Free Newsletter
Listen to this article
He knew it might be a risk to name his band’s debut CD with the same catchphrase that got a certain businessman into the White House, but NEA Jazz Master Delfeayo Marsalis, bandleader of the Uptown Jazz Orchestra, trusts his audience to know that if he was going to call his new CD, Make America Great Again!, it was going to have a lot more to say about this country than it does when it’s stitched onto the front of an empty red baseball cap.
“I didn’t start out with a title and a theme for the disc,” Marsalis said in an interview with Color Magazine. “We play two shows a night every Wednesday at the Snug Harbor in New Orleans, and as part of the show we make up a new song every night. We ask an audience member to give us the title and the key signature. Well on this night lightning struck, and the band knew it too. We got to the studio as soon as we could to capture that magic before it drifted away.”
As for the title of the disc, Marsalis is confident that people will look beyond the single similarity it shares with one of the most bizarre political cycles in American history. “I have a deep admiration of the political process no matter what the outcome,” he said, “and I have faith that people will do the right thing.”
Plus he’s from New Orleans.
In its combination of dark political protest and raucous, rump-shaking grooves, Make America Great Again! could only come from Marsalis’ native city, which is well known for meeting adversity with celebration and community. “That’s New Orleans, that’s jazz, that’s the story of the African descendant in America,” Marsalis says. “The African descendants have lived up to the American ideal more than any other ethnic group in the country. African-Americans helped to build the country, were brutalized and marginalized and still maintain an air of joy, sophistication and belief in American democracy.”
Reading about the CD is one thing; listening to it brings the experience to an almost cosmic level. The repertoire on Make America Great Again! ranges from a New Orleans classic like Rebirth Brass Band’s “Put Your Right Foot Forward” or the Dirty Dozen Brass Band’s “Snowball” – featuring UJO elder statesman Roger Lewis with a rousing baritone sax solo – to the deep swing of “Second Line,” Duke Ellington’s interpretation of that sound, or Benny Carter’s toe-tapping “Symphony in Riffs.” The band also marries that swing sound with a church influence, as on their Basie-influenced rendition of the standard “All of Me” with Kyle Roussel’s sanctified piano.
In other words, Make America Great Again! will excite your mind, warm your soul and make you dance like nobody is looking.
“I think there is a big problem with jazz music today; People either get too technical to show off their prowess or too wrapped up in their own heads trying to create music that will logically explain what they are thinking,” Marsalis said. “They’re making music for themselves and forget about the audience. The OJU always has the audience in mind. We’re all there to have a good time.”
Make America Great Again! is now available on Troubadour Jass Records
