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Fast and Aggressive, Propelled by a Young Drummer
At times during Branford Marsalis’s early set on Tuesday night at the Jazz Standard, a comfortable room started to feel small and tense. Mr. Marsalis was playing the tenor saxophone in dry, direct phrases that were thought through, nonautomatic, cut up into short swung notes. His quartet was doing more than it needed to. For much of the set the music was almost compulsively loud, fast, aggressive, elaborate, generous and interactive.
In other words, the show was extremely good. Going in, though, there was concern about the drummer: specifically, that it wasn’t Jeff (Tain) Watts, who has been with a steady edition of Mr. Marsalis’s quartet for 10 years and played with him for 10 years before that. (He’s busy with his own bands now.)
Mr. Watts has been crucial in defining the sound of the band, one of the best in jazz. His replacement — for the foreseeable future, and as of just seven weeks ago — is Justin Faulkner.
Who’s Justin Faulkner? He’s 18, a high school senior from Philadelphia. He is a terror. His playing descends from Mr. Watts’s style: full of changing combinations, all over the drum kit without letting the groove slacken or widen. It also has the cutthroat sensibility of the very young with something to prove.
At the same time Mr. Faulkner is listening, and attuned to sound. He seemed always in the process of building a rhythm; he made a stick cut across two cymbals in one stroke for a more complicated splash; he focused intensely on solos by the pianist, Joey Calderazzo, following the shape of his rhythms and fitting his patterns in the tiny spaces they afforded; and he tuned his bass drum low and loose, so that with some emphasis it almost splattered.
In other words, the show was extremely good. Going in, though, there was concern about the drummer: specifically, that it wasn’t Jeff (Tain) Watts, who has been with a steady edition of Mr. Marsalis’s quartet for 10 years and played with him for 10 years before that. (He’s busy with his own bands now.)
Mr. Watts has been crucial in defining the sound of the band, one of the best in jazz. His replacement — for the foreseeable future, and as of just seven weeks ago — is Justin Faulkner.
Who’s Justin Faulkner? He’s 18, a high school senior from Philadelphia. He is a terror. His playing descends from Mr. Watts’s style: full of changing combinations, all over the drum kit without letting the groove slacken or widen. It also has the cutthroat sensibility of the very young with something to prove.
At the same time Mr. Faulkner is listening, and attuned to sound. He seemed always in the process of building a rhythm; he made a stick cut across two cymbals in one stroke for a more complicated splash; he focused intensely on solos by the pianist, Joey Calderazzo, following the shape of his rhythms and fitting his patterns in the tiny spaces they afforded; and he tuned his bass drum low and loose, so that with some emphasis it almost splattered.
