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Black Codes (From The Underground)

by

Wynton Marsalis

 
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Black Codes (From The Underground)
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Avg: 4.0 (46 ratings)

  • Date Released: January 1, 1985
  • Genre: Jazz
  • Label: Columbia
  • Copyright: (P) 1985 Sony Music Entertainment Inc.

An ambitious and much-lauded oasis away from the jazz sell-outs of its time

  • We Say...

    Review by Dylan Hicks

    When Black Codes (from the Underground) was recorded, Wynton Marsalis was just 23, and his aesthetic conservatism was at its most oppositional. One of the album's two ballads is called "Aural Oasis" and, to judge from some of Marsalis's rhetoric of the time, the oasis he sought to provide was a relief from every jazz development to come along between 1967 and 1979 — from the funk and fusion of sell-outs to the avant-garde of charlatans (to say nothing of plain old junky pop). Naturally, many folks welcomed the chance to play out the culture wars on or around jazz stages, and if, for a while, the debates seemed to overshadow the music, it was partly because the music wasn't always terribly interesting.

    But the music mostly kept up with the chatter on the ambitious and much-lauded Black Codes, still one of the trumpeter's best albums. Except for a Ron Carter cameo, the album was made with Marsalis's working band, and it's hard to imagine it having been otherwise; this isn't the kind of music a band works out in a morning at the studio, and the band is impressively in sync for the complex compositions, all but one from Marsalis's pen, which one can almost see erasing zags in favor of unexpected zigs. The title track, led by Jeff "Tain" Watts's ferocious drums (dig how they lock with Kenny Kirkland's piano on the tune's introductory figure), is an especially precise group performance. Marsalis's weakness as a melodist, alas, holds — whereas someone like Wayne Shorter, one of the leader's compositional models, can write sophisticated and unpredictable tunes that also get under your skin, Marsalis's melodies here tend to be as memorable as a seventeen-digit phone number. The music's elegance and structural inventiveness largely compensate, as does Marsalis's pure, bright tone, though his improvs offer fewer smile-inducing surprises than his brother Branford's sax or Kirkland's piano. Branford's wistful soprano solo, for instance, adds both wit and depth to the almost cute "For Wee Folks." A flashy yet laid-back trumpet-and-bass blues, uncredited on the back of the original LP, closes the album.

  • They Say...

    Review by Scott Yanow, All Music Guide

    This is probably the best Wynton Marsalis recording from his Miles Davis period. With his brother Branford (who doubles here on tenor and soprano) often closely emulating Wayne Shorter and the rhythm section (pianist Kenny Kirkland, bassist Charnett Moffett, and drummer Jeff Watts) sounding a bit like the famous Herbie Hancock-Ron Carter-Tony Williams trio, Wynton is heard at the head of what was essentially an updated version of the mid- to late-'60s Miles Davis Quintet (despite Stanley Crouch's pronouncements in his typically absurd liner notes about Marsalis' individuality). The music is brilliantly played and displays what the "Young Lions" movement was really about: young musicians choosing to explore acoustic jazz and to extend the innovations of the pre-fusion modern mainstream style. Marsalis would develop his own sound a few years later, but even at age 23 he had few close competitors.

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