These ballets, each lasting a few minutes over half an hour, are mostly written-out compositions with jazz rhythm sections and jazz inflections from the players. As in much...
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The Midnight Blues is the fifth installment in his ongoing Standard Time series, where he offers his own interpretations of classic American pop, jazz and blues songs....
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The music on this three-CD set (released in 1997) won a Pulitzer Prize, but is not without its faults. Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis tells the story of two Africans (singers...
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As the fourth volume of Wynton Marsalis' ongoing Standard Time project, as well as the first volume of his planned eight-disc series Swinging into the 2, Marsalis Plays Monk...
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As artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, Wynton Marsalis became something of a self-deputized defender of classic jazz. The trumpeter steadfastly honored the legacy...
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On 1999's Big Train, Marsalis tries on the mantle of Duke Ellington in the latter's centennial year and finds that it suits him. A 52-minute big band suite modeled after...
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In search of a new concept for a classical trumpet album, Wynton Marsalis takes on some 20th century literature, this time with nothing more than the perfectly competent...
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For a weighty package recorded over a few years--1990 through 1994, all in the comfy basement vibe of the Village Vanguard--and presented in a multi-course meal of seven...
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As if releasing eight single albums in 1999 weren't enough, Wynton Marsalis capped this deluge of material at the end of the year with a seven-CD mini-box of live...
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A double CD containing Wynton's music for the ballet Griot New York. The wide range of stylistic approaches essays by the gathered septet marks this as aggressively...
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This double CD contains Wynton Marsalis' score for the modern ballet Griot New York. Even more than his trumpet playing, his writing skills had developed quickly during the...
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The eighth installment in Marsalis' exhaustive series of 1999 releases, this disc was originally offered as a freebie in the mail only if you bought the previous seven, and...
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Wynton's style was still developing at this point and Codes displays a significant deepening in his approach--always confident, he now sounds authoritative and at some...
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This is probably the best Wynton Marsalis recording from his Miles Davis period. With his brother Branford (who doubles here on tenor and soprano) often closely emulating...
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Wynton Marsalis's septet was the perfect outlet both for his playing and his writing. The impressive young personnel (pianist Marcus Roberts, altoist Wessell Anderson, Todd...
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Jazz Christmas albums can be mighty jivey but this is a pleasant mixed bag of holiday cheer with guests ranging from clarinetist Alvin Batiste to opera soprano Kathleen...
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Due to some of his statements, Wynton Marsalis gained the reputation of not having much of a sense of humor but the picture of him on this album (plus the music in general)...
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Jazz with conventional orchestral (i.e. strings) accompaniment is almost always a bad idea--Stan Getz's album Focus being a major exception--and though Marsalis is in good...
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Wynton Marsalis, very much in his Miles Davis period, plays quite melodically throughout this ballad-dominated outing with strings. Branford Marsalis (on tenor and soprano),...
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Another double CD this is long piece of program music depicting a long Sunday morning church service. And like a long Sunday morning church service there's stretches when...
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For this double CD trumpeter Wynton Marsalis musically depicts in three parts a lengthy Sunday church service with program music composed for each of the traditional...
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When Branford Marsalis and Kenny Kirkland chose to leave Wynton Marsalis's group to make money with Sting, Wynton had to regroup fast. For this quartet recording with...
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A double-live set by a Wynton quintet, this has all the ingredients so often lacking in his studio work--a sense of joy in spontaneity, excitement and heat. No ground is...
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This double album features the great trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and his 1986 quartet, a unit featuring pianist Marcus Roberts, bassist Robert Hurst and drummer Jeff "Tain"...
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The problem with the Standard trilogy is that Marsalis has a feel for old trumpet styles but none for old music sentiments--he's not a romantic no manner how much he wants...
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On the first of three volumes, Wynton Marsalis explores ten standards plus two of his originals with his quartet of the period (which consists of pianist Marcus Roberts,...
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Wynton Marsalis's second of three standard albums was actually released after the third volume. On most of the selections, the brilliant trumpeter is heard in excellent form...
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On the third of his three standards albums, trumpeter Wynton Marsalis meets up with his father, pianist Ellis Marsalis (along with bassist Reginald Veal and drummer Herlin...
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A typically expansive late-period Marsalis roots investigation, the soul trilogy stands out by dint of a minimum of respectful mimicry--this sounds very modern, very much a...
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Wynton Marsalis's second Columbia recording as a leader features his working band of 1983: brother Branford on tenor and soprano, pianist Kenny Kirkland, either Phil Bowler...
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Marsalis's Columbia debut as a leader sounds modest in retrospect with the then 19-year-old trumpeter staking out his area of interest. Four of the seven selections are...
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Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis's debut on Columbia, recorded when he was only 19, made it clear from the start that he was going to be a major force in jazz. At the time Marsalis...
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The fifth in Wynton Marsalis's avalanche of eight releases in 1999 was another pairing of ballets, again issued on Sony Classical rather than Columbia. Sweet Release is...
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In this tribute to Jelly Roll Morton, at last there is a large sampling of the Wynton Marsalis who can get large crowds at outdoor jazz festivals like the Playboy at...
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Sometimes even the powerful Wynton Marsalis has to take no for an answer, as his score for the film Rosewood was commissioned and completed but ultimately not used. In this...
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Jazz prognosticator and Pulitzer Prize winner Wynton Marsalis is surely one of the most celebrated and controversial musicians of the past 20 years, having pleased as many...
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Originally conceived for Kurt Masur and the New York Philharmonic in 1999 as a new millennium piece, this outlandishly scaled, exuberantly eclectic, 106-minute monster work...
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His first classical album having been released simultaneously with his second jazz album, Think of One, the 21-year-old Wynton Marsalis found himself in the position of...
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Having made a commercially and artistically successful classical debut with a classical-period album the year before, Marsalis doubled back to the Baroque era for the...
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Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis' soundtrack to Ken Burns' documentary Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson is a compelling and rootsy mix of blues and swing....
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