Wynton Marsalis

Here comes Wynton Marsalis with a whopping seven CDs culled from septet performances at the Vanguard from 1990 through 1994. The music is cleverly presented: Each disc represents a different night of the week, starting on Monday and wrapping up with Sunday…

In 1964 John Coltrane recorded A Love Supreme with McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones. It's one of most influential and imposing jazz suites ever written, and on this debut CD for the Palmetto label, The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, featuring Wynton Marsalis, adapts Coltrane's immortal composition to the big band. Not to be outdone by his brother Branford's quartet version of this material recorded live on DVD, Wynton and company skillfully extend and elaborate on the Coltrane's work, and preserve the soul-searching spirit of the four-part suite, which deals with the blues, 4/4 swing, Afro-Latin rhythms, and ballads. Pulsed by Carlos Henriquez's sure-footed basslines, Herlin Riley's spiritual syncopations and Earl Lewis's profound pianisms, saxophonist Wess "Warmdaddy" Anderson's Tranish cries, and the leader's triumphant trumpet tones are as fluent and fierce as ever. Collectively, this brilliant orchestra goes where no large ensemble has gone before.

The music on this three-CD set (released in 1997) won a Pulitzer Prize, but it's not without its faults. Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis tells the story of two Africans (singers Miles Griffith and Cassandra Wilson) who are captured, brought to the United States and sold as slaves. Because the male had formerly been a prince while the female had been a commoner, he considers himself to be her superior. He asks for but then ignores the advice of a wise man (Jon Hendricks), gets caught trying to escape, discovers what "soul" is, finally accepts the female as his equal and eventually escapes with her to freedom. Marsalis wrote a dramatic, episodic and generally thought-provoking three-hour work, utilizing the three singers plus 15 other musicians (all of whom have significant musical parts to play) in a massive 27-part suite.

Jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis' first forays into classical music in the 1980s were celebrated as some kind of unique breakthrough, but that overlooked the fact that Marsalis was classically trained at the Juilliard School, absorbed all kinds of traditions, and has always had aspirations in the classical sphere. Credit Marsalis with broad ambitions when he turns to classical composition, as in his Pulitzer Prize-winning oratorio Blood on the Fields (1997), and again here with a Violin Concerto and Fiddle Dance Suite, written for violinist Nicola Benedetti. Both works are impressive, not least in their idiomatic writing for the violin; they flatter Benedetti considerably.

Grand Marnier promotional release. Issued in fold open cardboard slip-case. Contains list of Grand Marnier cocktail mix ingredients and entree form to win an Exclusive weekend of Jazz in NYC.
The most famous musician in contemporary jazz, Wynton Marsalis had a major impact almost from the start. In the early '80s, it was major news that a young and talented Black musician would choose to make a living playing acoustic jazz rather than fusion, funk, or R&B. Marsalis' arrival on the scene started the "Young Lions" movement and resulted in major labels suddenly signing and promoting young players. There had been a major shortage of young trumpeters since 1970, but Marsalis' sudden prominence inspired an entirely new crop of brass players…

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…

The blues is one of America’s greatest cultural inventions—and now, it provides the backbone for one of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Wynton Marsalis’s most innovative and colossal works. In the hands of the Philadelphia Orchestra under the direction of celebrated conductor Cristian Măcelaru, Blues Symphony (Marsalis’s second symphony) takes the 12-bar blues and explodes it into a lyrical, kaleidoscopic history of American music.

Grand Marnier promotional release. Issued in fold open cardboard slip-case. Contains list of Grand Marnier cocktail mix ingredients and entree form to win an Exclusive weekend of Jazz in NYC.
The most famous musician in contemporary jazz, Wynton Marsalis had a major impact almost from the start. In the early '80s, it was major news that a young and talented Black musician would choose to make a living playing acoustic jazz rather than fusion, funk, or R&B. Marsalis' arrival on the scene started the "Young Lions" movement and resulted in major labels suddenly signing and promoting young players. There had been a major shortage of young trumpeters since 1970, but Marsalis' sudden prominence inspired an entirely new crop of brass players…

The central irony in director Dan Pritzker’s film about Buddy Bolden, the first jazz musician to become known for his individual sound, is that no recordings of Bolden are known to exist. (He was active at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, and he died in 1931.) But if the soundtrack to Bolden begins as speculation, that’s not the same as groping in the dark: We know about aspects of the cornetist’s eclectic repertoire and how he transformed it, in an ensemble style which can be gleaned from the sole existing photograph of Bolden, standing amid his band with trombone, two clarinets (in B-flat and C), upright bass, and guitar.

The second of the three-part Soul Gestures in Southern Blue finds Wynton Marsalis at a transitional spot in his career. While his pianist Marcus Roberts had largely found his own style, the trumpeter was still searching and had not yet thrown off the dominant Miles Davis influence. This quintet outing (which also features the tenor of Todd Williams, bassist Reginald Veal, and drummer Herlin Riley) lacks any memorable melodies, although the playing is fine.