Carlos Henriquez

Wynton Marsalis & Eric Clapton - Play the Blues: Live from Jazz at Lincoln Center (2011) {Reprise Japan WPCR-14190}
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© 2011 Reprise / Rhino / Warner Japan | WPCR-14190
Blues / Jazz / Blues Rock / Contemporary Jazz / Jump Blues

United by dalliances with purism as young men and an abiding love of classic blues and jazz, Eric Clapton and Wynton Marsalis are a more comfortable fit than it may initially seem. Both musicians are synthesists, not innovators, stitching together elements from their idols in an attempt to preserve the past while bringing it into the present, so their sensibilities are aligned and, in 2011, they’re amenable to a partnership that explores their common ground. So, Clapton and Marsalis held a series of concerts at New York City’s Jazz at Lincoln Center in April of 2011, the guitarist selecting the songs (apart from “Layla,” performed upon the request of bassist Carlos Henriquez), the trumpeter picking the band and working up the arrangements, using King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band as his template yet finding room for piano and, of course, guitar.

Willie Nelson & Wynton Marsalis - Two Men With The Blues (2008) {Blue Note 50999 5 04454 2 4}
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© 2008 Blue Note / EMI | 50999 5 04454 2 4
Jazz / Blues / Mainstream Jazz / Progressive Country

History has proven that Willie Nelson will duet with pretty much anybody who comes along, and while this open-hearted open mind sometimes backfires, more often than not it results in some of his most sublime recordings. Two Men with the Blues, his album with jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis recorded over a two-night stand at Jazz at Lincoln Center on January 12 and 13, 2007, belongs in the latter category, standing as truly one of the most special records in either Nelson's or Marsalis' catalog. If the pair initially seem like an odd match, it's only because Wynton long carried the reputation of a purist, somebody who was adamant against expanding the definition of jazz, which cast him as the opposite of Willie, who never found a border he couldn't blur.

Wynton Marsalis Quartet - The Magic Hour (2004) [Blue Note]
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© 2004 Blue Note | 91717 | Jazz / Modern Jazz

For his debut on this label, Wynton Marsalis gets back to basics with a small combo. Taking a break from his large-ensemble works like Blood on the Fields and All Rise, the trumpeter leads a quartet consisting of bassist Carlos Henriquez, pianist Eric Lewis, and drummer Ali Jackson. Labelmates Bobby McFerrin (who recorded with the trumpeter on the early ’80s LP, The Young Lions) and Dianne Reeves join Marsalis on “Baby, I Love You” and “Feeling of Jazz.” “Big Fat Hen” is peppered by a New Orleans-meets-Brazil second-line samba, while “Skippin’” is a Monkish riff tune with stop time. The title track, dedicated to the time when kids go to sleep, includes a melodic nod to “The Flight of the Bumblebee,” a mid-tempo groove, a ballad and the Cuban clave. With the sterling production by younger brother Delfeayo, Wynton Marsalis starts off on a good foot.

Wynton Marsalis, ever the protagonist and explorer, brings his love of the spoken word and the adolescent relations of the male and female persuasion during He and She, a collection of instrumental mainstream jazz pieces with poetry as preludes. Inspired by the tone of the Jon Hendricks epic Evolution of the Blues Song, Marsalis uses math equations, the sun and the moon, and the budding affection of youth to frame his music - mostly jazz waltzes - into thematic conclusions based on getting along, and why the genders think differently. New pianist Dan Nimmer is a welcome addition to the quintet, while drummer Ali Jackson really shines and reliable saxophonist Walter Blanding asserts his increasing powers…

This recording finds Elio Villafranca leading an outstanding group of jazz musicians and with seamless transitions from latin jazz to straight ahead jazz…

Blue Engine Records, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s in-house recording label, releases Sherman Irby’s Inferno by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis. Irby, the lead alto saxophonist of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, cleverly interprets Dante Alighieri’s epic poem from “The Divine Comedy” to create a sweeping work that takes listeners on a lyrically swinging tour of the underworld’s nine circles.