4:2:22

Wynton Marsalis is 23-24 here. He is so self-composed, wise, handsome, critical thinking. Imagine an extremely talented and cute 24-year old speaking with that kind of self-assurance and genuine intelligence today. Who today would turn fame down? Who would choose art over ego, adulation, and rock stardom? It's almost unthinkable. Marsalis: "Man, I wanted to barf." Of course I don't know who Wynton is today, or who anyone is today for that matter, but this is who he was in 1985. Look at everyone’s beautiful, interesting, serious face—the musicians in the band, the young audience members, who are listening so intently, you’d think they were at a university lecture rather than a pop concert. Listen to how talented and elegant all these people were. Compare it to what you saw in this year's dreadful Oscar clips. When I showed the concert footage of The Police singing Bring on the Night that I posted here last night to my mom, and asked once again, "What makes it so good? How were all these musicians and performers able to be so good?" She answered, "Because these people felt free." And I see that in the Micheal Apted (see his wonderful Up series) film, Bring on the Night, too, which is where this clip is from. Freedom isn't always literal. It's something deeper. It is exactly what the young Wynton is saying. It's something people felt inside--about their own their own worth, talent, and value. It's not something you give people, or more accurately, pretend to give people. It's not a script. It's not entitlement to an award. It's knowing your destiny and protecting it: "I'm not a rockstar, I'm a musician."

The concert is from Apted’s 1985 documentary about Sting's The Dream of the Blue Turtles, his first solo album and the only post-Police album I like (I Burn for You, is in fact a Police song from 1981) mainly because of these extraordinary young Jazz musicians, and Janice Pendarvis and Dolette McDonald, who were also Laurie Anderson’s vocalists in Home of the Brave. I think geniuses, which is to say great artists, were making pop music from the 1960s-1990s, and that’s why it was so good. That is why it has lasted. "It's a combination of things, it's not just one thing. That's what makes it interesting," my father added last night, while we talked over dinner for my birthday.

But if you think this these people look and feel and sound the same as Harry Styles or Billy Eilish or Taylor Swift or Beyonce or Lady Gaga, then I don’t know what to tell you. You are a victim of your time.

You can watch Apted's entire film below. It's like Rohmer meets Robert Altman in the 90s meets music. I'll say more about it on another day. But it affected me deeply.