Original Article: http://dartreview.com/archives/2005/11/04/marsalis_and_the_academy_jazz_up_hop.php
Friday, November 4, 2005
It's a rare day when I get to things before the last minute. But certain things by sheer dint of their value or importance force me out of my modus operandus. Such was the case with purchasing tickets for two of this season's musical offerings at the Hopkins Center for the Performing Arts.
Four months. That's how far in advance I bought my tickets for Wynton Marsalis' concert last Tuesday. And it's a good thing I did. From my front row aisle seat, I descried our friend, James Wright, the great Pooh-Bah himself, seated about six rows back in a decidedly inferior position. No small number of my friends had expressed their envy of my tickets. Even the usher who brought me to my seat good-naturedly queried, "Now who did you bribe to get these tickets?"
It might sound strange to say, but I was relieved to see instruments—a tenor sax, an eight-piece drum kit, a concert grand piano, and an upright bass—on stage. Concertgoers had been given no indication of with whom Marsalis would be playing. In the back of my mind was the fear—admittedly unfounded—that we would be treated to a night of unaccompanied trumpet, or that, worse yet, some slapdash "band" of dubious and perhaps home-grown quality would be sharing the bandstand with Marsalis.
Marsalis and his quartet entered ten minutes late and quickly got to business. The first piece of the evening "Free to Be," though performed well, was nothing to write home about. The quartet's 23 year-old pianist, Dan "The Nimsky" Nimmer, however, displayed his admirable technique, deftly executing whirling scale passages with the left hand and concomitant octave runs with the right. After approximately twelve minutes of "Free to Be," the combo decrescendoed, eventually leaving only Marsalis clapping and whistling a new melody: "You and Me." The bassist joined in, bowing a groovy bass line, while drummer Ali Jackson lightly brushed the set, touching the high-hat. Marsalis then entered playing the happy melody on a muted trumpet. Everywhere I looked, audience members were smiling, visibly pleased with the number. Even little Aziel Jackson—Ali Jackson's young boy, who was on stage with the group—couldn't resist the urge to clap along.
The classic jazz bebop standard "Blue 'n' Boogie" by famed trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie was next on the docket. Marsalis handled the virtuosic opening solo trumpet line as if it were a beginner's etude. The piece was, unfortunately, not taken at its characteristically vertiginous speed. That said, this is the first performance of the piece I've heard that comes close to the Gillespie/Gets November, 1961 Stockholm recording on the Verve label. Nimmer once again showed off his prodigious technique with the execution of rapid scales and excited tremolos.
The finest piece of the evening—performed sans the group's female vocalist—"You're Blasé," was simply superb. The easy, lilting melody of the opening trumpet solo was simply arresting. Jackson circled the drums with the brushes, while Henriquez plucked out the bass in standard time. The ensemble evinced great dynamic control and the piece, with its beautiful, melancholic insouciance moved the audience to applaud before the piece actually concluded.
After intermission we, the audience, had the pleasure of singing "Happy Birthday" to little Aziel at Marsalis' request. Aziel promptly cried, perhaps a bit overwhelmed by the knowledge that an audience of strangers knew his name and birthday.
Miss Jennifer Sanon joined the quartet on the bandstand after intermission, and in the humble opinion of this critic, stole the night. Wynton Marsalis discovered Miss Sanon at the Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Festival and Competition, which operates under the aegis of Jazz at Lincoln center, which Marsalis himself founded. From there she came away with the Outstanding Vocalist award. And in 2004 she was named a Grammy Foundation honoree. All are quite the accomplishments for a young lady who is but 20 years old.
Hearing Miss Sanon's voice was, in Capote's words, a treat all too brief. I closed my eyes and thought I was hearing something quite like a young Ella Fitzgerald. I only regret that she wasn't included in "You're Blasé" or the encore. Miss Sanon was quite mature, poised and comfortable in front of the audience.
Her renditions of "Comes Love!—Nothing Can Be Done" and "Azalea" were my favorite pieces of the evening. Sanon displayed a musical intuition far beyond her years, and performed the pieces with great feeling and alacrity. "Azalea" was particularly good. As Miss Sanon told the audience it was a "about a boy remembering his first love." The number was predominantly for piano and voice, but included an excellent and soulful sax interlude. Regrettably, Miss Sanon exited the stage after "Azalea," her final number of the night. But from the abundant applause, it was plain that she had made a definite impression on the audience. I hope to hear more of Miss Sanon in the future.
Marsalis is widely known for being what some might call "neo-traditional" in his musical taste; it has gotten him a few negative reviews and into a few squabbles with critics. For approximately two decades, he reigned unchallenged as the king of Jazz. In 1996, he reached his peak when Time named him as one of America's twenty-five most influential people. In recent years, though, Marsalis has undoubtedly fallen from the acme of his fame. Now, I suppose, there are a goodly number of Dartmouth students who are unfamiliar with his oeuvre.
