By stating that many people consider Marsalis to embody a "retro ideology," the former executive quoted at the end of...

shunhe on July 8, 2020

Hi @alleimek,

Thanks for the question! So we’re being asked about the “retro ideology” part of this passage. And so if we look at this specific phrase, it appears in line 34. And so we should read the lines around it in order to get the full context of the quote. So take a look at the beginning of the paragraph starting at line 24 and going down to line 32, right before the quote. We’re told that Marsalis has an “unbending classicism” (line 28) which means he insisted on the classics, he codified music, had a stifling orthodoxy, and inhibited innovative impulses. In other words, this guy was a super traditionalist. And this is what (C) tells us, that the former executive probably thought that Marsalis overemphasized a strict adherence to tradition.

(B), on the other hand, isn’t supported. The “retro ideology” doesn’t refer to the “mere recombination” of other people’s ideas. Marsalis played the hits that used to be played, but this is saying that Marsalis combined other people’s styles into a new one, which we aren’t told is something this executive would believe.

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.