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Marsalis, Jazzy AND Classical
THE THING to remember about trumpet virtuoso Wynton Marsalis is this: he is only 22. And the thing to appreciate about Wynton Marsalis is that he seems to be the only one who remembers this fact. Keep reading »
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Sonny Rollins Meets Wynton Marsalis
The meeting of the saxophonist Sonny Rollins and the trumpeter Wynton Marsalis finally came to pass Friday night at the Beacon Theater, and it was worth the wait. The concert was originally scheduled last month at Town Hall, but that show got off to a false start when Mr. Rollins fainted early in the first set, shortly after he first locked horns with Mr. Marsalis. It was rescheduled, and ticket holders were offered a choice of refunds or new tickets for the Beacon Theater show. Keep reading »
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Marsalis jazz is marvelous
In the resurgent wave of jazz that is sweeping the country, and particularly this city, one could accurately consider trumpeter Wynton Marsalis a standard-bearer. In two performances at the Civic Center’s Isthmus Theater Sunday night, Marsalis showed that standard to be of exceptionally high quality. Keep reading »
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Modern New Orleans
At the Public Theater’s New Orleans-New York jazz concerts on Friday and Saturday, the wind players strolled onto the stage to begin solos, offstage to end them. It was a subtle but direct reminder of the connection between this sextet and the marches and street parades that lend so much New Orleans music its syncopated strut - a tradition that came through the modern harmonies of the sextet’s compositions. Keep reading »
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A Modern Kind of New Orleans Jazz In Town
JAZZ as we know it began in New Orleans. Black musicians may have been improvising a jazzlike music in other cities and towns in the early years of this century, but Buddy Bolden, King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, Sidney Bechet, Louis Armstrong and the other innovators who stamped their identities on the new music and breathed life into it were all New Orleans men. Keep reading »
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A family of music phenoms
It would require a long journey back into musical history to find a sibling team as precociously talented as the Marsalis Brothers. A couple of years ago they were just a pair of teen-agers unknown outside their New Orleans home, presently they have the hottest and most widely publicized new combo in jazz, a CBS Records contract, and a schedule that takes in festivals around the United States and Europe. Keep reading »
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Jazz Families Bridge The Generation Gap
During the early decades of jazz it wasn’t at all unusual to find fathers and sons playing together in the same bands and indulging in familial give-and-take - mature musicianship and on-the-job know-how versus youthful innovation and first-time exuberance. In the black neighborhoods of New Orleans and the other cities where jazz flourished early, only the holier-than-thou looked down on music as a profession. It was an honorable route out of the black ghetto, in many cases the only route. Keep reading »
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Wynton Marsalis: At 20, a master of jazz style
It’s seldom that any jazz musician - let alone such a very young, not yet widely known player as trumpeter Wynton Marsalis - gets a page to himself in People magazine. But early this year that’s where Marsalis was, under the banner “Personalities to Watch.” Keep reading »
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Wynton Marsalis supreme on first disc
It’s been almost two decades since anyone has electrified the inner circle of the jazz world as much as a young trumpet player from New Orleans named Wynton Marsalis. And a lot of fans are hoping that his prodigious talent can help lift the music ơut of its current depressed state. Keep reading »