. Remember when Dr. Kori told y’all about what an oratorio is? Well, mine tells the story of slavery and freedom, led by the main characters Jesse and Leona, and pulling upon blues and New Orleans jazz idioms with, you guessed it, a big band ensemble and two singers.
Have you ever heard a song that sounded happy, but the lyrics made you realize it was really sad? That’s how “Work Song,” from Blood on the Fields, sounds. It’s a slow drag, but it’s also a callback to how enslaved folks used music while working. It helped them find rhythm in monotonous work and let them express their emotions and share ideas in code.
Another piece of mine that brings a bunch of influences together is my Violin Concerto in D. It’s in four movements, and within them I made sure to explore a bunch of different violin styles, not just the typical classical one. For example, the last movement, “Hootenanny,” is a “raucous, stomping, and whimsical barnyard throw-down!” Since I wrote this for Nicola, I really dove into how virtuosic I could get and keep the style, fun, and competitiveness of fiddling.
Take a listen to Tai Murray playing it with the Yale Symphony Orchestra. You’ll hear fiddling, virtuosic shredding, lyrical 1940s charm, and a few other things I’ll let you pick out yourself.
I love writing music; it allows me to get so many cool ideas out, and it connects me with my family, friends, teachers, and past figures who made great music. Some may say it helped that I grew up in a musical family. Maybe there’s some truth to that. But I know too that if I didn’t want to do it –– I wasn’t gonna.
