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UC Jazz Festival a sensational show
THE SECOND of two long, afternoon concerts that constituted the 17th Annual UC-Berkeley Jazz Festival’s Greek Theater shows wound down at 7:15 last night with VSOP II leaving the stage after a 75-minute set while the crowd cheered for more. Keep reading »
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Musical Genius Reaches Top At 21
WYNTON Marsalis does not look like a messiah. He is affiliated with no religious cult and wears elegant, conservatively tailored suits rather than sandals and flowing robes. 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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Wynton Marsalis Quintet at Blues Alley
As Wynton Marsalis no doubt knows, nothing is potentially more dangerous in the arts than early critical acclaim. Last year the young trumpeter skyrocketed from the ranks of promising newcomers to become the recipient of several prestigious jazz awards. Now he’s faced with the challenge of living up to those honors and the ensuing publicity. Keep reading »
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A Common Understanding (Wynton and Branford Marsalis interview): Downbeat December 1982
Nineteen eighty-two was the year of Wynton Marsalis – down beat readers crowned him Jazz Musician of the Year; his debut LP copped Jazz Album of the Year honors; and he was named No. 1 Trumpet (handily defeating Miles in each category). Keep reading »
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Darting into the Stratosphere
We’re walking up from the downstairs bar at Ronnie’s, and Wynton Marsalis swivels to check my silvery noose. Of course, I tell him where I got it (you think I’m going to tell you?). 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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Trumpeter WYNTON MARSALIS has been hailed as a symbol for the New Decade
Trumpeter WYNTON MARSALIS has been hailed as a symbol for the New Decade, and that’s a’lot to live up to. Chrissie Murray brings an insight into this forthright, young spokesman for jazz in the Eighties. 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 »