Looking to get into Wynton Marsalis' work. The search function appears to be down, so this is my only recourse. Suggestions on best and/or good first album(s)?

edit: nevermind, one of the fields failed for some reason, and my findings reveal that he's not particularly interesting. Discuss anyway!

I'll let you know when his first good album comes out.

that appears to be the consensus. oh well.

1. His best stuff is as a sideman with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers & and his early recordings as leader with his brother. As in, his Miles Davis 2nd Quintet days.

Black Codes (From the Underground) would be his best from those years. From the later years there is a Village Vanguard box set, which is actually good.




2. He's probably top 5 in terms of pure technical abilities....imagine the John Petrucci of Jazz.

The worst thing to happen to Marsalis is is Stanley Crouch & Albert Murray. With their help he proceeded to go backwards 50-years. On top of that was all the Savior of Jazz hype that Columbia/Sony was pushing which he believed.


If he had to live off his record sales he would be just as broke as most Jazz musicians. However, he has the $1,000,000 a year salary from boring people as Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. Which houses Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola.


3. Don't even get me started on Wynton, Crouch, and Murray's influence on Ken "Complete & Utter Hack" Burns's Abomination known as Gumbo aka Jazz.