[Dixielandjazz] Willie and Wynton

[Stephen G Barbone]

Has anyone heard this CD?

How about you Igor? Is this that Country/Western/Jazz of which you  
speak?

Bill Haesler, note the Blue Yodel No. 9 reference.

Cheers,

Steve Barbone

www.barbonestreet.com
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband









WILLIE NELSON and WYNTON MARSALIS
“Two Men With the Blues” - (Blue Note)

Two musicians from different corners of the record store collaborated  
for two days of concerts at Jazz at Lincoln Center last year, and this  
album is the harvest. Country and jazz? No, this record isn’t about  
country and jazz; it’s a lot more interesting than that.

First it’s about Willie Nelson fitting his wayward, contract-and- 
expand vocal phrasing into the sharp swing of Wynton Marsalis’s small  
group, and the cool rhythmic discrepancies that come of it. Then it’s  
about improvising: Mr. Marsalis’s trumpet solos poised and gleaming,  
Mr. Nelson’s guitar solos dusty and crotchety but full of early-jazz  
knowledge. (The other musicians play with power too: Mickey Raphael on  
harmonica, Walter Blanding Jr. on saxophones, Dan Nimmer on piano,  
Carlos Henriquez on bass, Ali Jackson on drums.)

It’s about the persistence and adaptability of the 12- and 8-bar blues  
forms: “Caldonia,” “Rainy Day Blues,” “Ain’t Nobody’s Business.” It’s  
a little bit about the arrangements — the Mingus-like, organized  
street ruckus in “Bright Lights, Big City,” the harmonized long-tone  
drapings in “Stardust,” the New Orleans parade beats in “My Bucket’s  
Got a Hole in It.” But above all it’s a smart and heartfelt record  
about someone whose name doesn’t appear anywhere here: Louis  
Armstrong. Armstrong did something like this in 1930, when he recorded  
“Blue Yodel No. 9” with Jimmie Rodgers.

Armstrong remains the model of phrasing and narrative in Mr.  
Marsalis’s boldest playing here. And he was precisely the kind of  
performer for whom Willie Nelson is a living analogue: a troubadour  
with wicked, transformative rhythmic and melodic powers, an improviser  
comfortable with a sturdy song regardless of style. Armstrong’s  
example created the conditions for this to happen, and the record is  
an almost classical example of his old game: eluding American  
stereotypes of country, city, blues, jazz, race, class, humor and  
sadness. BEN RATLIFF