Wynton Marsalis's Blog, page 36

Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen: The Classical Side of Wynton Marsalis

Wynton Marsalis is a jazz icon—a renowned trumpet player and composer, he is also the music director of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. But since the very beginning, classical music has been a part of his musical makeup.

Marsalis tells Kurt Andersen about how a chance encounter on a New Orleans streetcar began his love of classical music. At age 20, Marsalis released a recording of trumpet concertos by Haydn, Hummel, and Leopold Mozart. This debut album won the Grammy Award in 1983 for Best Classical Performance for an Instrumental Soloist With Orchestra. The same year, his jazz recording Think of One won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Soloist.

His work as a classical composer began in response to a dare from German conductor Kurt Masur, who in the 1990s was the head of the New York Philharmonic. “It’s only because he came to a concert of mine when I was like 28 or 29, and said he wanted me to write for the New York Philharmonic,” Marsalis tells Kurt Andersen. “I started laughing like, man, I have never even written for a big band.”

Since then, Marsalis has composed four symphonies and performed with leading orchestras including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Boston Pops, the Cleveland Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and London’s Royal Philharmonic.

This year, he released his first violin concerto and a recording of his Symphony No. 3—Swing Symphony, with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Robertson.

“There’s no one right way to do things—there are many ways,” Marsalis says. “But I’m a jazz musician, so at the end of the day I’m gonna swing. That’s what I like to do.”

This podcast was produced by Studio 360’s Sandra Lopez-Monsalve.

Source: Slate.com

Una Noche con Rubén Blades from the JLCO featuring Rubén Blades nominated for GRAMMY

New York, NY – November 20, 2019 – Blue Engine Records proudly announces Una Noche con Rubén Blades from the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis featuring Rubén Blades has been nominated for “*Best Latin Jazz Album*” for the 62nd annual GRAMMY® Awards, as announced by the Recording Academy® this morning. This is the first album GRAMMY® nomination for Blue Engine Records.

The 62nd annual GRAMMY® Awards will take place on January 26, 2020, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, CA.

Rubén Blades – the salsa giant and nine-time GRAMMY® Award-winning singer, songwriter, actor, and activist – collaborated with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis in 2014 for an extraordinary series of performances on the Jazz at Lincoln Center stage. On these very special style-straddling, Americas-spanning nights, the worlds of salsa and swing collided.

Music-directed by Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra bassist Carlos Henriquez (called an “emerging master in the Latin jazz idiom” by DownBeat magazine), Una Noche con Rubén Blades features Blades backed by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis. The group, performs Blades’s own beloved compositions including “Pedro Navaja,” “Patria,” and “El Cantante,” as well as swing-era standards like “Too Close for Comfort” and “Begin the Beguine.”

“I’ve known Rubén Blades since I was two years old – or at least I feel like I have,” Henriquez says. “His albums — and the sound and the warmth they generated – filled my family’s apartment at 146th and Brook Avenue in the Bronx, and his music was one of my earliest influences.”

“Jazz is the story of taking old parts and building something new,” he continues. “When Rubén joined us for our performances at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater, we did exactly that using the Great American Songbook and the Afro-Cuban rhythms that propel all the wonderful music that Rubén sang that evening. The music I arranged for Rubén Blades to perform with the Orchestra sounds like Panama, New Orleans, and New York all mixed into one. Those sounds form the heart of all our stories as musicians, and in combining them we reaffirmed that we’re all in this together.”

The album was released on October 19, 2018 and received critical praise from outlets including Rolling Stone, NPR Music,_and _New York Times, which called the original concert “radically beautiful.” Billboard Magazine sums up the release best stating, “Ruben Blades surrounds himself with a robust music ensemble: [the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis] who put a new spin on his classics.”

Una Noche con Rubén Blades Track Listing:

Carlos Henriquez Introduction (0:39)



“Ban Ban Quere” (6:31) Written by Calixto Varela Gomez Arranged by Carlos Henriquez Soloists: Wynton Marsalis (trumpet)



“Too Close for Comfort” (5:56) Written by Jerry Bock, George Weiss, and Larry Holofcener Arranged by Carlos Henriquez Soloists: Dan Nimmer (piano), Kenny Rampton (trumpet)



“El Cantante” (8:44) Written by Rubén Blades Arranged by Carlos Henriquez Soloists: Chris Crenshaw (trombone)



