It`s not yet a boom or a craze, but something remarkable is stirring in the musical psyche of this city.
Not since the earliest days of this century, when the word ”jazz” had yet to be coined to describe the rollicking music of New Orleans, have so many youngsters been drawn to its sound.
Suddenly, teenage trumpeters, trombonists, drummers, pianists and you-name-it are turning up in every jazz hot spot around.
Stroll almost any street in the French Quarter at night, and you`ll behold revivalist brass bands featuring kids barely big enough to wield their instruments. Step into chic, downtown nightspots such as Charlie B`s, Brewhouse or Snug Harbor, and you`ll hear 18-year-olds playing with a virtuosity and passion almost on a par with the pros.
The impact of this youngest generation of jazz artists-to-be was felt even at the recent New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, which concluded a couple of weeks ago with an inspiring nod to the new generation. No less than the plush Orpheum Theatre, home to the Louisiana Symphony, presented Jazz Futures II, a terrific group of young lions-in-waiting.
”Oh yeah, it`s happening-there are plenty of real good young musicians down here now,” says 18-year-old trumpeter Nicholas Payton, who happens to be one of the best. Payton, who-like most of his young colleagues-was born and raised in New Orleans, wowed the crowd at the Jazz Futures II concert with his characteristically big, bold, intensely lyrical lines.
”Now, I`ve got to say it`s not like a big mass trend or anything, but, still, you`d be surprised how many young guys are playing jazz today,” adds Payton, referring to such locally prominent teens as drummer Adonis Rose, pianist Dwight Fitch, trumpeter Mark Braud and literally dozens more.
”Even some kids who don`t play the music are getting into it,” adds 18- year-old Braud (pronounced Bro), who recently raised Cain at Brewhouse, sitting in with New Orleans-based trombonist Delfeayo Marsalis (trumpeter Wynton Marsalis` younger brother).
”When I first got into the jazz scene,” adds Braud, ”it was actually shocking to see how many young people there were just hanging out at the gigs, just checking out the music. I couldn`t believe it.”
It`s not difficult to trace the sources for this burst in activity. The rising popularity of jazz nationwide and the recent prominence of young performers such as crooner-pianist Harry Connick Jr. and pianist Marcus Roberts surely played a part.
But the surging pool of teenage talent may be unique to New Orleans, where the most visible star in jazz today was born and often returns to inspire his proteges.
”I really believe a lot of this activity is because of my brother Wynton,” says 15-year-old drummer Jason Marsalis, who admits to being ”a little biased.”
”But you`ve got to admit,” Jason adds, ”that when Wynton came up
(about 10 years ago), the music was not happening. There was like hardly anybody really big and young on the scene.”
Certainly Wynton-a 30-year-old whose followers regard as a kind of elder statesman-has been critical in nurturing nascent talent.
”I first met Wynton when I was 15 years old, and I can hardly list everything he`s done for me,” says trumpeter Payton, who recently has been touring with drum legend Elvin Jones.
`Who`s that playing?`
”It started three years ago when Wynton called our house to talk to my dad, who`s a bassist. I had never met Wynton before, but I loved his playing so much.
”So I gave my dad the phone, and then I picked up my horn and started playing in the background, like I was practicing.
”So Wynton said to my dad: `Who`s that playing?`
”And when my dad said it was his son, Wynton said, `Bring him over.`
”Since then, he has given me horns, he has let me stay at his apartment in New York. He`s taught me a lot about harmony, improvisation, who to listen to, what direction to go in, how to develop music thematically-that kind of thing.
”And he`s the one who got me a job with Elvin Jones.”
Or at least an introduction to Jones, who was willing to give Payton a tryout at the Blue Note jazz club in New York based solely on Marsalis`
recommendation.
After that stint and a three-week tour through Europe, ”Elvin said to me, `You`re in the band, kid,` ” Payton recalls, ”and I`m still having trouble realizing that`s really true.”
To Wynton Marsalis, though, reaching out to an aspiring, teenage musician seemed the most natural thing in the world to do.
”When Nicholas first came over to the house, I told him to play some blues, and, man, I couldn`t believe what I heard,” Wynton says.
