Wynton's ALL RISE record ****

[Pharaohrock]

Has anyone heard this record?? I have to say it's purely PHENOMENAL. If there was ever a record to make a believer out of a lifelong Wynton doubter, it is THIS record. This record, which I've been listening to all the way through every night before I go to bed, is the single greatest reason I'm beginning to reevaluate my stance towards Wynton. It's frankly the most complex large ensemble record I've heard outside of Black Saint and the Sinner Lady or Ellington's Black Brown and Beige Suite....there is so much going on and so much to listen for in this record. Serious. It will blow your mind.

But don't believe the hype- check it out for yourself. If it caused me to step back from my Wynton bias it may very well have the same effect on you, I being one of the staunchest Wynton skeptics in the past....

[Pharaohrock]

SOME INFO FOR Y'ALLS.

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 for chorus, symphony orchestra, and jazz big band soon became known as a symbol of something completely different. Just two days prior to a scheduled performance by Marsalis, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl in 2001, the terrorists of September 11 struck — and the performance (and subsequent recording with these forces) became a memorial, almost a catharsis, to a terrifying event. Yet "All Rise" would have been a special work in Marsalis' output even without the historical context. Though not quite as lengthy as "Blood on the Fields," "All Rise" nevertheless is the most ambitious thing that Marsalis had written up to this time, a piece that brazenly tries to embrace the whole world (to cite Gustav Mahler's definition of a symphony) and succeeds better than one thought it might. It is also the most fascinating and enjoyable of Marsalis' concert pieces, where the listener shares the composer's delight in opening himself up to new sonic experiences that his highly debatable pronouncements on jazz have long ignored. Cast in 12 movements, the piece is supposed to have been built upon the example of the humble 12-bar blues, but actually, as in other Marsalis concert pieces like "Fields" and "Big Train," the primary driving force is Duke Ellington — and, to some extent, Charles Mingus. Yet Wynton also throws his classical experiences into the mix, including neo-classical Stravinsky and neo-Baroque brass. He even attempts a string fugue in "Movement 4"; it's stillborn, running in place, but you end up admiring his moxie and his deflating wit in the movement's subtext ("We discover we can do wonderful things, get the big head, and get lost in a labyrinth of our own magnificence"). He mines Cuban and Argentinean rhythms, he includes gospel strains, and he doesn't forget to include stretches of the straightforward neo-bop style that brought him to the world's attention in the first place. He is also very generous with the solos, handing them out to his colleagues in the LCJO while taking one extended coruscating turn himself in "Movement 5." Ultimately, the resonances between this work and September 11 are uncanny. In "Movement 5," following a sequence of war-like drumming, the chorus screams and sings the words, "Save us, O Lord" — which hit painfully close to home to the Bowl audience. And in the end, the sudden coda — played in Marsalis' most joyous Dixieland manner — was a release, like the close of a wake. Even if you have resisted Marsalis' more pretentious concert music in the past, this two-CD set may well make you a believer. — Richard S. Ginell (allmusic.com)

[Pharaohrock]

Top. I'm keeping this thread alive until one of you smart folks decides to pick up this record and treat yourself to excellence and complexity 101.

[Pharaohrock]

Well, the call and response that is used in this work is just sublime, that's one thing....I also share in your belief that the use of the chorus is very effective and is furthermore, used sparingly for greater effect.

-This is certainly an ambitious work with many nuances and different levels of complexity, so repeated listenings are essential to getting the most out of it....I've listened to it a good 10 times now, but still don't feel I have anything near a predictable understanding of the music.....

[Chris A.]

I know a lot of people knock Blue Train, but I think it's great. Wynton is not the new Ellington or anything like that but he is up there.

[LeMo]

The most irrelevant and pretentious record I ever Heard. To compare this to the work of Mingus or Ellington are just an insult thrown to their art and life!

[Pharaohrock]

LeMo, I've read all your name-dropping, hipper than thou avantgarde posts and frankly- you seem pretty pretentious yourself. Maybe you're tone-deaf because most musicians are going to respect this record a good deal, for musical reasons....the same reasons they'd find worth in a record like Wayne Shorter's "High Life" which went over the heads of a lot of hipper than thou jazz fans like yourself.

[Hardbop]

I've gotta agree that "All Rise" is a nice swansong for Wynton on the CBS/Sony label. I hope his forthcoming Blue Note disk is as good. Hell, I hope his relationship with Blue Note turns out to be as fruitful as his relationship with CBS/Sony.

Meanwhile, I attended the Marsalis Family Concert at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark and the New York Times jazz writer Ben Ratliff must have been there as well. His very favorable review appeared in today's Times.

[LeMo]

Pharoah, I could have write your adress to me myself. Your so full of yourself, man than it's not very difficult to guess what will your reaction being when somebody dare to desagree wit you on any subject. Can't stand any opinion than yours , hu? In fact, Pharaoh, you are yourself nothing else than an intolerant and pretentious neocons. To go back to "All Rise" (The title sai-ys it all, that forsure), yes, it's just another piece of mystic junk who's refer tot he european classical music. One jazz musician or another (the dear Ornette, Himself...) does that sometimes. And the result sound exactly like a disaster ALL THE TIME. The new "composition" of the undertaker of jazz music is nothing else, once more, than a big musical pudding, a dead form. And I can see what kind of musicians will "respect" this... thing for, quote, "musical reasons"... Let me give you an advice Pharaoh: listen time to time to some avant-garde. To piece of Mr Braxton, by example, and, if you're not completely stone-deaf yourself, what I doubt, you will maybe, understand the difference between a real creator and a musician who is nothing than a mix of dogmatic ans academic arrogance. A bit like like you, it seems to me...