“I Can’t Give You Anything but Love” (6:41) Written by Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields Arranged by Carlos Henriquez Soloists: Ted Nash (flute), Paul Nedzela (baritone saxophone), Rubén Blades (vocals)



“Apóyate en Mi Alma” (5:51) Written by Luis Demetrio Arranged by José Madera Soloists: Victor Goines (soprano saxophone)



“Pedro Navaja” (8:10) Written by Rubén Blades Arranged by Carlos Henriquez



“Begin the Beguine” (7:39) Written by Cole Porter Arranged by Carlos Henriquez Soloists: Seneca Black (trumpet)



“Sin Tu Cariño” (7:49) Written by Rubén Blades and Louie Ramirez Arranged by Carlos Henriquez Soloists: Dan Nimmer (piano)



“Rubén’s Medley: Ligia Elena / El Número 6 / Juan Pachanga” (12:06) Written by Rubén Blades Arranged by Carlos Henriquez Soloists: Ali Jackson (drums), Carlos Padron (bongos), Bobby Allende (congas), Marc Quiñones (timbales)



“Patria” (Encore) (6:59) Written by Rubén Blades Soloists: Wynton Marsalis (trumpet)

THE JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA WITH WYNTON MARSALIS FEATURING RUBÉN BLADES

Sherman Irby – alto saxophone and soprano saxophones

Ted Nash – alto saxophone, flute, piccolo

Victor Goines – tenor and soprano saxophones, clarinet

Walter Blanding – tenor saxophone

Joe Temperley – baritone saxophone*

Paul Nedzela – baritone saxophone

TRUMPETS

Ryan Kisor

Kenny Rampton

Marcus Printup

Wynton Marsalis

TROMBONES

Vincent Gardner

Chris Crenshaw

Elliot Mason

RHYTHM SECTION

Dan Nimmer – piano Carlos Henriquez – bass Ali Jackson – drums

VOCALS, MARACAS

Rubén Blades

SPECIAL GUESTS

Eddie Rosado – backing vocals

Bobby Allende – congas, backing vocals

Marc Quiñones – timbales, backing vocals

Carlos Padron – bongos, cowbell

Seneca Black – trumpet

*Did not perform at this concert

Spiritual Sounds And Jazz Age Features The Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra With Wynton Marsalis Performing Chris Crenshaw’s “God’s Trombones” And Victor Goines’ “Untamed Elegance”

Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater, January 10 & 11, 2020 at 8:00 p.m.

New York, NY (November 25, 2019) – On January 10 & 11, at 8:00 p.m., in a special concert event entitled Spiritual Sounds and The Jazz Age, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis will revisit two of its most acclaimed originals: Victor Goines‘ “Untamed Elegance” and Chris Crenshaw‘s “God’s Trombones.” Each of these suites highlights the ensemble’s boundless creativity, commitment to artistic vision, and the peerless musical range of its individual members.

Spiritual Sounds and The Jazz Age will take place in Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater in Frederick P. Rose Hall, located at Broadway at 60th Street, New York, NY.

The show will begin with “Untamed Elegance,” a thoroughly modern trip to the wild and sophisticated Jazz Age of the 1920s. This upbeat, soulful, and characteristically swinging composition reminds us that even the earliest jazz styles are deep, living traditions that continue to inspire awe and delight.

“God’s Trombones” has been a huge hit with audiences since it premiered in 2012. This epic suite takes inspiration from James Weldon Johnson’s 1927 book of poems, God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse. Through seven distinctive movements, Crenshaw utilizes the full power and range of the JLCO—as well as his own amazing voice— to bring these poems to life on a stage built for music.

Free pre-concert discussion about the music and artists at 7:00 p.m.

For more information, visit jazz.org

Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra review: Wynton Marsalis and friends take on ‘Jazz Ambassadors’

You rarely see Orchestra Hall as packed as it was on Friday night, even the terrace seating behind the stage jammed with listeners.

But that’s become a kind of norm for the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, which long ago made Orchestra Hall a “second home,” in the words of JALC managing and artistic director Wynton Marsalis.

It wasn’t always this way. When the ensemble made its first national tour, playing Orchestra Hall in September 1992, Marsalis and friends were trying to show that America needed a world-class jazz orchestra that could honor past masters while forging future ones. That program proved revelatory, the ensemble – then called the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra – shedding new light on Duke Ellington’s “Black and Tan Fantasy,” capturing the ebullient spirit of jazz’s first star in Ellington’s “Portrait of Louis Armstrong” and illuminating the deep bonds between jazz and classical music in Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s “Peer Gynt.”

