by John Fordham
The Guardian
Growing into the kind of Miles Davis-sparked trumpet inspiration for the Italian jazz scene that Palle Mikkelborg has been for Denmark or Tomasz Stanko for Poland, Enrico Rava has become one of European jazz's major legends. This set follows up 2003's Easy Living, which brought a sumptuous brass-dominant small group to a mix of ambiguous, Kenny Wheeler-like music, tiptoeing tone-poetry, and nods to Ornette Coleman and the Miles Davis 1960s band.
Group-minded pianist Andrea Pozza is substituted for Stefano Bollani, and the feel is a little straight-jazzier - even if the Chet Baker vehicle The Wind has a ambient-music ghostliness in its slowly whoopy trombone countermelody. Echoes of Duke is an ecstatically riffy swinger, Serpent a spacily hypnotic, lonesome-Miles reverie, Don Cherry's Art Deco is turned into an early-jazz trumpet-trombone conversation, and there are two revisits to old Rava originals: the undulating Secrets and the Carla Bley-like Dr Ra and Mr Va. Rava's return to ECM has paid off handsomely so far.
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Saturday, January 27, 2007
Friday, January 26, 2007
Wynton Marsalis drops in on the Hudson Valley for a benefit concert
By John W. Barry
Poughkeepsie Journal
The Oakland Raiders.
Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali.
Ichinoseki and Chiba, Japan.
The thread that binds these things may not be obvious. But the man for whom these things rank as favorites will likely be familiar to you, as the face and sound of America’s first family of music, a Pulitzer Prize-winning musician and director of one of the most prestigious jazz halls in the world.
He is Wynton Marsalis, a jazz trumpet player whose cherubic face has evolved into the very personality of that truly American, truly mysterious musical phenomenon called jazz.
Marsalis and his horn croon. They call. And they respond. Sound drips out of this guy’s horn like Sunday morning molasses over a stack of steaming flapjacks.
On Saturday, Marsalis and his quintet will play a sold-out concert at the Paramount Center for the Arts in Peekskill. This performance is a benefit concert for the Paramount, the African American Men of Westchester and Historic Hudson Valley.
“It’s just exciting for us to be able to feature someone like Wynton,” said Jon Yanofsky, executive director for the Paramount. “He’s provided an incredibly accessible point of entry into (jazz) and the history of the music for a lot of people.”
The American public knows an awful lot about Marsalis: he is the artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center and has won nine Grammy Awards. And many know of his brother Branford, who has played with Sting and Bruce Hornsby and served as band leader on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.”
But what’s the deal with Marsalis and those Oakland Raiders?
“I like everything about them — their black and silver colors and their logo, their quick-strike offense...,” Marsalis is quoted as saying on his Web site, www.wyntonmarsalis.com. “They get amped up on the pressure of a big game, but they don’t get uptight. They’re ferocious, but they never lose their cool.”
And Sugar Ray Robinson? Ali?
“Sugar Ray Robinson was the greatest, but my favorite boxer is Muhammad Ali.
Growing up in the ’60s and ’70s, I watched all of Muhammad’s classic fights on ‘Wide World of Sports.’ ”
Now, what about those two Japanese cities?
“For part of my early childhood, our family lived in a little town in Louisiana called Kenner, and I’ve always enjoyed the down-home feeling that small towns can have.
As a touring musician I have a lot of favorite towns, just like I have a lot of favorite cities. Ichinoseki and Chiba, in Japan, are two of my favorites. When we play in a small town, all the farmers and other local people will come to check us out, and we get a special feeling from being able to perform for the whole community.”
Raised in New Orleans
Marsalis grew up in New Orleans, the second of six sons, one of whom is autistic. At an early age, he heard his musical calling — loud and clear.
“My father was a musician,” Marsalis said during a recent telephone interview with the Journal. “I had an ability for it. I just came into it.”
At age 8, Marsalis performed traditional New Orleans music in the Fairview Baptist Church band. At 14, he was invited to perform with the New Orleans Philharmonic.
During high school, Marsalis was a member of the New Orleans Symphony Brass Quintet, New Orleans Community Concert Band, New Orleans Youth Orchestra and New Orleans Symphony. He was also admitted to the Tanglewood Music Center in western Massachusetts at age 17.
After moving to New York City to study music at The Juilliard School, Marsalis joined the Jazz Messengers and studied under the band’s leader, Art Blakey.
From Blakey, Marsalis learned “how to give everything all the time, to truly treat this like it’s a blessing to be a musician. His playing was always serious. He was always about it — in rehearsals, concerts, it didn’t make a difference.”
Marsalis went on to receive commissions to create major compositions for the New York City Ballet, Twyla Tharp for the American Ballet Theatre and for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre.
Marsalis has also pursued a career in classical music.
“I like his classical trumpet playing more than I like his jazz trumpet playing,” said jazz trumpet player Matt Jordan of Poughkeepsie, who plays regularly at Ciboney Cafe in Poughkeepsie. “I like his technique. He’s got one of the cleanest, fastest, tongue-ing techniques — very quick, very fast. ... He synchronizes his lip with his mouthpiece and the valves that have to come down to play in perfect tune. Nobody does it better than him.”
