Anthony Davis: X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X

An extraordinarily ambitious idea and an event that received relatively huge publicity for a composition by an avant-garde jazz musician, Anthony Davis' modern opera depicting the career and philosophy of Malcolm X unfortunately failed to live up to its great promise. The libretto, written by the composer's sister, the writer Thulani Davis, is essentially biographical, concentrating on key events in the life of the subject and allowing him, as ably sung by Eugene Perry, to expostulate on the century's racial ills while undergoing his own self-evolution. It's effective as far as it goes, though rarely as stirring as one would hope. Most of the blame for this must be laid on Davis and the musical style he chose for his vocal writing. Instead of a colloquial form where Malcolm's affinity to his community and his own roots might have been more clearly portrayed, he chose a declamatory, strident form that owes far more to contemporary "serious" European models than to jazz forms. Indeed, this is a problem throughout much of the work. While he had assembled a wonderful cast of supporting musicians to offset and accompany a standard orchestra, they too often feel hemmed in and, with a few exceptions, show little of the spontaneity and creativity that many of them had contributed to earlier Davis recordings like Episteme; fans of his work will notice the exhumation of several of his favorite themes herein. Davis had been increasingly feted by the New York contemporary arts crowd during the '80s and his work had taken on more and more of an academic tinge during the same time. While there are still traces of his early vibrancy to be found, X has gone far enough over to the "uptown" end of the spectrum to be ultimately disappointing and somewhat sterile.