Since that performance, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra has built a global following, and on Friday night it showed why in a themed program titled “Jazz Ambassadors.”

To Marsalis, jazz isn’t just America’s autobiographical music but the sound we’ve sent around the world to represent “the best of what our country” has to offer, he recently told me. Meaning that visionaries such as Dizzy Gillespie and Dave Brubeck – the jazz ambassadors most prominently featured on this program – brought American ideals of freedom and democracy around the planet, as embodied by the sound of jazz.

It would be difficult to name many other contemporary ensembles that could negotiate the hyper-virtuosity of Gillespie’s “Things to Come” as audaciously as the JLCO did for the concert’s finale. A pinnacle in bebop-driven orchestral writing (arranged by Gil Fuller), “Things to Come” seems to defy what 15 jazz musicians should be able to achieve in unison at terrifying velocity.

The tempo that Marsalis chose rivaled Gillespie’s, the orchestra tearing through this music as if chasing the wind. Only a group of musicians who have toured together for so long – with several original members still on the bandstand – could have attained this kind of synchronicity in intricate passagework.

No one can challenge Gillespie’s speed in solos, any more than anyone can match Ella Fitzgerald’s wizardry in scat singing or trumpeter Louis Armstrong’s golden tones in stratospheric pitches. But Marsalis’ solo in “Things to Come” coupled a phenomenally fast tempo with impeccably crisp articulation of every fast-flying note, an approach as singular as Gillespie’s. Such was the creativity of this cadenza – with its stop-start rhythms, piercing high notes and ferocious sense of swing – that some band members turned around to watch Marsalis at work. It was indeed something to see and hear.

Gillespie’s bebop breakthroughs also defined his “Jump Did-Le Ba,” which in JLCO trombonist Chris Crenshaw’s arrangement became a platform for high-flying vocals in the Fitzgerald manner. To hear Crenshaw, trombonist Vincent Gardner and saxophonist Camille Thurman singing and riffing in response to one another was to recognize anew these musicians’ inherent creativity. For no written score could possibly have notated the mercurial lines, novel sonic effects and explosive rhythms these artists invented on the spot, while a jazz orchestra roared behind them.

Like Gillespie, Brubeck took his music and mission around the world, venturing behind the Iron Curtain and into the Middle East not only with the American beat but with his own subversions of it. Odd meters and funky syncopations were integral to his work, and you could hear it in his “Blue Rondo a la Turk,” via another ingenious Crenshaw arrangement. Pianist Dan Nimmer conjured big block chords evoking Brubeck’s signature style, and alto saxophonist Ted Nash ranged from softly purring phrases (suggesting Brubeck colleague Paul Desmond) to sharply defined flurries of notes.

“We can’t be in Chicago without remembering one of our greatest jazz ambassadors, Benny Goodman,” Marsalis told the audience by way of introducing “King Porter Stomp.” One of the most revered of jazz compositions, it helped make Chicagoan Goodman a star, via Fletcher Henderson’s arrangement.

That wouldn’t have happened, however, were it not for the genius of composer Jelly Roll Morton, who not only penned “King Porter Stomp” but was the first to prove that the elusive art of jazz could be put to paper. None of the jazz ambassadors could have pursued their work without Morton’s achievement.

By opening the “Jazz Ambassadors” concert with “King Porter Stomp,” Marsalis seemed to be making precisely that point.

The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis will perform “South African Songbook” at 8 p.m. Saturday in Orchestra Hall at Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan Ave.; ticket prices vary; 312-294-3000 or www.cso.org

by Howard Reich

Source: Chicago Tribune

Wynton Marsalis On Defining Culture And The Future Of Jazz

We speak with renowned jazz artist Wynton Marsalis. His prolific career has resulted in a wide breadth of music, including everything from big band swing numbers to jazzed-up versions of nursery rhymes, made just for kids.

The Wynton Marsalis Quintet will perform at Boston Symphony Hall as presented by the Celebrity Series of Boston. More information is here.

By Tiziana Dearing and Paris Alston

Source: wbur Radio Boston

Back from South Africa, Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra gears up for Chicago

It practically has become a cultural rite in Chicago: Every year or so, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis returns here, often performing two nights in Orchestra Hall and fanning out across the city by day to teach young people.

The public concerts typically are packed, giving them a heightened sense of occasion. The school performances introduce uncounted students to a great American art form they likely won’t encounter on TV or other pop-culture platforms.

