Time of My Life: A Jazz Journey from London to New Orleans by Clive Wilson (review)

Clive Wilson, a white Englishman with a degree in physics, drawn by impressions of the sound of traditional New Orleans music, first visited the city just a few days after the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Today, as an accomplished trumpet player and bandleader, he is a part of that New Orleans tradition not only through his performances but also through his recordings of music legends and his insightful publications. Time of My Life covers Wilson's early teenage years to 1979. His jazz journey from London to New Orleans, however, was not merely geographical. It had not been his intention to take music as a profession; he just wanted to learn to play the trumpet and sound like a New Orleans musician. While active in learning and performing the music, he had been on a long, soul-searching journey. When he returned to the city the third time, in 1970, he stayed.

Wilson's first encounter of the sound of traditional New Orleans music was from a recording of "Tishomingo Blues" played by Bunk Johnson and His New Orleans Jazz Band. Although unable to make sense of what he was hearing, he took note that "the instruments, weaving in and out of each other, form a tapestry of sound and rhythm that resonates with something within me" (p. xiii). He was thirteen when he first heard this New Orleans sound; ten years later, he successfully found his way to visit New Orleans.

Throughout the book, Wilson introduces readers to artists (not just trumpet players, but multi-instrumentalists) and their musical style—those whose sound left enduring impressions. Details of Wilson's learning journey and of New Orleans's musical culture include recognition that the community life of the day brought in elements that shaped the development of jazz repertoire (pp. 56–57). There are also discussions of qualities in African American playing style that others seem unable to emulate (pp. 89, 98). These include more than distinct rhythm and phrasing. "With the African American musicians who could play well, their music was more compelling, with an inner strength and emotional conviction. … Seemingly, there is an element from another dimension that I cannot find the words to describe" (p. 97).

In the epilogue, Wilson summarizes his musical career since 1979 and closes with a conviction that the sounds that he and others heard in the 1960s and 1970s are unsurpassed: "Although we are able to continue playing it amid the current, somewhat amateurish, revival of traditional jazz, when we are gone, so will our music and our memories. The time of the traditional New Orleans style of music will be over" (p. 174). Clarinetist Michael G. White has shared a similar view ("Dr. Michael White: The Doc Paulin Years," Jazz Archivist 23 [2010]: 2–20), that the middle and late 1970s were a transitional period, with a gradual moving away from the authentic, traditional brass bands. Factors contributing to the changes, White observed, were incorporating fast tempos and tambourine, having tuba on the lead instead of remaining as part of the rhythm section, and bringing brass bands to concert halls. (They traditionally performed in social parades, not on a stage.)

What Wilson fears will disappear from New Orleans music of the 1960s and 1970s is apparently not related to the fact that most musicians played by ear and therefore might not have left written scores for study, since some musicians used written arrangements (pp. 80–82); White also noted musicians with music scores pasted on cardboards (p. 17). Likewise, the heavy improvisations inherent to the music—parts not normally included in written music that involve creativity on the part of the individual performers—can still be heard today in artists who listened and picked up traces of the influences of the early musicians...