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Sunday, July 20, 2008
NBAF Review: Wynton Marsalis Soars with Jazz Classics
National Black Arts Festival REVIEW. Wynton Marsalis and his Quartet with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Saturday in Symphony Hall. www.nbaf.org.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Day Two of the National Black Arts Festival wasn’t the wished-for epic premiere but, as a more modest event, it came off to sweet perfection.
Saturday in Symphony Hall, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and NBAF had planned to offer the world premiere of a symphony by Wynton Marsalis, a work that was ballyhooed as the jazz master’s first strictly orchestral score.
But Wynton is as famous for missing new-music deadlines as for blowing his trumpet. A few weeks ago, it was announced that he hadn’t finished; the premiere is now scheduled for November.
So with a giant hole in the NBAF program and few options, Saturday’s show took the easy train: an hour-long set of jazz classics, with Marsalis and his quartet center stage, backed on some numbers by the ASO.
Marsalis’ many fans packed the hall to capacity, and they knew what to expect.
“Cherokee” and “Django” — one a thrill-seeker’s dream of fast runs and sweet longings, the other an intense ballad about the swinging Gypsy guitarist — opened the evening. These were displays of the band’s extreme virtuosity, in all its paradoxes: hyper-disciplined and ultra-sophisticated, flamboyant and “hot” yet somehow cool in temperature. Everything was improvised off the charts yet everything spoke of complete control.
For Marsalis, “classics” means music from before the era of modern jazz. J. Fred Coots’ “For All We Know” (1934) came with a halo of swooning violins and sounded like a nocturne, a lovely still night with a light breeze, a few starlight twinkles from Dan Nimmer at the piano, some at-ease heartbeats plunked from bassist Carlos Henriquez, a bit of billowing flute wafting into the night.
“Classic” also connotes a sense of place, a feeling of home: New Orleans, in spirit, hovers around Marsalis’ music, and they gave the famous old “Second Line” march an airing, with Walter Blanding’s soprano sax singing the most joyously mournful lines and drummer Ali Jackson pounding out enough volume to fill several city blocks.
Part of what makes the NBAF special is the critical mass of talent that gathers each summer. Marsalis pointed to some of his celebrated friends in the hall, including choreographer Judith Jameson and actor Samuel L. Jackson.
When Marsalis acknowledged Ivy League intellectual Cornel West, who is not shy in crowds, and poked a little fun at his oversized ’70s hair style, the Princeton professor stood brandishing a giant metal afro pick, to the audience’s roaring delight.
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