All of which make these JLCO visits a valued addition to Chicago’s already intense jazz life.

Scheduling conflicts prevented the musicians from participating in last season’s 25th anniversary of the Symphony Center Presents Jazz series, but they’re headed back for a pair of concerts, each with a distinct theme.

The first, on Nov. 15, will explore music of the “Jazz Ambassadors”: revered musicians who more than half a century ago brought America’s indigenous art form to listeners far from here.

“It’s just to recognize that we were sent around (the world­), that our music represented the best of what our country had to offer,” says Marsalis, managing and artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, the country’s leading jazz institution.

These jazz ambassadors, who organized their own tours and also were dispatched by U.S. State Department, “were from all regions of the country, like (Dave) Brubeck from the West, Dizzy (Gillespie) from the South, Duke Ellington from the Eastern seaboard and Louis Armstrong, of course, from the Deep South,” adds Marsalis. “It was the important work of cultural ambassadorship, so we just play songs from their canon.”

But why did jazz take on that signifying role around the globe?

“Because it’s the definitive fine art of the country,” says Marsalis. “That means that, for some reason, it was able to encapsulate our fundamentals into its fundamentals.”

Meaning that jazz intrinsically reflected this country’s founding values – specifically democracy and individual freedom. Unlike classical music, in which musicians mostly are bound to play what’s in the score, jazz since its inception more than a century ago encouraged individuals to invent deeply personalized music on the spot – albeit within the context of a given composition.

In jazz, “individuality comes with improvisation,” says Marsalis. “But there’s also the freedom that comes with swing. So the bass part is not a slave part – it’s not just the same thing repeated over and over again. The bass part moves around, and it is forced to balance with the cymbal, which is the highest pitch. So the highest is forced to play on every beat with the lowest pitch. … It requires interaction. … We have to work with each other in a common space.”

Which surely defines democracy, when it’s working as intended.

“And then the blues aesthetic gives us the type of optimism that survives, that’s deeper than hope,” adds Marsalis. “So no matter how bad things get, there’s still a thing inside of us that says, ‘Well, we have a belief that when we strip everything away, that belief will allow us to transcend the moment we’re in.’”

The African-American culture that invented jazz – through the groundbreaking work of innovators such as pianist-composer Jelly Roll Morton and trumpeters Buddy Bolden and Louis Armstrong – clearly was transcending a bleak chapter in American life: slavery.

Jazz at Lincoln Center’s second Chicago concert, on Nov. 16, will explore the “South African Songbook,” with guest vocalists Melanie Scholtz and Vuyo Sotashe. The program holds particular significance for the ensemble, which last month completed its first tour South African tour.

“It was great – a lot more people knew the music of the cats in the band than we thought,” says Marsalis of a visit that was billed as honoring “the 25th anniversary of South African democracy.”

“The people were very (socially) conscious, because of their struggles … and also very playful,” observes Marsalis. “Even though they have the same urban problems everybody has, they didn’t have the same type of hostility we have toward each other, and it was palpable. You could feel it even when you got into the airport.”

Marsalis and colleagues also were struck by the level of virtuosity and jazz erudition among their South African counterparts, citing above all pianist Nduduzo Makhathini, who, as it happens, will release his Blue Note Records debut next year.

“Man, this guy can play,” says Marsalis, who also was impressed by the work of composer Thandi Ntuli and saxophonist McCoy Mrubata.

Above all, though, it was “the spirit of the people” that left the deepest impression.

“Everybody in the band was saying, ‘Damn – the spirit!’ It was a spiritual thing. It’s interesting how their jazz is connected to the freedom aspect of our jazz.”

Looking ahead, Marsalis sees Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Blue Engine Records label as critically important to the organization, with plans to “put out 100 records in five years,” he says.

To date its discography includes “Big Band Holidays II,” “Jazz and Art,” “Wynton Marsalis’ Swing Symphony” (with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra), “Bolden: The Original Soundtrack to the Major Motion Picture,” “Betty Carter: The Music Never Stops,” “Una Noche Con Ruben Blades,” “Handful of Keys: The Music of John Lewis,” “The Abyssinian Mass,” “Live in Cuba” and “Carlos Henriquez: The Bronx Pyramid.”

Upcoming recordings will feature compositions by JLCO members Victor Goines, Ted Nash, Sherman Irby and others.

“This is going to be the highlight of everything I ever tried to do,” says Marsalis.