”I never heard anyone that age know that much about chords since maybe Roy Hargrove,” another young trumpeter who has followed in Wynton`s wake.
”But Nicholas had something else too. He had this emotional involvement in the music, and he was so serious about it. You find a guy like Nicholas maybe once in 10 years.”
Just as Wynton inspired Payton, so has Payton inspired other New Orleans musicians, such as Braud, who took up the trumpet at age 11 but didn`t turn to jazz ”until I was 14 and heard Nicholas,” Braud recalls. ”I had always heard older guys, like my uncles, play jazz, but I never had heard anyone my age play it.
”But hearing Nicholas-that`s what really inspired me to play the music, and we`ve become best friends since.”
Peer pressures
In this way, with one young artist inspiring the next, does a movement begin.
There have been other inspirations, as well.
For Braud, ”I think (filmmaker) Spike Lee has helped out a lot, with movies like `Mo` Better Blues,` which uses a lot of jazz. So do his other movies.
”So kids see the movies, they hear a lot of John Coltrane and Miles Davis in the background, and suddenly they get interested in the music.”
Not that the jazz life is an easy one, even if you`re young and gifted. Because the music is more difficult to play and to understand than, say, rock or rap, many of these young musicians` friends still find jazz a forbidding world.
Sometimes ”the kids start making fun of it,” says Jason Marsalis, whose 9th-grade peers aren`t necessarily at the most sensitive stage in life.
”They`ll pretend like they`re really fascinated with the music we`re playing, when, in reality, they aren`t. It`s a kind of a put-on.”
Payton, too, endured his share of taunts. ”I wasn`t a social outcast or anything,” he says, ”but sometimes kids would call out, saying: `Hey, Wynton,` or `Hey, Louis Armstrong.` ”
Braud found that ”a lot of kids at school thought it was strange that Nicholas and I were so into jazz. They thought it was strange that I wouldn`t go out to these different disco clubs and things like that-I`d go out to jazz clubs.
”And I would get comments like, `Oh, you`re wasting your young life away because you just stay home and practice.`
”But I disagree with that totally, because I was getting my thing together while the other kids were out blowing their time away.
”And even though most of the younger people are still into rap and everything like that, in no way were Nicholas and I and the other jazz players ashamed to express our love for the music in front of them.”
Music is a `funny business`
Just how far the new kids on the jazz block will go is anyone`s guess, though they seem determined to stick with it.
Jason Marsalis, who sometimes jobs around town with his dad, the superb pianist Ellis Marsalis, says he decided ”long, long ago” that jazz was going to be his life.
Braud, who enrolls at the University of New Orleans as a music major in the fall, has heard the warnings from his parents, ”who basically told me to be careful in my career decision, because music is a funny business.
”They told me that sometimes it`s hard to get work. Even my grandfather
(John `Pickette` Brunious), who was a great trumpet player and piano player and composer who wrote stuff for Cab Calloway`s band, had to do (non-music)
work on the side. But I`m just going to go for it anyway, and see if I can`t make it in music.”
Payton, who already has entered the big leagues, at least for the duration of his Elvin Jones gig, knows that the toughest part is yet to come. ”I do know that if you want to play jazz, you`ve got to learn so much,” says Payton, who has completed one semester at the University of New Orleans but now spends his days on the road.”You`ve got to learn Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis and Wynton Marsalis and so many other guys` music.”
Do Payton`s parents mind that he has stopped going to college, hoping instead to learn his art firsthand, from the jazz masters?
”I`m sure my parents have some mixed feelings about it, especially my daddy, because he really believes in getting an education,” Payton says.
”But I guess they figure that this is really what I want to do, and they don`t really want to pressure me into doing anything that doesn`t feel natural to me at the time.
”And I guess they understand that I really have a love for the music, and that I`m trying real hard, and that I`m going to handle myself in the proper manner while I`m out on the road.
”But I`m learning plenty already. When you`re playing with Elvin Jones, he knows exactly what you`re doing, and you can`t just flub around. You have to really be trying to dig into the music.
”So isn`t that kind of like getting an education?”
