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All About Jazz reviews LCJO Chicago’s concert

Wynton Marsalis/Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra At Chicago Symphony Center

The endless debate about Wynton Marsalis shows no sign of ever abating. Whether the Lincoln Center musical director/trumpeter is the greatest heir to the jazz tradition or a curmudgeonly and didactic reactionary who’s declared himself the final authority and what jazz is and, especially, isn’t, probably depends on your point of view. One thing, though, is certain: he and the 15-piece Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra put on a consistently good show.
The band’s performance at Chicago’s Symphony Center was pretty typical of what they do: impeccably played, large-ensemble arrangements of the jazz-composer canon; smaller-group performances of the same; beautiful, crystal-clear horn voicings; a great drummer (currently Ali Jackson); a host of very good soloists, including Marsalis; and, yes, lots of spoken explanation from the musical director about the composers, the history of jazz, and why what the group is playing is good.
Marsalis is wordy, and in his teaching mode, he can be annoying. But he’s usually pretty affable and often droll; certainly he shows no sign on the bandstand of being any sort of martinet, despite the band’s whip-tight playing.

The first set started strong with a rumbling-yet-restrained version of Jelly Roll Morton’s “New Orleans Bump. With Marsalis as the lone trumpet voice, the band attacked the tune’s syncopations with real enthusiasm and group veteran Victor Goines turned in a charming—and enjoyably modern—clarinet solo. Tadd Dameron’s arrangement of his own “Dameron Stomp was very good as well, tautly swinging and enlivened by a sharp, rippling ensemble head. Walter Blanding’s alto choruses against contrasting brass accents led into a majestic tenor break, again from Goines—pretty irresistable.

Bernice Petkere’s “Close Your Eyes was performed by the trio of young pianist Dan Nimmer, bassist Carlos Henriquez and drummer Ali Jackson. Nimmer’s a pretty interesting pianist, and his playing was marked by short, delicate phrases with lots of space between them; his lines weren’t devoid of quirkiness or dissonance, but at the same time they grooved abundantly.

Marsalis’ own composition “Continuous fit right in with this set of jazz warhorses, and not surprisingly: the exoticism of the piece’s ambivalent harmonies wouldn’t have been out of place on a Gil Evans arrangement from the late 1950s. Still, the ensemble parts were lush and swaying and all the saxophonists shone. The set concluded with Eddie Durham’s early-swing arrangement of “Blue Moon, a piece stuffed with sprightly, surging ensemble sections, invigorating call-and-response between the brass and reed sections, and a frighteningly difficult solo from trumpeter Sean Jones.

A pretty good first set. Things got tougher for the second set, which consisted of the band’s large-ensemble arrangement of John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme. This was documented on last year’s Palmetto CD, and if you loved the recording, you would have loved the performance.

If not—well, then, you had a long hour ahead of you. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with attempting to arrange Coltrane’s quartet classic for big band. Written section parts from transcribed Coltrane solos? Who wouldn’t want to hear that? But after hearing this interesting experiment on disc last year, how many of us really long to hear it again?

In any case, “Acknowledgement started off the set, and at first, as on record, one was fascinated to hear Coltrane’s lines spread out among the sections, harmonized, and passed from instrument to instrument. The rhythm section of Jackson, Nimmer and Henriquez did a sort of approximation of the Elvin Jones/McCoy Tyner/Jimmy Garrison semi-free, polyrhythmic maelstrom heard on the original recording, but here and throughout the long piece, they were too tied to the rest of the group—who were tied to the arrangements—to really achieve more than an often-deflated momentum. Still, there was a thrill hearing the famous “A Love Supreme phrase articulated by each of the musicians in turn (while Goines wailed over them on clarinet) before the band chanted the phrase out loud over the barest bass/cymbal pulse.

by Paul Olson
Source: All About Jazz

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  1. Designed to inform (especially the younger generation) of traditional jazz and its development into dixieland, swing and more modern forms. The site offers biographies, photos, alphabetical and chronological birth dates, a jazz quiz and musical samples.

    Larry Wayne on Sep 23rd, 2009 at 9:18pm