Quite a statement from the man who co-founded Jazz at Lincoln Center and penned the first jazz composition to win a Pulitzer Prize, “Blood on the Fields” (I served on the jury).

Did Jazz at Lincoln Center create Blue Engine Records in order to break free of record industry control?

“No, not really,” says Marsalis. “It’s our in-house label. It’s not like we are a (free-standing) record label – we’re still what we are.

“It’s just that we’re interested in these resources being put to people. … We want people to hear the music, because we’re advocates.

“At the end of the day,” adds Marsalis, “we are a social help organization.”

But in this case, the help comes in a form you can tap your foot to.

The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis performs “Jazz Ambassadors” at 8 p.m. Nov. 15 and “South African Songbook” at 8 p.m. Nov. 16 in Orchestra Hall at Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan Ave.; ticket prices vary; 312-294-3000 or www.cso.org

by Howard Reich

Source: Chicago Tribune

Why Edward Norton Tapped Thom Yorke and Wynton Marsalis for His New Movie, Motherless Brooklyn

In his new adaptation of Jonathan Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn, Edward Norton plays Lionel Essrog, an orphan detective with Tourette’s syndrome, who wanders the streets of New York attempting to solve the murder of his mentor and father figure. Norton, also the film’s director and screenwriter, changed a few key elements of Lethem’s novel, transplanting the neo-noir from its original setting in the late ’90s to the 1950s. But something Norton did not lose was its singular fascination with music and pop culture.

In the book, Lionel takes a moment from the byzantine workings of the central murder mystery to remember the first time he heard “Kiss” by Prince: “It so pulsed with Tourettic energies that I could surrender to its tormented squeaky beat and let my syndrome live outside my brain for once, live in the air instead… When I listened to him I was exempt from my symptoms.” The Prince passage took up only a page or two, but it was Lethem’s first overt dabbling with characters who lovingly over-identify with a piece of pop culture—his next several books would be brimming with music, movies, and characters who were hopelessly entangled with both. “That was the beginning of me having characters who care inordinately, who care almost dangerously, about popular music,” Lethem tells me.

Throughout the film, Lionel still finds liberation in music, but this time, it’s the era-appropriate hard-bop jazz of a Harlem nightclub. “Jazz is a great analogy for Lionel’s head,” Norton says over the phone. “Hard bop, in particular, is all Tourettic, in the best sense. It’s everything I love about Charlie Parker or Mingus—this anarchistic, improvisational approach to music.”

Norton acquired the rights to Motherless Brooklyn before it was even published in 1999. With Lethem’s blessing, he air-lifted the characters from their original setting and deposited them into a sort of noir-film fantasia version of 1950s New York City. It comes complete with its own thinly veiled version of Robert Moses, the famed urban developer and old-world political boss, who is played with Trumpian relish by Alec Baldwin. Norton’s change is audacious: “Setting it in the ’50s opened the door into a deeper narrative about the social history of New York.”

The changes did not bother Lethem, though he does note one thing with a laugh: “I had my own vision of what Lionel looked like—and he was closer, at the time, to Brendan Fraser. So when Ed expressed interest, I remember thinking, ‘Well, you’re very famous and important, but that’s not right!’” Remarkably, the author never read any version of the script and had only seen the film once when we spoke. “I don’t take a lot of pleasure in the kinds of movies that result when people are slavishly obedient to a book,” Lethem says. “What I wanted is what [director] Howard Hawks did with Ernest Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not: Keep the title, keep the boat, and then make a really good Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart movie.”

When it came time to soundtrack and score the film, Norton turned to what he called a “team of three authentic geniuses” to help him realize his vision. First, he sent the script to Thom Yorke. “I’ve always felt like, as a writer, Thom understands fracture and dissonance, but his songs also have this emotional longing,” Norton says. “He’s also written a lot about how the world and the powers that be are oppressive. To me, Lionel’s head sounds more like Thom’s longing than like hard-bop chaos. I had this middle-of-the-night idea to ask Thom to write a ballad that felt like it was out of the past, something like the Chinatown theme. Ten days later, he sent it back to me.”

Yorke’s contribution to the soundtrack, “Daily Battles,” is a mournful piano ballad featuring smoky trumpet-playing from Flea; it would not seem out of place on Radiohead’s 2016 album, A Moon Shaped Pool. “I was intimidated but intrigued by Ed’s idea of trying to write a song that felt timeless, from a different era,” Yorke tells me via email. “[Like] a lost musical standard that could fall seamlessly into the hands of a small, Kind of Blue Miles Davis jazz ensemble, but at the same time still be me, and still be modern. When I read the script I kept returning to this idea of ‘the other side, it has no face.’ Do we allow the powerful to walk all over us, or do we wake up, go after these people, and take them down?”

