[Dixielandjazz] Marsalis Family Show Review New York Times

[JimDBB at aol.com]

In a message dated 3/5/03 9:08:33 AM Central Standard Time, 
barbonestreet at earthlink.net writes:


> March 5, 2003 - New York Times
> 
> Working Together, Taking Different Roads
> 
> By BEN RATLIFF
> snipped:
>      
> The patriarch is a quietly fearsome pianist: a generator of small
> gestures, always more rhythmic than you expect. In the spaces where so
> many other pianists bide their time, he played lean, gentle
> provocations, playing accompaniment behind his sons' solos for example.
> When it came time to shine, as in his solo during Alvin Batiste's
> "Mozart-In'," he contributed a furtive, mumbling blues solo.
> 
> That same song also gave the youngest family member onstage, Jason, a
> turn to demonstrate what he has. He is one of the cleanest drummers in
> jazz, and intensely conceptual. He rarely rests on patterns you've often
> heard and thinks like an arranger, in discrete compartments of music.
> Here he played in dragging New Orleans parade rhythm, varying his muted
> drum sounds and keeping loud cymbals out of it. It was open, spacious
> and tremendously funky.
> 
> Wisely, the concert used several group permutations: a piano-trio (Ellis
> Marsalis's slow ballad "After"), a quartet with Wynton and Branford
> playing at full bore (on Branford's "Cain and Abel"), a trombone-piano
> duet (Delfeayo's "If You Only Knew") and pieces with the full sextet. At
> times the family played with an almost classical sense of restraint; as
> a result the music seemed restricted by the barrier of the stage; at
> other times the music gushed over the audience or incorporated
> unconventional structures. ("Down Home With Homey" ended with a vigorous
> bass solo.)
> 
> At times Wynton and Branford were like a fork in jazz's road. The
> trumpeter often used sleek, orderly patterns to win over the audience,
> as he did at the start of "Buddy Bolden's Blues," when an unaccompanied
> eighth-note solo seemed nearly Baroque in its tight, consonant
> structure.
> 
> When the saxophonist went for broke, he grew expansive, loud and nearly
> messy, smashing through the walls of harmony, getting very post-Coltrane
> for an audience that might not have been seeking a challenge. What a
> relief that a concert like this could contain both impulses and many
> others_______________________________________________


   With pretentious blather like this review, no wonder jazz is in trouble.  

     " The music gushed over the audience"
                         (gag)

   Jim Beebe
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://ml.islandnet.com/pipermail/dixielandjazz/attachments/20030305/f10173da/attachment.html