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Wynton Marsalis on the Soul of Jazz
In the city of New Orleans, after the Civil War and into the first decade of the twentieth century, brass bands could be heard playing at baseball games, churches, political rallies—and even in homes, to call children to dinner. Keep reading »
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Review - The Spiritual Side of Wynton Marsalis
“And the glory goes to God.” The penultimate cut “To Higher Ground” arguably sums things up best on Wynton Marsalis’ “spiritual” compilation, fittingly titled The Spiritual Side of Wynton Marsalis. Keep reading »
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Sharing a Jazzy Working Holiday
The close of the year is a time for many things: cozy reunions, warm nostalgia, extravagant splurges. If you’re Wynton Marsalis, artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, it’s also a time to set up shop in a smallish room and get back to work, as if you had ever stopped. Keep reading »
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Wynton Marsalis at Webster: ‘Be Real for Real’
Jazz legend Wynton Marsalis shared stories from his music career, his views on jazz and his philosophy on life with a full house at Webster University’s Community Music School Friday, Oct. 18. Keep reading »
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At Kennedy Center, Marsalis’s ‘Abyssinian’ makes musical and human connections
By just about any standard, Wynton Marsalis’s “Abyssinian: A Gospel Celebration” is a huge work. Vast in scope and mighty in forces, it’s a journey through the history of African American music, weaving everything from New Orleans blues to hard-driving bop into a seamless whole. Keep reading »
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The jazz orchestra, brick by brick
Jazz legend Wynton Marsalis and his virtuoso Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra treated a Sanders Theatre audience to a three-hour master class Thursday evening that re-created a pivotal quarter century of jazz innovation against the backdrop of American history. His combination lecture and performance, “Setting the Communal Table: The Evolution of the Jazz Orchestra,” centered on jazz’s exploding popularity from the 1920s to the early ’40s. It was the penultimate in a six lecture-performance series by Marsalis sponsored by the Office of the President and the Office of the Provost, with the goal of fostering “a conversation about the arts on campus,” according to Harvard President Drew Faust, who attended the event. Keep reading »
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Review: Wynton Marsalis Quintet at Ronnie Scott’s
It’s easy to caricature Wynton Marsalis as the Brian Sewell of jazz, a fogey-ish cultural conservative who’ll gleefully disparage most innovations of the past half century. But, in art criticism terms, he’s closer to Robert Hughes. He’s a disappointed modernist: thrilled by the jazz avant garde of the 20s to the 50s, unimpressed by the postmodern fusions and wilful abstractions that followed. Keep reading »
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Wynton Marsalis Quintet, Ronnie Scott’s, London – review
Wynton Marsalis doesn’t have much truck with amplification, and played the entire first house of his short Ronnie Scott’s residency off-mic at the level of an animated conversation. Occasionally voices were raised, sometimes they fell to a whisper and once there was a brief shouting match. Keep reading »
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Marsalis’ JLCO Swings Full Out in Philly
Last year, trumpeter Wynton Marsalis was in Verizon Hall in Philadelphia, he mostly gave a jazz history lecture, interspersed with a couple of tunes by small jazz chamber ensemble from his Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra who dazzled, however briefly. As much as the audience was entertained by Marsalis, the raconteur (he can’t become that senior sage soon enough) he left us musically parched. This month, Marsalis, was back with the full 15-piece Lincoln Center Orchestra, and it was all about the music, he gave a few brief song intros, but otherwise cued two hours of protean big-band artistry.
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Wynton Marsalis’ JLCO at Chicago Symphony Center
Is it possible that a quarter century has passed since the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra was created?
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Apparently so, for the mighty ensemble played the Chicago stop on its 25th anniversary tour Friday night at Symphony Center, a capacity audience crowding Orchestra Hall, including stage seating.