After the music was over, Marsalis graciously allowed himself to be questioned by interested members of the audience, on topics ranging from specifics about how he effected a particular modulation in "Free to Be" to his opinion on the importance of the city of New Orleans to jazz.
At one point, Marsalis was asked by a female audience member, "Where are the women?" The lady was presumably confused not only as to why she saw no female jazz musicians in Wynton's quartet, but the general lack of female jazz musicians. To my surprise—and great pleasure—Wynton dealt with the question with uncommon candor: "Honestly, the way things are today, the women just don't play as well as the men do. That's just how it is." Marsalis went on to draw comparisons between the meritocratic regime of sports to jazz: "If you can play, you'll play. Nobody's going to stop you. But it's like sports: If they beat you, they beat you. Look at the orchestras. You'll find plenty of women in the string section, playing violins, or playing flutes. But go to the back—among the brass, the trumpets, the trombones, the French horns—and they aren't there." He concluded "Why that is, the reasons for that, I don't care to comment upon. I'm not going to get into that. I got in trouble in New York once…" intimating his expectation that his comments would most likely be received as misogynistic, narrow-minded, and wrong.
Marsalis further took advantage of the forum to bemoan the lack of musical education among American youth: "Everybody has been corrupted to some extent by rock n' roll. Popular music is absurd, misogynistic—b****es and n***ers, you know…Much of modern pop music is exploitative—an exploitation of our children's sexuality. The state of art is not healthy. But there remain those interested in things of quality."
Just two days later, the Hopkins Center played host to one of the greatest classical ensembles in the world today. The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields was on the first classical compact disc I ever owned (a Bach compilation), and I have played their recording of the Brandenburgs, under the direction of the late Sir Neville Marriner, more times than I can remember over the years. For years I listened to them on recordings and over New York's venerable WQXR, without having the chance to hear them live.
The Academy's Chamber Ensemble was founded in 1967 with principal players from the renowned British orchestra with the express intention of forming a proper octet group. Their program indicated the first piece of the evening was to be the "Sextet in G major" by Johannes Brahms (1833-1897), Opus 36. Honestly, this was a bit of a disappointment for me, never having been a huge fan of the Brahms G major sextet. The first movement, Allegro non troppo meanders and wanders without ever fully capturing the imagination. Not even the Academy's spirited rendition could salvage the movement. The second movement, though, the Scherzo, was wonderful. The beautiful bohemian melody was well played, strengthened by the choice of a slower tempo rather than the all-too-hurried allegro typically employed. The remaining two movements, both Poco Adagios, while good, were generally uninspiring.
In the interest of full disclosure, I was a little disappointed to see Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) on the program as well, as twentieth-century music has never inspired me. There are, of course, the standard exceptions—Barber, Copland, Ravel, Rachmaninoff, early Scriabin, and so forth. I can even appreciate the rare living composer, say, Part, Rutter, or the lesser known but utterly fantastic Morten Lauridsen, whose Lux Aeterna is one of the choral masterpieces of the century. But, by and large, I find myself enjoying music of a different age. The compositions of Schoenberg, Berg, Cage and the rest of their avant-garde ilk are baffling, cacophonous, and ugly. It's not that I haven't tried to like them. I have. But I just cannot. It's the damned dissonance. Although I am reminded of a story I once heard that the American composer Charles Ives, while at an organ concert, overheard a fellow concert-goer in the pew behind him complaining about the unharmonious music. Ives turned around and retorted, "Shut up and take your dissonance like a man."
I am happy to admit, though, that my fears of the modern were unfounded, and I was left pleasantly surprised by the Prelude and Scherzo, Opus 11. A haunting and mildly dissonant piece, it was clear that Shostakovich, much like Benjamin Britten, was well aware of the myriad of special effects that could be achieved with the strings.
The Octet for Strings in E-flat Major, alternatively known as the Miracle Octet, of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-1847) was performed masterfully. It is, however, hard to believe that the work was composed by Mendelssohn when he was only 16. The second movement's beautiful, slow-moving melody enraptured the audience throughout the performance. The virtuosic Scherzo with its lively, extroverted theme was a joy to hear as well.
Fortunately, enough plaudits were delivered to merit an encore from the group. The second of Edvard Grieg's (1843-1907) two elegiac melodies, Last Spring—an unspeakably gorgeous, if hackneyed, piece—was announced by Ken Sillito, the ensemble's leader, as the encore. The final number was warm and romantic, yet noble, and without any hint of mawkishness. It was the way Grieg ought be played, and a fitting end to a fine concert.