The song made such an impact on Norton’s understanding of his own film that he ended up burying some of Yorke’s lyrics into the script, as Easter eggs: “We all have our daily battles,” remarks one character. At another point, Lionel refers to his condition as needing to have “everything in its right place.” And there is even a sneaky, almost-quote of the Radiohead song “Like Spinning Plates” that pops up in a pivotal scene, with its instantly recognizable backwards tape reel sound effect.

Authentic genius number two was trumpet virtuoso Wynton Marsalis, who arranged a cool-jazz version of “Daily Battles” for a slow-dance scene and helped to establish period authenticity for a club scene. “Norton told me the music was a combination of Miles Davis and [trumpet player] Clifford Brown,” Marsalis says. In the film, the actor Michael K. Williams mimes the trumpet, but Marsalis is the one playing. As a rowdy Clifford Brown number heats up, Norton’s Lionel—unable to help himself—starts scatting along. “I love the way he played it,” Marsalis adds. “When he started to imitate the music, I thought some of that would come off corny, but he pulled it off.”

Composer Daniel Pemberton, genius number three, took about a month to write the film’s sprawling score, full of ambient synthesizers, jazz-inflected saxophone bursts, and rich string writing. The night Pemberton and Norton met, the former had finished scoring Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse just hours before. The two bonded over Vangelis’ music for the historical sports drama Chariots of Fire, from 1981. “Usually directors mention the trendy scores of that year or the year before,” Pemberton says. “Chariots of Fire is not the ‘cool’ choice.” But Pemberton loves the score so much that he bought Vangelis’ CS80 synthesizer with the first money he ever made from scoring films.

Pemberton tracked the Motherless Brooklyn score in just three days at Abbey Road Studios in London. When Marsalis and Pemberton finally met, the jazz great looked up at the composer and paid him what Norton now calls the highest compliment imaginable: “You wrote all this in the last four weeks?” Marsalis asked. “You are a bad motherfucker.”

by Jayson Greene

Source: Pitchfork

Marsalis inspires at Kodak Hall

One of my favorite ways to hype up Rochester is by complimenting its live music scene. It’s fantastic on the small scale — the Bug Jar and other local venues host terrific local musicians and amazing student groups — but there’s no reminder quite like a concert at Kodak Hall that you, UR student, have incredible opportunities to see amazing music in the city we often forget is our home.

It’s easy to feel disconnected from Eastman as a River Campus student, but last Wednesday, going to see Wynton Marsalis and Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with a ticket that would have cost a UR student who bought it early enough just $10 (an unbelievable steal), I was struck with the realization that Kodak Hall (and the entire music program at Eastman) is a big deal.

There was Marsalis, perhaps the greatest jazz trumpeter of our time, helming one of the most talented, celebrated ensembles in the genre, personally shouting out Eastman’s own Donald Hunsberger (conductor emeritus of its Wind Ensemble) and greeting the stage and the Rochesterians in the audience not as a visiting superstar but as an old friend.

Garth Fagan, the Tony-winning Rochester legend and choreographer for the fucking “Lion King,” was sitting two rows in front of me, and stood up at Marsalis’s invitation to the thunderous applause of the hall.

I haven’t even talked about the music itself yet. For the entire two-hour show (with a 15-minute intermission), it became clear that I was watching something truly special.

Performing Duke Ellington, Thelonius Monk, and plenty of other compositions and arrangements by the legends of jazz and blues history and some future legends in the orchestra, Marsalis and his band demonstrated a kind of freedom and communication that I’ve never encountered from big band jazz before.

For me, the best jazz happens when friends play together, and it was certain that Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra were friends in a way that makes the best jazz.

It’s from Marsalis himself, talking to us in the audience between songs, that I know not only what was being played but who was playing it. Carlos Henriquez provided steady, energetic bass as the music’s heartbeat, Victor Goines played sax, clarinet, arranged some extremely technically difficult music for the band to make sound effortless and free, and contributed his voice to “Yes Sir, That’s My Baby.” Dan Nimmer sounded pleasing on the piano, and Marsalis’s brother, Jason, lent his skills on the drums to percussion lines and solos, without which the show would have felt incomplete.

