[Dixielandjazz] Wynton & Marcus play Jelly Roll Morton.

[Stephen G Barbone]

Here's one for the Wynton haters. <grin> Then again, note that he and  
Marcus Roberts did include Tom Cat Blues (JRM) in the program. And  
note the last paragraph.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband

Honoring a Larger-Than-Life Jazz Trumpeter

NY TIMES - By NATE CHINEN - October 13, 2011


The guest of honor spoke rarely and succinctly during a concert called  
“Wynton Marsalis at 50” at the Rose Theater on Wednesday night. This  
seemed to be a minor struggle. “I promised Ryan I wouldn’t talk  
tonight,” Mr. Marsalis said several times, with a chuckle; presumably  
he meant Ryan Kisor, his fellow workhorse in the trumpet section of  
the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.

This was the first of four consecutive nights for “Wynton Marsalis at  
50,” which had been programmed in advance of Mr. Marsalis’s birthday,  
on Tuesday. An ardent but unfussy celebration for Jazz at Lincoln  
Center’s artistic director, it felt more than anything like a nod to  
the bigness of his ambition. During two long sets there were almost no  
pieces for a small or midsize band. (For the record, Mr. Marsalis  
covered that ground in the same room earlier this year.)

What predominated were excerpted movements from Mr. Marsalis’s large- 
scale works, including “Blood on the Fields,” the oratorio that won  
him a Pulitzer Prize in the 1990s; “All Rise,” a New York Philharmonic  
commission from the same era; “Congo Square,” a 2006 collaboration  
with the Ghanaian drummer Yacub Addy and his vocal-and-percussion  
troupe; and “Abyssinian 200,” composed in honor of the Abyssinian  
Baptist Church, and first presented there in 2008.

All of which meant that despite the lockdown on verbiage, there was no  
shortage of pomp or exposition in the concert; it just came in the  
form of music. And it often worked magnificently, if sometimes a bit  
dutifully. The Chorale Le Chateau, a New York choir conducted by its  
founder, Damien Sneed, addressed two pieces from “Abyssinian 200,”  
imbuing “Doxology” with somber power and “Recessional” with springy  
fervency, backed in the latter case by a locomotive-emulating Jazz at  
Lincoln Center Orchestra.

Mr. Addy and his ensemble, Odadaa!, revisited “Ring Shout,” the  
gripping invocation of “Congo Square,” as well as “Kolomashi,” its  
thunderous finale. The violinist Mark O’Connor, in an iridescent  
silver suit, took a mournful lead on the main theme from “Blood on the  
Fields” and then spun right into hoedown territory with the bluegrass  
standard “Boil’Em Cabbage Down.” Gregory Porter, a nimble baritone,  
was assigned two sections of “Blood on the Fields,” including one that  
also contained the evening’s most exuberant burst of virtuosity, by  
the resourceful young tap dancer Jared Grimes.

What about Mr. Marsalis, the star soloist? He did his part,  
periodically stalking the perimeter of the stage, barking and  
whinnying through a plunger mute. But the only worthy showcase for his  
trumpet playing came in a pair of tunes reuniting him with his former  
pianist, Marcus Roberts. One was Jelly Roll Morton’s “Tom Cat Blues,”  
rendered as a fine, strutting duet; the other was “Delfeayo’s  
Dilemma,” one of Mr. Marsalis’s early, elastic postbop numbers for  
quintet.

The rest of the time he was a section man, playing the fourth trumpet  
part in his own richly textured compositions. That’s not an idle fact,  
and neither was the praise that he showered on his band mates and  
guests, in some of his only utterances. If he was being gracious from  
a great height, it was only to imply that he didn’t get there by  
himself.

Performances continue through Saturday at Frederick P. Rose Hall, Jazz  
at Lincoln Center, 60th Street and Broadway; (212) 721-6500, jalc.org.