Customer Reviews

Black Codes

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Wynton Marsalis is so heavily documented and so heavily opinionated these days that it's difficult to assess his work fairly. For everyone who thinks he single-handedly saved acoustic jazz in the 80s, another will say he is killing its creativity and radical spirit in the 2000s. Certainly I've wavered on this issue over time. Whatever your opinion on Wynton, Black Codes is the strongest of his early albums, before he took to preserving the jazz tradition. More than any of the other albums Black Codes strives to advance it.

The band on here is great. This was before Branford left to join Sting and the heads to the tunes are tight. Jeff Watts is a phenomenal drummer and Wynton shares the spotlight by using "Chambers of Tain" as a drum feature. Kenny Kirkland drives many of the vamps on this album and comps assertively and the bass player strongly anchors these tunes as well.

This album plays well start to finish and has some of Wynton's strongest writing. "Black Codes" with its low end piano as part of the head, "For Wee Folks" with its out of tempo opening and "Delfeayo's Dilemma", a tune that has been covered by artists like Kenny Garrett, are highlights in the set. Wynton nods to the tradiiton by concluding with a blues as well.

The innovations on this album are subtle. It's more a summary of two splendid jazz ensembles: the tight ensembles of the Jazz Messengers that Branford and Wynton played with early in their careers and the thorny modal improvisations of the Miles Davis Quintet. Some people focus only on Miles when assessing this album, but if you listen to Jazz Messengers albums like Mosaic and Free For All you hear how the discipline of this music and the vigor of Tain's playing are more assertive than the cool effortlessness of Miles' group.

I don't listen to all of Wynton's stuff so much now but I've enjoyed this album and I strongly recommend it as a high point of jazz in the decade of the '80s.

--5 stars

SD

I bought this album on vinyl when it first came out, then bought the CD and have been listening to it regularly for 15 years. It is the finest recording Wynton has ever done and this music will stand the test of time. I am a piano fan and Kenny Kirkland's playing on this session is phenomenal. Everyone is in fine form and the music is original, the playing is fresh and passionate. Every track is great listening. This is a CD to play over and over and enjoy over and over again. I agree with the rest of the reviewers about the critic's -- most of these "critics" don't know much about jazz and to compare this group with Miles Davis is a joke -- this is original music and it stands on it's own quite nicely!

This is my first real jazz album. I'm listening to it right now and Tain is tearing it up and Marsalis is on fire. I don't think I know enough about the genre to be critical, but what I can tell you is this Album can bring you to tears. It gets you right in the gut and makes your heart beat and it tears into you. Almost a religious experience. I'm hooked. Favorite track: Chambers of Tain

There's something funny about this album. Well, not the album, per se, but the critical reception of said album. Ever notice how whenever cats talk about this album or review it, they always name-drop Miles second quintet? (the one with Shorter, Hancock, Tony Williams, and Ron Carter) I've got a question for y'all: WHY? aside from a few ostensible similarities to the Davis quintet, how is this music like the stuff Miles was doing back in the pre-fusion 60s? I mean, if you're gonna compare these groups, back it up with something! I'm not saying there aren't some similarities, but cats who review Black Codes *always* name-drop Miles' quintet without ever digging into the music. That said, this is a superb recording--probably my favorite in Wynton's discography. The rhythm section is sickeneningly tight, and the two Marsalises play beautifully. I like most of Wynton's stuff, but this might just be one of the best jazz recordings of the 80s...heck, the 90s too. If you don't have this, then RUN (don't walk) to your nearest record store and pick it up.

First off, comparing this album to Miles is absurd; it would be like comparing Monet to Fleming; both geniuses, but 2 different time frames, eras, periods and concepts.

Black Codes is pure modern jazz energy at its most urban, refined, freshest, sophisticated and complex; it IS a seminal album because it provides the natural evolution and continuation of a hard bop movement that seemed to be floundering a bit in the late 70's, always seeming to have to fight the mediocre commercialism and superficialness that was plauging not only the music scene, but American culture then, and still today.

Dark, moody, hip, furious, dissonant, deep---very deep, ahhh, there simply aint' enough adjectives. But if words are meaningless, then how about one sustained goose bump of pure reverie and jazz joy when digging this album?

What is especially astounding are the virtuoso performances of an absolutely sick, monstrous rhythm section, and the horn and saxophone blowing which is a reflection of the best of improvisational recording during the last fifty years. I agree with the reviewer: don't walk, run and get it. It belongs next to Miles, Clifford, Coltrane and Bird, but put this one last (or latest) in the line-up.

