Willie Nelson & Wynton Marsalis - Here We Go Again

How to fill the seats at the Lincoln Center? Well, you Wynton Marsalis and his group connect once more with the icon eternal Willie Nelson (their collaboration in 2008 was widely acclaimed blues), add pop singer Norah Jones as a guest singer and gather all of the program by the catalogue of another Mining Legend: the end of Ray Charles.

Marsalis and company did exactly hit the viewfinder each time on this recording of the event. And what is more apparent, unfortunately, is that the vocal shortcomings of Nelson grow more evident every year. Some will say that his altered voice has gained in character that he has lost in the resistance and the beach, but my ears tell me otherwise. Nelson retains his recklessness and his rhythmic sense infallible, but his restitution feeble of I Love you so have difficulty is probably the lowest track here. And his partially a cappella Duet with Jones in time cryin' ' is in disrepair, not in a good way.

The blues and R & B numbers as Hallelujah I Just Love Her So, dusty My Heart and hand searches of Nelson to lose in and provides some welcome swagger; but it is also significant that the anonymous soul singer is called to provide the muscular support on shouters such as Busted and Hit the Road Jack. And while Jones is impeccable, as always and manages the jazz (Come Rain or Come Shine, Makin ' Whoopie) and country (here We Go Again) with style and panache, blues and soul are not really its strength, and she sits most of the R & B numbers in the program. His contribution on the ridiculous final had I Say is discrete to a fault, and it only reinforces the overall absence of the kind of vocal gross provided by Charles (and the Raelettes) on the original versions.

On the plu side, the Marsalis band offsets very adequately occasional dull song, navigate through the various corners and crannies of eclectic songbook of Charles with just the right mix of jazz and pop smarts. Some of these old generally were no doubt played half to death, but the band manages to breathe life to almost all the with arrangements ingenious and spirited play. Marsalis himself has never sounded better, and the Nelson Mickey Raphael long-time harmonica player also provides that a few accompanying perfectly integrated and fine solo work, where the listener might think, that he was a regular group. Thanks in large part to the instrumental work, there is an amount satisfactory to the value of entertainment on this release - even if major revelations are not coming.

Wynton Marsalis at the Rose Theater - review

Wynton Marsalis performs albums for the past 30 years, since the release of his namesake of Columbia. By the bias of all but the first six of those years, he was not only famous trumpeter and the composer but also the public face of Jazz at Lincoln Center, an organization built around his vision and in many ways still propelled by it.

Wynton Marsalis with pianist Dan Nimmer at the Rose Theater. The latest on the arts, coverage of the events live, critical reviews, extravagance multimedia and much more. Join the discussion.

This overlap says long on the reception of Mr. Marsalis music tends to be received in some quarters however, effectively ignored in others. And this helps to explain the difficulty of disentangling the fruits of Mr. Marsalis as an artist of his function as artistic director. ("Suite of Vitoria," released last fall on Emarcy, documents one of his most recent works for Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra;) "Here go us again,"(just on Blue Note, features him with Willie Nelson and Norah Jones, in a program of the season 2009)""

On Thursday, the first night of a residence of three nights at the Rose Theater, Mr. Marsalis showed his own music, search for food until 1985. Much of his recent writing has been large sets, but here he himself limited to two smaller: his current quintet (in the first half) and a version of his septet of the 1990s (in the second). A retrospective study, it was slanted and incomplete. as a concert, he was informed, robust and engaging, with Mr. Marsalis himself as a superlative.

It is among the precious few instrumentalists jazz - let alone trumpeters - can convey emotion spreading through the harsh lens of virtuosity. Again and again, he focused the energies in the room with a single sentence or, Taborn, an unpredictable stream. On "The Majesty of the Blues," which opened the second half, he used a plunger mute to shaping a manifesto of the guttural grunts and trills high. "Sparks," a lively blues featured on a commercial iPod, had him breezing through a slalom croche, as young Clark Terry.

What has changed over the years, much more than his command as a soloist, is the dynamic in its groups.

"Most of these gentlemen here I taught when they were in high school,"he said of his quintet with saxophonist Walter Blanding Jr., pianist Dan Nimmer, bassist Carlos Henriquez and drummer Ali Jackson."" They have opened with "Black Codes," the anthem at a time when the Working Group of Mr. Marsalis was a combative peer group. In a way that refine felt wan and conscientious, and it was one that followed, one in two rickety steps called "You me and.." They were not out of a good start.

Corrective arrived quickly, with "First time", a melody involving breed rhythms and complex sound melody engraved by Mr. Marsalis and Mr. Blanding. Once this bar had been authorized, the band relaxed: "Doin' (Y) our thing," another fairly recent piece, sparkles with Copland-esque harmony, sound fresh and insured.

But there is so much more than soul and slang in the Septet - featuring musicians such as drummer Herlin Riley, Wessell Anderson alto saxophonist and bassist Reginald veal, all contemporaries of Mr. Marsalis - it has generated a visible imbalance. This framework was experience; part of it has been the urgency of the writing of Mr. Marsalis for a group of average size, with its front line of four men. It is not composed always not something more powerfully soulful as "Sunflower", which ended the night in a jubilant State.

This play was borrowed from "The Marciac Suite" (Columbia), released in 2000. has therefore been "Miss of Gascony," which came in the first half. A hot but melancholic ballad, he understood Mr. Marsalis squarely, and he replied with a masterful, laconic and lovely and poignant test. The eruption of cheers that followed was for him and him alone.

Wynton Marsalis performs once more on Saturday at the Rose Theater, Frederick P. Rose Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center, 60th Street and Broadway. (212) 721-6500, jalc.org.