Recording of the Week, Wynton Marsalis & Jazz at Lincoln Centre Orchestra - The Democracy! Suite

In our heavily globalised world, it’s hard not to feel intensely involved in the current events of the United States, despite the miles and miles that separate it from us here in the UK. Amongst a global pandemic crisis, a tense general election and widespread protests against police brutality, to say it’s been a tumultuous time for the United States would be an understatement. It’s from this history of turmoil, however, that many of Wynton Marsalis’s works draw their inspiration. The Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, trumpeter and bandleader often references the current and historical events of his home country; his latest work - The Democracy! Suite - in particular was born out of the political climate of the US which came to a head with the 2020 election. In the composer’s words, “jazz is the perfect metaphor for democracy”.

Much like his past commissioned works, Marsalis performs the Democracy! Suite with the Jazz at Lincoln Centre Orchestra, or rather a septet from the Orchestra’s usual fifteen-member lineup. The two are hardly strangers to collaboration; Marsalis’s first commissioned work for the orchestra, Blood on the Fields, premiered in 1994 - a jazz-opera exploring the history of slavery in the United States, and the work that ultimately won him said Pulitzer Prize in 1997, being the first jazz composer to receive the award. Last year also saw the release of another Marsalis work with the Lincoln Centre Orchestra, The Ever-Fonky Lowdown, another recording bringing to light the current issues of Black lives in the United States. While the record shone a light on the injustices faced by these communities in the face of the modern US, there remained an ever-resilient undertone in the track titles and tunes, though The Ever-Fonky Lowdown was decidedly more an operetta than jazz suite, interspersed with spoken parts and distinctly less ‘jazzy’ in its composition overall. In a similar vein, The Democracy! Suite is steeped in resilience and community. Indeed, the activistic mood of this record are hardly subtle, with track titles like ‘Sloganize, Patronize, Realize, Revolutionize (Black Lives Matters)’ or ’Ballot Box Bounce’, while tunes like ‘Out Amongst the People (For J Bat)’ and ‘Be Present’ reflect the community spirit of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly among the musicians that have been hit hard by the closing of their industry.

Musically, Marsalis’s compositional style for The Democracy! Suite is a little more old-school and jazz-rooted compared to the light-opera approach of The Ever-Fonky Lowdown, the suite itself making use of many different jazz genres in its 45-minute runtime. The suite’s opening call to action, ‘Be Present’, kicks off with a big-band swing, before edging into a post-bop shuffle for ‘Black Lives Matters’. The fully instrumental suite zig-zags from ‘Ballot Box Bounce’, a ruckus and danceable hard-bop tune straight out of the era’s heyday, to the swaying, laid-back swing of ‘Deeper Than Dreams’ that gives off more of a cool jazz vibe. Drawing from the music played at Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, ‘That Dance We Do (That You Love Too)’ also has a kind of soul-jazz feel to it, with some especially spirited solos taken by the band, inspired by the more modern sounds of the youthful American music scene. While The Democracy! Suite plays with many different jazz voices and sounds, the sense of urgency and resilience is consistent. The turbulence of the past year is palpable in this suite, though Marsalis is keen to encourage a brighter future: the closing tune ‘That’s When All Will See’ seems to set an optimistic precedent for the future. To quote the man himself on the album’s liner notes; “The question that confronts us right now as a nation is, ‘Do we want to find a better way?’”.