In 1987, Marsalis co-founded a jazz program at Lincoln Center. Three concerts were held the first season, but under the guidance of Marsalis the program now stages up to 400 events annually in 15 countries.
In 1995, the Lincoln Center Board gave the Jazz Department status equal to the New York Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera and New York City Ballet. Jazz at Lincoln Center now occupies a state-of-the art facility on Columbus Circle in Manhattan, that is home to performance spaces and a recording studio.
“Jazz is the art form of America,” Marsalis said. “It is appropriate for it to be in the heart of New York City.”
Poughkeepsie Journal
The Oakland Raiders.
Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali.
Ichinoseki and Chiba, Japan.
The thread that binds these things may not be obvious. But the man for whom these things rank as favorites will likely be familiar to you, as the face and sound of America’s first family of music, a Pulitzer Prize-winning musician and director of one of the most prestigious jazz halls in the world.
He is Wynton Marsalis, a jazz trumpet player whose cherubic face has evolved into the very personality of that truly American, truly mysterious musical phenomenon called jazz.
Marsalis and his horn croon. They call. And they respond. Sound drips out of this guy’s horn like Sunday morning molasses over a stack of steaming flapjacks.
On Saturday, Marsalis and his quintet will play a sold-out concert at the Paramount Center for the Arts in Peekskill. This performance is a benefit concert for the Paramount, the African American Men of Westchester and Historic Hudson Valley.
“It’s just exciting for us to be able to feature someone like Wynton,” said Jon Yanofsky, executive director for the Paramount. “He’s provided an incredibly accessible point of entry into (jazz) and the history of the music for a lot of people.”
The American public knows an awful lot about Marsalis: he is the artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center and has won nine Grammy Awards. And many know of his brother Branford, who has played with Sting and Bruce Hornsby and served as band leader on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.”
But what’s the deal with Marsalis and those Oakland Raiders?
“I like everything about them — their black and silver colors and their logo, their quick-strike offense...,” Marsalis is quoted as saying on his Web site, www.wyntonmarsalis.com. “They get amped up on the pressure of a big game, but they don’t get uptight. They’re ferocious, but they never lose their cool.”
And Sugar Ray Robinson? Ali?
“Sugar Ray Robinson was the greatest, but my favorite boxer is Muhammad Ali.
Growing up in the ’60s and ’70s, I watched all of Muhammad’s classic fights on ‘Wide World of Sports.’ ”
Now, what about those two Japanese cities?
“For part of my early childhood, our family lived in a little town in Louisiana called Kenner, and I’ve always enjoyed the down-home feeling that small towns can have.
As a touring musician I have a lot of favorite towns, just like I have a lot of favorite cities. Ichinoseki and Chiba, in Japan, are two of my favorites. When we play in a small town, all the farmers and other local people will come to check us out, and we get a special feeling from being able to perform for the whole community.”
Raised in New Orleans
Marsalis grew up in New Orleans, the second of six sons, one of whom is autistic. At an early age, he heard his musical calling — loud and clear.
“My father was a musician,” Marsalis said during a recent telephone interview with the Journal. “I had an ability for it. I just came into it.”
At age 8, Marsalis performed traditional New Orleans music in the Fairview Baptist Church band. At 14, he was invited to perform with the New Orleans Philharmonic.
During high school, Marsalis was a member of the New Orleans Symphony Brass Quintet, New Orleans Community Concert Band, New Orleans Youth Orchestra and New Orleans Symphony. He was also admitted to the Tanglewood Music Center in western Massachusetts at age 17.
After moving to New York City to study music at The Juilliard School, Marsalis joined the Jazz Messengers and studied under the band’s leader, Art Blakey.
From Blakey, Marsalis learned “how to give everything all the time, to truly treat this like it’s a blessing to be a musician. His playing was always serious. He was always about it — in rehearsals, concerts, it didn’t make a difference.”
Marsalis went on to receive commissions to create major compositions for the New York City Ballet, Twyla Tharp for the American Ballet Theatre and for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre.
Marsalis has also pursued a career in classical music.
“I like his classical trumpet playing more than I like his jazz trumpet playing,” said jazz trumpet player Matt Jordan of Poughkeepsie, who plays regularly at Ciboney Cafe in Poughkeepsie. “I like his technique. He’s got one of the cleanest, fastest, tongue-ing techniques — very quick, very fast. ... He synchronizes his lip with his mouthpiece and the valves that have to come down to play in perfect tune. Nobody does it better than him.”
In 1987, Marsalis co-founded a jazz program at Lincoln Center. Three concerts were held the first season, but under the guidance of Marsalis the program now stages up to 400 events annually in 15 countries.
In 1995, the Lincoln Center Board gave the Jazz Department status equal to the New York Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera and New York City Ballet. Jazz at Lincoln Center now occupies a state-of-the art facility on Columbus Circle in Manhattan, that is home to performance spaces and a recording studio.
“Jazz is the art form of America,” Marsalis said. “It is appropriate for it to be in the heart of New York City.”