The only musician onstage who took a backseat, with no solos, was Wynton. I wasn’t complaining, given that the other 14 bandmates are arguably among today’s 15 finest big band jazz musicians, but Marsalis was the headliner, after all. After the encore — the lights went up, but the first ovation stayed seated — the band walked offstage, but the Marsalises, Henriquez, and Nimmer stuck around.

For the last few minutes of the show (with the lights up, and after some guests had for whatever confused reason left), it was just Wynton’s trumpet, accompanied by the piano, bass, and drums. It was natural, and human, and lots of other things that I would have much more difficulty conveying with writing than the gentlemen did with music.

When, to the second standing ovation of the evening, the quartet finally bid us goodnight, I could go to Java’s in peace, holding inside me the freshly minted memory of a tremendous show. Jazz is ephemeral, even as the music goes, and though I dearly hope to see Marsalis and Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra live again, nothing’s going to feel exactly the same as this set. And that’s okay — part of the beauty of something as free as jazz is that it’s always different — but I really want to urge you, reading this, to see as much live music as you can before it gets away from you. To be able to catch it for a little while, hold onto its shoulder and make eye contact, see it smile at you before it slips away into the cool night air, is something beautiful.

By Eddie Hock

Source: Campus Times

Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra With Wynton Marsalis And Vocalists Denzal Sinclaire And Alexis Morrast Ring In The Holidays With Big Band Holidays

The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis and guest vocalists Denzal Sinclaire and Alexis Morrast spread good cheer this holiday season with five performances of Big Band Holidays in Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater on December 18-21 at 8:00 p.m. and December 22 at 2:00 p.m. The performance on Sunday, December 22 at 2:00 p.m., will be a Relaxed Performance, designed to provide an opportunity for children or adults with autism, learning difficulties, or other sensory and communication needs to enjoy our performances with their families in a more relaxed environment.

Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater at Frederick P. Rose Hall is located at Broadway at 60th Street in New York, New York.

Featuring soulful, big band versions of classics like “Jingle Bells,” “Joy to the World,” and “Brazilian Sleigh Ride,” Big Band Holidays is an uplifting holiday program that plays to sold-out audiences every December. The beloved New York tradition is renowned for showcasing some of the most exciting and charismatic vocalists on the scene, with recent editions including Cécile McLorin Salvant, Gregory Porter, René Marie, Vuyo Sotashe, Veronica Swift, and Catherine Russell. This year Jazz at Lincoln Center welcomes back an old favorite, the smooth-as-silk baritone vocalist Denzal Sinclaire and presents a Big Band Holidays first-timer: local teenage phenomenon Alexis Morrast, first-place winner of the nationally broadcast Showtime at the Apollo.

Additionally, Blue Engine Records,Jazz at Lincoln Center’s in-house record label, celebrates the most wonderful time of the year with the release of Big Band Holidays II, a sequel to a beloved and festive album released in 2015 by the world-renowned Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis. Big Band Holidays II includes an electric, never-before-released solo piano performance of “O Tannenbaum” by Aretha Franklin. The Queen of Soul sang the holiday classic in English and German, while accompanying herself on piano, at a surprise performance at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s 2015 Big Band Holidays concert. “O Tannenbaum,” exclusively on Big Band Holidays II, is one of only a handful of tracks to be released since Franklin’s passing on August 16, 2018. Additional guests on Big Band Holidays II include some of jazz’s most beloved voices: Catherine Russell, Veronica Swift, Denzal Sinclaire, and Audrey Shakir. This newest collection of holiday classics is now available on all digital platforms and will be in stores as a CD on November 15, 2019.

For more information, visit jazz.org

Blue Engine Records Releases Jazz For Kids By The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis

Jazz For Kids (booklet)

New York, NY (October 18, 2019) – Today, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Blue Engine Records releases Jazz for Kids, a new digital album from the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis. In the Orchestra’s masterful hands,the simplicity and familiarity of childhood favorites like “Old MacDonald” and “Itsy Bitsy Spider” afford a world of musical possibilities for audiences young and old.

On a unique interpretation of “Wheels on the Bus,” the Orchestra is joined by co-anchor of NBC News’ TODAY and co-host of TODAY with Hoda and Jenna Hoda Kotb, who narrates the beloved nursery rhyme, accompanied by a special solo by Wynton Marsalis.

