My review was written in June 1992 after watching the program on video cassette.

Portrait film of jazz saxophonist Branford Marsalis is an ephemeral look at a popular figure, its release well-timed to exploit his current high visbility as musical director for "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno". Though made by the renowned documentarist Donn A. Pennebker and his frequent collaborator Chris Hegedus, this Columbia Records-funded effort lacks insight and presents unmemorable music.

Marsalis sense of humor comes out in backstage and tour-bus camaraderie with pals and fellow musicians, bass player Robert Hurst and drummer Jeff Watt. Unfortunately, his extreme pretensions are also present as Marsala frequently makes pithy pronouncements on his philosophy of jazz, its history and racism that his own silver-spoon status and lack of proper dues-paying can't justify.

His stress on touring as fundamental to a jazz man's life and career is immediately contradicted by his taking the bread job in the shadow of Doc Severinsen. The rigors of a tour is unconvincingly exemplified here by a concert at Indiana University, with the trio filmed in sterile fashion lacking the atmosphere of a nightclub setting.

The film's title comes from an interview in which Marsalis properly states that the popular notion of jazz equals freedom is not so. In fact the dictates of the musical setting determine the parameters of what a soloist plays. Unfortunately the group's performances of various originals, with Marsalis mainly on soprano rather than tenor sax, are uninspired and hardly worth preserving on film.

Elsewhere the sax tar plays the national anthem with pianist Bruce Hornsby at the 1991 NBA All-Star game; chatting with Jerry Garcia before an unseen Madison Square Garden guest gig with the Grateful Dead; speaking to students at Prof. Davind Baker's Indiana U. Class; and in a studio recording the soundtrack for what looks like a TV documentary about Spike Lee's "Mo' Better Blues".

Marsalis is undoubtedly talented, but his place in jazz history remains to be seen.

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Branford Marsalis: The Music Tells You

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