Honestly, even if this was a complete rip off of Miles' work, which it clearly isn't, the group is stunning enough. I mean, Joe Henderson made a TRIBUTE ALBUM to Miles and it also won two grammys (and pretty much deserved them), and no one gave him any problems. No one will doubt that this quintet with Branford, Wynton, Kenny Kirkland, Tain Watts, and Moffet, was one of the best of the 1980s, and this album, as I and most others contend, this is probably their definitive album. Yet, I don't think really think this was a homage album to Miles Davis. If it was, Wynton probably would have brought direct attention to it. Clearly, Wynton's trumpet playing is definitely influenced by Miles 1960s work, but not solely. Yet other than that, I really don't any real obvious similarities between 65-68 Miles Quintet and this work, and trust me, I know Miles' work from that period very well. Really, the only copying going on related to "Black Codes From the Underground" was by critics who didn't know any better than to call the album an advance in Miles' music if they liked Wynton, or to call it a rip off of Miles if they didn't like him. I think a lot of these critics were either jaded by the extremely rapid acoustic jazz revival of the 1980s, or just didn't know much about the musical details of jazz and made a swift, dumb assumption according to other critics' views. Trust me, this should be one of, if not your first Wynton album. It is a group of great improvisers and complete musicians at their tightest, and at least for me, evokes a great amount of emotion. Also, despite what some say, this is a highly creative effort.

There may be a relationship between Black Codes and the music of the second Miles Davis quintet (1965-68), but to call Black Codes an "obvious homage" or an "out-and-out tribute" (John Swenson's review for Amazon.com) is to shortchange both musicians. Marsalis may have emulated Miles in other circumstances, but there is little evidence of that here. This is Marsalis at his best--passionate and polished--with a powerful assist from Kenny Kirkland on piano. I don't understand why Black Codes hasn't received more critical acclaim, and I'm disappointed that there was no follow-up. It's as good as anything I've heard in the last twenty years.

This is a seminal work, and defines the beginning of the post- or neo-bop movement in jazz, a resurgence in the form that continues through the millenium. Swenson, in his review for Amazon.com, decides to review this album in terms of Marsalis' subsequent career, and draws parallels to Miles Davis' group that are relatively superficial ('blinkered apologist'? Oh, please.). This album stands on its own in terms of compositional narrative, improvisational extent, and sheer passion. Subsequent albums have extended on Marsalis' deep roots in the Blues and bop, but 'Black Codes' remains unparalleled as a defining moment in a new movement in jazz.

It's maybe not too original, the last tune sounds almost identical to something Miles recorded around 1954 for Prestige (forget what it's called) where they turned down the lights in the studio so they'd get that "after-hours," chairs-stacked-on-the-tables feel, but this is still a smoker of an album, played with such passion that Watts and Kirkland in particular sound like they're about to explode at any moment.

While the concept for this album is none too original, the jamming is fresh and exciting. Wynton plays some of the most intense trumpet of his career, and while he never sounds completely spontaneous, the others around him are having enough of a blast to make up for his cool demeanor. Brother Branford is smoothness to Wynton's jagged edges, although at times in his Black Codes solo he starts to channel Conference of the Birds a little. Kirkland is so stunning one grows sad knowing what a loss to jazz his death has been. This was the debut album of Charnett Moffett, all of 16 at the time, but you wouldn't know it because he plays like an old veteran. And Jeff "Tain" Watts...well, you wonder how many arms he has.

There are no weak tracks on this set, though some of the arrangements maybe sound a *little* dated now (For Wee Folks stands out, with that airy soprano and whooshy cymbalwork that was so popular at the time). The best compositions include the title tune and especially Delfeayo's Dilemma, a great piece that should be a standard. Also notable is the incredibly naturalistic sound on the disc. The drums in particular sound airy and spacious as I've rarely heard before or since. I wonder why with subsequent albums the boxy, constricted sound so loved by milti-miking producers came back in. Do they really think that sounds better than this?

I'm not WM's biggest fan, but here everything came out right. I was hoping, when I heard this back in 1985, that this was the start of a powerful new direction. One can see at this distance it wasn't as "new" as it seemed then, and it didn't turn out to be the declaration of independence that it might have seemed like at the time. But it's still a fine album that will get your pulse pounding--at least!

This album sounds fresh. It could have been released in 1999. It's is surprising that they were able to make this sound back in 1985. It may very well be the first of it's kind. As a historical album it is interesting. But in my opinion there are very few people who will listen to this record the first time and say "Wow...that's awesome. There is a lot of tension and release...a little too much tension for my taste except for the piano. Kenny Kirkland delivers. That being said I will continue to listen to this record in hopes of hearing it's greatness. The players are some of the most talented on the scene, and there are moments that are awesome.