Wynton Marsalis - 1997 "Blood On The Fields" [3 CD Set]

Blood on the Fields is a two-and-a-half-hour jazz oratorio, by Wynton Marsalis. It was commissioned by Lincoln Center and concerns a couple moving from slavery to freedom.

It received the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for Music. However, Marsalis's victory was controversial because according to the Pulitzer guidelines, his work was not eligible. Although a winning work was supposed to have had its first performance during that year, Marsalis' piece premiered on April 1, 1994 and its recording, released on Columbia Records, was dated 1995. Yet, the piece won the 1997 prize. Marsalis' management had submitted a "revised version" of "Blood on the Fields" which was "premiered" at Yale University after the composer made seven small changes. When asked what would make a revised work eligible, the chairman of that year's music jury, Robert Ward, said: "Not a cut here and there...or a slight revision," but rather something that changed "the whole conception of the piece." After being read the list of revisions that were made to the piece, Ward acknowledged that the minor changes should not have qualified it as eligible, but he said that "the list you had here was not available to us, and we did not discuss it."

Risk exposing your ears to the first notes of BLOOD ON THE FIELDS, hear the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra wail through “Calling the Indians Out,” the opening invocation to the spirit of the first people whose blood soaked American soil in the long, painful birth of the American republic, and you’ll sit spellbound to the echo of the last note of Wynton Marsalis’s epic oratorio on slavery and freedom. Telling the story of two slaves, Jesse and Leona, it carries us along on their difficult journey to freedom, a journey in which they, and by implication all of us, must move beyond a preoccupation with personal power and learn that true freedom is, and must be, shared. BLOOD ON THE FIELDS premiered on April 1, 1994 in Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall; in 1997 it became the first jazz composition to receive the Pulitzer Prize in Music.

The music on this three-CD set (released in 1997) won a Pulitzer Prize, but it's not without its faults. Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis tells the story of two Africans (singers Miles Griffith and Cassandra Wilson) who are captured, brought to the United States and sold as slaves. Because the male had formerly been a prince while the female had been a commoner, he considers himself to be her superior. He asks for but then ignores the advice of a wise man (Jon Hendricks), gets caught trying to escape, discovers what "soul" is, finally accepts the female as his equal and eventually escapes with her to freedom. Marsalis wrote a dramatic, episodic and generally thought-provoking three-hour work, utilizing the three singers plus 15 other musicians (all of whom have significant musical parts to play) in a massive 27-part suite. Hendricks is delightful (and the star of the catchiest piece, "Juba and a O'Brown Squaw"), Wilson has rarely sounded better, and Griffith keeps up with the better-known singers, while the musicians (particularly trombonist Wycliffe Gordon, baritonist James Carter, pianist Eric Reed and, near the work's conclusion, violinist Michael Ward in addition to Marsalis) are quite superb. It should, however, be mentioned that the use of group narration to tell parts of the story does not work that well, the music could have used a stronger and more complicated story (the last hour has very little action), and few of the themes are at all memorable; Marsalis in the mid-'90s was a more talented arranger than composer (despite Stanley Crouch's absurd raving in the liner notes). But as is true of all of Wynton Marsalis' recordings, this one deserves several close listenings.

Track listing:

Disc 1
    Calling the Indians Out
    Move Over
    You Don't Hear No Drums
    The Market Place
    Soul for Sale
    Plantation Coffle March
    Work Song (Blood on the Fields)

Disc 2
    Lady's Lament
    Flying High
    Oh We Have a Friend in Jesus
    God Don't Like Ugly
    Juba and a O'Brown Squaw
    Follow the Drinking Gourd
    My Soul Fell Down
    Forty Lashes
    What a Fool I've Been
    Back to Basics

Disc 3
    I Hold Out My Hand
    Look and See
    The Sun Is Gonna Shine
    Will the Sun Come Out?
    The Sun Is Gonna Shine
    Chant to Call the Indians Out
    Calling the Indians Out
    Follow the Drinking Gourd
    Freedom Is in the Trying
    Due North

Personnel:

    Wynton Marsalis – trumpet, oratory vocal
    Jon Hendricks – vocal
    Cassandra Wilson – vocal
    Miles Griffith – vocal
    Roger Ingram – lead trumpet, oratory vocal
    Marcus Printup – second trumpet, oratory vocal
    Russell Gunn – third trumpet, oratory vocal
    Ron Westray – lead trombone, oratory vocal
    Wayne Goodman – second trombone, oratory vocal
    Wycliffe Gordon – trombone and tuba, oratory vocal
    Walter Blanding – soprano saxophone, oratory vocal
    Wes Anderson – lead alto saxophone, oratory vocal
    Robert Stewart – lead tenor saxophone, oratory vocal
    Victor Goines – tenor, soprano saxophones, clarinet and bass clarinet, oratory vocal
    James Carter – baritone saxophone, clarinet and bass clarinet, oratory vocal
    Regina Carter – violin, oratory vcal
    Michael Ward – violin, oratory vocal
    Eric Reed – piano, oratory vocal
    Reginald Veal – bass, oratory vocal
    Herlin Riley – drums, tambourine, oratory vocal