Hipper Than Thou?

So all Marsalis has to deal with on “Tonight’s” bandstand is genuine spontaneous witty repartee with Leno, evangelizing “true jazz” to a nation of unbelievers, investigating his music before the nation in four-minute bits and 10-second “bumpers,” delivering the black audience to NBC and being a “racial savior.”

What a cake gig (and no traveling).

Jarrett’s pompous and sanctimonious comments reveal the limited perspectives of the elitist jazz zealots who inhibit the idiom and presume to tell others what to play. Get with it, Branford, dump this lame “Tonight Show” band and put out a five-album box set of unaccompanied sax noodling to show us you’re a true jazz musician.’

LARRY ITALIA

Seal Beach