Send "Wynton Marsalis " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Popmatters |
 I’ll admit it. When I ripped open a padded envelope last week and found a copy of Wynton Marsalis’ new box set Swinging into the 21st my heart sank. What could be said about Wynton Marsalis that hasn’t already been said? Then I started doing some research and realized that, my god, there is a lot about Wynton Marsalis that I don’t know. But not to bore you with my lack of knowledge (that’s a whole other article all together), let’s talk about this set. In 1999 Marsalis set out on an incredible journey. In those 12 months, he recorded and released nine albums. Yes, nine. Nueve. Nuef. Nove. Ok, you get the point. Those albums, and one more two-disc orchestration recorded at the Hollywood Bowl only days after Sept. 11, 2001, are included in this box set. After binging (not purging) on these 11 discs over the past week, I have decided that Wynton Marsalis should officially be declared the hardest working man in show business (sorry, Mr. Brown, your title has been passed on to the next contender). But the most amazing thing is that, each on their own, and for their own separate reasons, every one of these discs is legitimately good. Some are better than others, but they are all albums that speak beyond the modern day; they lean on history and they reach toward the future. They are jazz at jazz’s finest, whether in the form of a ballet, an improvised session, a tribute album, a live performance, or an orchestra. The two tribute albums contained in the box—Mr. Jelly Lord and Marsalis Plays Monk, discs six and two in the set, respectively, and both part of his Standard Time series—pay homage to two of the most important jazz artists in history: Jelly Roll Morton and Thelonious Monk. While the tribute to Jelly Roll is a near perfect recreation of the hootin’ and hollerin’ old school New Orleans jazz that fills your dreams of classic Bourbon Street bars, Marsalis’ take on Monk is quite different than what the great pianist would have ever done. Though they still hold some of the quirks of Monk, the takes here are more straightforward and provide an engaging listen to the beauty of Monk’s writing, rather than his rhythmic inventiveness. Jumping back to the opening disc of the box set, A Fiddler’s Tale is a rework of Igor Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat, a piece written as musical theater that could be performed independent of its spoken word. Marsalis’ version is, of course, rooted in a different place than Stravinsky’s, and replaces the original story with one by Stanley Crouch, performed vibrantly in segments throughout the disc by actor Andre De Shields. The music alone is also played as filler after the string quartet arrangement of At the Octoroon Balls (disc three of the set), which Marsalis wrote for the Orion String Quartet. While Octoroon may be the least successful of Marsalis’ nine albums that year, it still stands to provoke the thought that Marsalis simply cannot be stopped: if he has an idea, he will pursue it, whether or not it’s where his comfort lies. Though it has roots in jazz, its most calling sounds are not jazz—they are experimentally classical. And of course, there are beautiful moments laced throughout. Sweet Release & Ghost Story: Two More Ballets by Wynton Marsalis come to us as the fourth disc of the set. Sweet Release, to the ears at least, is one of the more groovy ballets out there. The story of a romantic courtship, it captures all the emotions of the beginnings to a new relationship: subdued nervousness, fluttery excitement, all encompassing joy, and finally relaxed calm. Marsalis displays some truly outstanding trumpet work throughout the piece, which he performs with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, and the work as a whole is wholly remarkable. Ghost Story is, musically, quite the opposite. It is gentle though at times a bit more aggressive than it may need to be. His version of a tango is brilliant and perfect at times, but at others it seriously lacks enthusiasm. Unfortunately, that theme seems to carry on for the entire work in this case....full text |
| Allaboutjazz |
| Sony Legacy has re-issued trumpeter Wynton Marsalis' monumental recorded conclusion to the 20th century, Swinging Into The 21st. Originally comprised of nine albums released between June 1999 and August 2000, Swinging Into The 21st was Marsalis' effort to cap two decades of recording with CBS/Sony. The music was impressive in its variety and creative density. For this reissue, Marsalis' jazz cantata All Rise (Sony, 2002) is included. Composed and premiered during the period of Swinging Into The 21st, it represents the capstone to the series, a musical acknowledgement of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The album was made September 14th and 15th, 2001, in spite of the attacks and in support of the American resolve. It is a fitting coda for this important body of work. Collected below are contemporary reviews of all 10 original album releases. They are arranged in the order of the reissue....full text |
| Cduniverse |
| In celebration of Wynton Marsalis' 50th birthday, Columbia has compiled tracks off the trumpeter/bandleader's nine albums released between 1999-2000, better known as the Swingin' into the 21st series. Released one after another, the albums featured a mix of large- and small-group albums including The Marciac Suite, Standard Time, Vol. 4: Marsalis Plays Monk, Standard Time, Vol. 6: Mr. Jelly Lord, At the Octoroon Balls: String Quartet No. 1, the box set Live at the Village Vanguard, and others. Here we get Marsalis' picks for some of his favorite tracks off each album as well as highlights from his epic 2002 orchestral and big-band piece All Rise....full text |
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