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A legend offers lessons in jazz and life
For 90 minutes, Marsalis, a Grammy- and Pulitzer Prize-winning classical and jazz trumpet player, taught the students on stage and entertained the 100 people in the audience, including band members from Springbrook and Briggs Chaney and White Oak middle schools. Keep reading »
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Looking Home to The Crescent City
Wynton Marsalis is rarely predictable. When it was announced that his concert on Tuesday would feature the same edition of the Marsalis Sextet that’s on his new album, “From the Plantation to the Penitentiary,” as well as the singer Jennifer Sanon, who is extensively featured on the album, it was a logical conclusion that Mr. Marsalis would be performing music from the new release.
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JazzTimes: Wynton Marsalis’ From the Plantation to the Penitentiary
The infuriating thing about Wynton Marsalis is that he is so incredibly talented that you can never simply dismiss him and yet he is so wrong-headed about so many things that you can never wholly embrace him either. Nothing brings this dilemma into sharper focus than his new album, From the Plantation to the Penitentiary. Keep reading »
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Wynton Marsalis Checks In on The Land That Never Has Been Yet
I’ve been listening to Wynton Marsalis’ new disc From the Plantation to the Penitentiary a lot. It’s got the music—a neat jazz combo running through a variety of styles. It’s just enough bop and bebop so it doesn’t put one to sleep like a Kenny G. solo, but it’s not an avalanche of sound like those from Coltrane’s thundering Ascension either. Then there’s the vocals. Yes, the vocals. Mr. Marsalis is putting some lyrics to his tunes on this one, and he’s got plenty to say.
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JALC Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis: The Songs We Love
One of the most intriguing jazz concerts in memory occurred at Jazz at Lincoln Center this past weekend. The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, at this point the most versatile group of big band musicians anywhere, tackled a repertoire of songs which are just as notable for the arrangements made of them as their compositional excellence. Because the selections came from different eras, styles and traditions, only a band with uncanny versatility could deliver truly authentic performances of each one. The JALC orchestra achieved this and, in doing so, set a new standard for big band jazz. Keep reading »
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The Band Strikes Up to Play a Few of Its Favorite Things
Some concerts by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra adhere to thematic prescriptions: the legacy of a single composer, for instance, or the sound of a specific place and time. “The Songs We Love,” which the band performed in more than a dozen cities leading up to a three-night stand at the Rose Theater, advanced a somewhat less focused agenda.
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A Few of Our Favorite Things
When Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra climaxed their concert Thursday night at the Rose Theater with “Rhapsody in Blue,” they were, in a very literal sense, settling an old score. The last time the JALCO played the “Rhapsody” was in November, at an all-Gershwin Gala. That treatment featured the pianist Marcus Roberts as star soloist, but, through no fault of the orchestra or Mr. Roberts, it had to be the worst version of Gershwin’s classic that I’ve ever heard. Keep reading »
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One more lesson from Marsalis: masterclass at Onondaga Community College
Wynton Marsalis shared so many insights during his visit to OCC on Tuesday morning that even after yesterday’s Listen Up item and today’s story in The Post-Standard, I have one more observation jumping out of my notebook.
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Marsalis and company play ‘Songs We Love’
If you were lucky enough to score a ticket to Saturday night’s Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis concert, then you heard a pristine performance from a group of world-class musicians. The program presented by the orchestra was called “The Songs We Love,” and it was filled with well-known Jazz and Big Band standards.
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Revolution: Wynton Marsalis’ From the Plantation to the Penitentiary
Let’s say you could live to be 200 years old, you came in, in 1800. You are 165 years old before you even legally could do a lot of basic things. But like with a child, man, that first 65 years – whew, just think about that first 65 years… America was like: welcome, this is what we got for you. Keep reading »