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Pop Classics for Horn
Jazz musicians rarely get credit for keeping Tin Pan Alley standards current through the rock era. Yet they continue to honor that repertory, both by reclaiming pop melodies with eloquent phrasing and by evading them to reveal ingenious harmonic structures. Keep reading »
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What Jazz Is - and Isn’t
My generation finds itself wedged between two opposing traditions. One is the tradition we know in such wonderful detail from the enormous recorded legacy that tells anyone who will listen that jazz broke the rules of European conventions and created rules of its own that were so specific, so thorough and so demanding that a great art resulted. This art has had such universal appeal and application to the expression of modern life that it has changed the conventions of American music as well as those of the world at large. Keep reading »
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With Hampton and Marsalis, the 40’s and Today
Lionel Hampton and Wynton Marsalis, respectively the last active band leader from the big band era of the 1940’s and the currently most publicized young jazz musician, shared a JVC Jazz Festival Concert on Wednesday evening at Avery Fisher Hall. Keep reading »
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Devilishly Entertaining
Igor Stravinsky’s “L’Histoire du Soldat” (“The Soldier’s Tale”) endures as one of the most haunting works in the 20th Century chamber repertory for at least two reasons. First, its startling dissonance and brittle instrumental writing sum up radical musical ideas that were emerging during the years of World War I (Stravinsky completed the piece in 1918). Second, its storyline—which traces the devil’s seductions and the consequences his victims must face—clearly holds universal appeal. Keep reading »
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Born Out of Time
JUST eighteen when he made his debut with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, the trumpeter Wynton Marsalis answered the prayers of those who feared that the clock was running out for jazz, as it clearly already had for the blues. Keep reading »
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Marsalis’s success not a 1-man effort
It’s easy to hear the music of Wynton Marsalis and focus on the seven Grammy awards the trumpeter has won. But no small part of the horn man’s success in jazz rests on the strengths of his band – and those strengths were more than evident last night. Keep reading »
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The School of Hard Bop
He was young, only 17, and though there was bravado in his stride as he took the stage, the professional musicians said nothing to him. Watching him seat himself at the piano, they smiled at one another. They knew he had set a trap for himself, and now he would have to pay. They had done this themselves once. Long ago. Keep reading »
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New Wynton, No Wonderland
ON THE RECENT ALBUM “Carnaval,” jazz superstar Wynton Marsalis joins Donald Hunsberger and the Eastman Wind Ensemble in the kind of program that an American band might have played at the turn of the century from the bandstand in the town park. Marsalis plays technically showy cornet on this precisely arranged, nostalgic set of light classical and folk tunes. Keep reading »
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Marsalis Brilliant but Predictable in Orange County Center
The most amazing thing about Wynton Marsalis’ appearance at the Orange County Performing Art Center on Sunday night was the fact that the brilliant young trumpeter—the most visible new jazz musician of the ‘80s—played virtually nothing that could have startled anyone. Keep reading »
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Marsalis: Playing as Much as Possible
In a powerful indication of how far he has advanced since his first cautious steps as a leader only six years ago, Wynton Marsalis will lead his quintet for two full weeks, starting tonight, at the Westwood Playhouse. There will be no other artists on the bill. Keep reading »
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