Recorded in 2011 at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall, Jazz for Kids explores the universal appeal of jazz, providing younger audiences with an access point to the music and making tried-and-true jazz lovers feel young at heart. Showcasing the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra’s greatest strengths—unprecedented stylistic versatility and a creative roster of expert arrangers—Jazz for Kids demonstrates how jazz can transform even the most familiar song to take listeners on an unforgettable ride.

Wonderful for both young and old, either as an introduction to jazz or a reminder of the music’s ability to supercharge your imagination, this collection of children’s classics with a jazz spin is available now on all digital platforms.

TRACK LISTING:

1. Baa Baa Black Sheep

Arranged by Sherman Irby

Solos: Kenny Rampton (trumpet), Vincent Gardner (trombone), Sherman Irby (alto saxophone), Marcus Printup (trumpet—fills), Chris Crenshaw (trombone—fills), Walter Blanding (tenor saxophone—fills)

2. Old MacDonald

Arranged by Ted Nash

Solos: Sherman Irby (alto saxophone—fills), Dan Nimmer (piano), Vincent Gardner (trombone—fills), Wynton Marsalis (trumpet), Joe Temperley (baritone saxophone), Walter Blanding (tenor saxophone), Ali Jackson (drums)

3. Mah NàMah Nà

Written by Piero Umiliani

Arranged by Wynton Marsalis

Solos: Jonathan Russell (violin), Carlos Henriquez (bass, vocals)

4. Itsy Bitsy Spider

Arranged by Wynton Marsalis

Solos: Ted Nash (flute), Chris Crenshaw (trombone—fills)

5. La Cucaracha

Arranged by Wynton Marsalis

Solos: Marcus Printup (trumpet), Victor Goines (clarinet), Chris Crenshaw (trombone), Dan Nimmer (piano), Carlos Henriquez (bass), Ali Jackson (drums)

6. Wheels on the Bus (feat. Hoda Kotb)

Arranged by Sherman Irby

Solos: Hoda Kotb (vocals), Ali Jackson (brushes), Wynton Marsalis (trumpet)

7. It Ain’t Easy Being Green

Written by Joe Raposo

Arranged by Ali Jackson

Solos: ,Vincent Gardner (trombone), Wynton Marsalis (trumpet), Marcus Printup (trumpet)

8. I Like to Take My Time

Written by Fred Rogers

Arranged by Sherman Irby

Solo: Ryan Kisor (trumpet)

9. Rubber Duckie

Written by Jeff Moss

Arranged by Vincent Gardner

Solos: Dan Nimmer (piano), Wynton Marsalis (trumpet), Vincent Gardner (trombone), Sherman Irby (alto saxophone), Ali Jackson (drums), Wynton Marsalis (trumpet—hollers)

10. Pop Goes the Weasel

Arranged by Wynton Marsalis

Solos: Ted Nash (alto saxophone), Elliot Mason (trombone)

PERSONNEL:

THE JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA WITH WYNTON MARSALIS

REEDS

Sherman Irby (alto saxophone, clarinet, and flute)

Ted Nash (alto saxophone, clarinet, and flute)

Victor Goines (tenor saxophone, bass clarinet, and clarinet)

Walter Blanding (tenor saxophone)

Joe Temperley (baritone saxophone, bass clarinet)

TRUMPETS

Ryan Kisor

Marcus Printup

Kenny Rampton

Wynton Marsalis

TROMBONES

Vincent Gardner (trombone, vocals)

Chris Crenshaw

Elliot Mason

RHYTHM SECTION

Dan Nimmer (piano)

Carlos Henriquez (bass)

Ali Jackson (drums)

Special Guests:

Hoda Kotb (vocals)

Jonathan Russell (violin)

About Blue Engine Records

Blue Engine Records, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s platform that makes its vast archive of recorded concerts available to jazz audiences everywhere, launched on June 30, 2015. Blue Engine Records releases new studio and live recordings as well as archival recordings from Jazz at Lincoln Center’s performance history that date back to 1987 and are part of the R. Theodore Ammon Archives and Music Library. Since the institution’s founding in 1987, each year’s programming is conceived and developed by Managing and Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis with a vision toward building a comprehensive library of iconic and wide-ranging compositions that, taken together, make up a canon of music. These archives include accurate, complete charts for the compositions—both old and new—performed each season. Coupled with consistently well-executed and recorded music performed by Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, this archive has grown to include thousands of songs from hundreds of concert dates. The launch of Blue Engine is aligned with Jazz at Lincoln Center’s efforts to cultivate existing jazz fans worldwide and turn new audiences on to jazz.