MARCH 25, 2014 AT 1:00 AM
CHARLES J. GANS ASSOCIATED PRESS
(Photos by Frank Stewart)
Wynton Marsalis has taken his Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra all the way to China and Russia, and on Sunday is performing at Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor.
The Orchestra has performed everything from early New Orleans jazz to Ornette Coleman’s modern jazz as well as classic tunes by Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk and Dave Brubeck, and compositions by contemporary jazz musicians, including several JLCO members.
“This is probably the most flexible ensemble ever in the history of jazz because we have to play so many different styles of music,” said Marsalis, JLCO’s music director.
Last fall, Marsalis released “The Spiritual Side of Wynton Marsalis.”
The album is a 15-track collection of spiritually inspired works he recorded from 1988 to 2002. It includes selections from “In This House, on This Morning,” Marsalis’ first commissioned work for Jazz at Lincoln Center in 1992, capturing the feeling of a Sunday morning church service in the South.
The trumpeter said its recent “Abyssinian: A Gospel Celebration Tour” was the most challenging in the band’s 25-year history.
The tour of U.S. performing arts centers and churches involved a convoy of four buses and an equipment truck. The 15-piece orchestra and the 70-voice Chorale Le Chateau conducted by Damien Sneed performed Marsalis’ “Abyssinian 200: A Celebration,” an extended work blending gospel and jazz traditions he wrote in 2008 to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church.
“There’s never been a tour where a jazz band and a big choir like this went on the road and played a piece like this,” Marsalis said in a telephone interview. “It’s definitely a spiritual experience when you get the choir and the band and the congregation in there together.”
The piece, based on the liturgy used in many African-American Baptist churches, draws on diverse influences. These include the lessons Marsalis learned from his music professor father about traditional spirituals, hymns and gospel music, his own experiences as a classical trumpeter performing the religious works of Bach, Handel and Palestrina, and his vast knowledge of jazz styles going back to the music’s roots in his native New Orleans.
From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20140325/ENT04/303250002#ixzz2xPQb0zkP
0 Comments:
Post a Comment