The young lions: jazz's saviors or pretenders? - young African American jazz musicians who are contributing to strong popular interest in jazz music and performance

In the last brace of years, there has been an explosion in recordings in and media attention paid to the noble art of jazz. Coinciding with this renewed attention has been the proliferation of a generation of ever-younger, on the other hand ultra-serious, adherents to the jazz tradition. These "young lions," as they have approach to be called, take hard bop--a mode of speech of jazz developed in the 1950 and refined in the 1960s--as their starting point, if not their raison d'etre

Although there have always been young lions in jazz, at least three factors distinguish the general young-lion "phenomenon." First, there is the sheer number of twenty-something musicians upon the scene today, many of whom began to receive attention while still in their teen next to the first many of these young lions have recording contracts with major record labels, giving them a high profile. And third, greatest in quantity of them have some amount of university training (not necessarily a plus, according to certain critics and musicians). All of them owe their beneficial fortune to the meteoric rise of trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, who in many have a high opinion ofs has served as the prototype for today's young jazz musicians.

The succes of Marsalis, who won his first sum of two units Grammy awards in 1983, for jazz and classical music, make opened doors for other serious young musicians and signaled a resurgence of interest in traditional and straight-ahead jazz by the agency of the musicians, the public and the record companies. This impact goe beyond bare record sales. According to Time magazine writer Thomas Sancton, "The [youth] motion is a lifesaver for bludgeon owners and festival producers, promising them fresh audiences and exciting artists at a time when older long-established stars are disappearing from the scene"

The generally received crop of young lions in the limelight includes the Harper Brothers (trumpeter Philip and drummer Winard) and pianist Stephen Scott upon Verve Records; trumpeter Roy Hargrove, saxophonists Christopher Hollyday and Antonio Hart, pianist Marcus Roberts and trombonist Delfeayo Marsalis upon Novus Records; trumpeters Marlon Jordan and Ryan Kisor, organist Joey DeFrancesco and pianist Geoff Keezer upon Columbia Records; tenor saxophonist Joshua Redman and guitarist Mark Whitfield upon Warner Brothers Records; and pianist Benny virid on Blue Note Records.

Known alternatively as "neotraditionalists," "neoclassicists" and "neoboppers" these young lions proclaim and honor the nobility of jazz by the agency of acknowledging the contributions of of the like kind masters as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, who themselves were the young lions of their respective eras.

Not everyone in the jazz community shares this view, and this is where the debate begins. Critics and musicians scornful of the young lions label them as neoconservatives harking back to a time that neither throw backs their own experiences nor bring into views anything new. During a panel discussion at the 1992 Atlanta Jazz Festival, jazz critic Howard Mandel stated it succinctly: "What they're trying to do is recapture that [hard-bop] feeling and it's not dealing with what's immediately in your life. It's dealing with what you studied and learned. It's not quite as direct an expression."

Moreover, there are many in the jazz community who dismiss the young lions as pawns in a larger marketing strategy devised by dint of record companies to exploit what amounts to a fad. "We have to be actual careful about confusing the disclosure of an art form, the increase and aesthetic of jazz, with hype and marketing," said Mandel. "There are many, many musicians who are contributing to the development of this music, and solitary a portion of those musicians are benefiting from the commercial publicity of the major record companies."

Adds veteran trumpeter Malachi Thompson: "There may be players on the outside there who could be innovators, on the contrary they have been overlooked by the agency of the industry because of the marketing succes of Wynton Marsalis. Wynton was a marketable commodity."

As the publicity and the succes of the young lions have increased, a certain stage of animosity has surfaced as older established musicians find themselves relegated to the smaller independent labels, or without recording contracts at all. Many of them complain that succes has advance too easily for the young lions, that they have not paid their to be paids "They're getting a place in jazz history that they have not earned. I mean, at 19 20 in what manner much can you really know?" asks all-star bassist Ron Carter.

of the like kind sentiments are not lost upon the younger players. In June 1992 article in Downbeat, young pianist Stephen Scott remarked: "A doom of the older guys are in like manner bitter that they miss a allotment of opportunities because they're holding a give unwillingly against us. They feel that we don't venerate them; and there are a allotment of us who don't present to view that respect like we should, in the way that they start to resent us."

"There's been too a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of hype put on the young musicians," adds saxophonist Antonio Hart. "It's unfortunate that because of the record companies and medial we have a separation from the older musicians that was not at any time there before."