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Wynton Marsalis Septet: Live At The Village Vanguard
by C. Michael Bailey
Wynton's Generous Gift or Where Are We, Toto?. 1999 was a busy year for Wynton Marsalis. He released his eight disc series Swingin' Into the 21st Century, an Ellington Tribute disc ( Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra: Live in Swing City Columbia 69898), and finally this gargantuan live offering recorded at New York's Jazz Central, The Village Vanguard. Recorded with three different bands between March 1990 and December 1994, Live At The Village Vanguard chronicles the Marsalis' equivalent ...
Continue ReadingWynton Marsalis Septet: Live at the Village Vanguard
by David Adler
And you thought the recent four-disc collection of Coltrane’s 1961 Village Vanguard recordings was a lot to chew on. 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. But music spanning four years and three different sets of personnel is juxtaposed to create the illusion of a ...
Continue ReadingWynton Marsalis: Reeltime
by C. Michael Bailey
The Penultimate Experience. Wynton Marsalis has reached the next to the last release in his Swinging Into the 21st Century series. When originally released, the enduring buyer could save all of his/her boxtops and mail them to Sony and receive the eighth and final release with a handsome slipcase for the entire set. The re- release of Marsalis' Swinging Into the 21st Century has much more handsome digs than the original. To the Movies It ...
Continue ReadingWynton Marsalis: Sweet Release and Ghost Story
by C. Michael Bailey
Volume 5. Wynton Marsalis continues Swinging into the Twenty-first Century with this fifth installment of his projected eight volume series. So far we have had an interesting mix of classical and jazz, the orchestral and Kammermusik, the new and the old. Sweet Release and Ghost Story are two new ballets composed by Marsalis, joining his previously released Citi Movement (Columbia, 1992) and Jump Start and Jazz (Columbia , 1997). The Combos. Sweet Release has Marsalis leading his ...
Continue ReadingWynton Marsalis: Mr. Jelly Lord: Standard Time Volume 6
by C. Michael Bailey
Volume Six Squared. Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis' Mr. Jelly Lord is cleverly Volume Six in two different collections. It is Volume 6 in Marsalis' continuing survey of the American Canon of standard tunes and it is also Volume 6 in his ambitious Swinging into the Twenty-first Century series, slated for a total of eight volumes. That is almost too cute. In fact, it would be too cute if this were not Marsalis' greatest contribution to the digital gods where he pays ...
Continue ReadingWynton Marsalis and The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra: Big Train
by C. Michael Bailey
All Aboard. In keeping with the Duke Ellington precedence, Wynton Marsalis has been composing longer and longer jazz pieces, music that approximates suites. Starting with The Majesty of the Blues (Columbia, 1989) and proceeding through Blue Interlude (Columbia, 1992), Citi Movement (Columbia, 1993), In This House, On This Morning (Columbia, 1994), Jump Start and Jazz (Columbia, 1997), and the Pulitzer Prize winning Blood on the Fields (Columbia 1997). Add to this list Big Train. Big Train is perhaps Marsalis most ...
Continue ReadingWynton Marsalis: A Fiddler's Tale / At the Octoroon Balls
by C. Michael Bailey
Yes, indeed!. Wynton Marsalis's series Swinging Into the 21st Century series is shaping up to be a most significant body of music. Initiated with his volume 4 collection of standards, Marsalis Plays Monk (Columbia, 1998), Marsalis continues his ambitious series with an American adaptation of Igor Stravinsky's L'Historie du soldat (A Soldier's Tale). The text was effectively (though sometimes with his characteristic excess) reinterpreted by Stanley Crouch and is a Mississippi Delta meets Robert “Dr. Faust" Johnson morality tale with ...
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