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Sacred jazz: Reflections on a rare performance of Marsalis’ ‘Abyssinian Mass’
Since its beginnings, jazz has been draped in the image of sin. Because the music emerged, in part, in the bordellos of New Orleans’ Storyville vice district at the turn of the previous century, the world has viewed jazz as embodying the illicit. Keep reading »
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Wynton Marsalis’s Abyssinian Mass brings joy to the Lincoln Center, New York
It was odd to hear the apocalyptic terror of Verdi’s Requiem one night before the sunny exuberance of Wynton Marsalis’s Abyssinian Mass. While the Marsalis, shaped like a black church service, is bracingly diverse in its evocation of jazz and gospel styles, its underlying spirit is New Orleans joy — New Orleans being where the Marsalis clan comes from. Keep reading »
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Critically Acclaimed The Abyssinian Mass by Wynton Marsalis returns to The House of Swing
On November 21-23, at 8:00 p.m., Jazz at Lincoln Center, in collaboration with Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival, reprises The Abyssinian Mass by award-winning composer and trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, in Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater. Keep reading »
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PopMatters: An Interview with Jazz Master Wynton Marsalis
Jazz today reflects the culture, as it ever did. Just like television, radio, and music in general, jazz has a huge array of small, targeted ways of reaching an audience. It seems like none of them will ever reach a huge audience, though, much as a late night satire show on cable or Hulu will probably never become the next The Tonight Show. Keep reading »
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Wynton Marsalis on the Jazz Fest poster, touring & new record
Trumpet maestro Wynton Marsalis said he’s happy appear in the top center window of the 2016 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival poster “House of Swing,” surrounded by other members of his musical family. “Paul Rogers is the artist,” Marsalis said in a telephone conversation from New York. “I’ve known Paul for a long time and I love him.” Though, the artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City said, autographing the edition of posters was a chore. Keep reading »
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Abyssinian Mass’ by Wynton Marsalis Review
Wynton Marsalis’s new release, “Abyssinian Mass,” is the third full-length work of a spiritual nature by the trumpeter, composer and bandleader. Compared with his epic “All Rise” (2002), the Mass, which uses the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and the 70-voice Chorale Le Chateau choir, is comparatively lean and intimate, and Mr. Marsalis’s compositional ideas are much tighter. The work, which was commissioned by New York’s Abyssinian Baptist Church in 2008 for the 200th anniversary of that African-American institution, received its premiere at JALC’s Rose Hall that year, and then five years later it was taken on tour by the orchestra and recorded. It is now being issued as the fourth album from Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Blue Engine Records. Keep reading »
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The Abyssinian Mass – Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis
During the sermon section of The Abyssinian Mass, Rev. Dr. Calvin O. Butts III welcomes congregants with a statement that is the underlying theme of the piece: “Everybody has a place in the house of God.” Keep reading »
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Wynton Marsalis’ expression of faith: ‘The Abyssinian Mass’
It’s a theme that trumpeter Wynton Marsalis has considered deeply and often in his career as composer: faith. With “The Abyssinian Mass,” a three-disc set that Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra will release Friday, the composer returns to the subject, in expansive form. Keep reading »
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Blue Engine Records Releases The Abyssinian Mass
New York, NY – February 3, 2016– Raise your voices and lift your hearts as Blue Engine Records releases The Abyssinian Mass by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis featuring Damien Sneed, Chorale Le Chateau and Special Guest Reverend Dr. Calvin O. Butts, III on March 18, 2016. The Abyssinian Mass — a landmark collaboration of jazz, gospel, instrumentation and vocals — marks Marsalis’s first original recorded composition in six years. Keep reading »
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Wynton Marsalis gives spirited take on jazz with ‘Abyssinian Mass’
Wynton Marsalis is onto something big. Again. The composer, trumpeter, bandleader, and all-around high priest among contemporary jazz advocates is accustomed to working on a large scale — in terms of compositional scope as well as ensemble size. Keep reading »