Word: ellingtonian
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Writing mostly for large ensemble, Roberts has an almost cinematic gift for juxtaposition. To those familiar with similar works by Marsalis, passages of New Orleans polyphony and Ellingtonian coloration will not be unexpected; surprises include raucous group improvisations that flirt with free jazz cacophony. But where Marsalis' music sometimes suffers from overthinking--forced passes from an all-pro quarterback--Blues rarely falters in its grooves. Thanks are due to irresistible rhythm sections, some compelling young soloists, and Roberts' compositional wit as he muscles his group through changes in rhythm and genre. This is a heady album, but it doesn...
...Alley, 1988). His latest effort, The Resolution of Romance, a set of standard songs featuring his father on piano, is a return to the very essence of jazz -- a melody with a beat. The forthcoming sound-track album for Tune in Tomorrow, set in the Crescent City, features sonorous Ellingtonian orchestrations with a spicy New Orleans accent. In addition to recording, Wynton plays some 120 live performances a year at venues ranging from cramped basement clubs like New York City's venerable Village Vanguard to the cavernous Hollywood Bowl to Lincoln Center, where since 1987 he has served as artistic...
...distinctive black/white style, which occasionally echoes Paul McCartney or Ray Charles. The broad range of musical styles is equally absorbing: those Beatlesque strings in the austere Village Ghetto Land, the swinging blues underpinnings of Black Man, the Latin glee of Another Star. As Stevie puts it in his Ellingtonian tribute Sir Duke, "Music is a world within itself/With a language we all understand." Stevie's many fans would undoubtedly agree...
...blues on which Woody's first band, formed in the late 1930s, pegged its fortunes. His next band (1944-47), the first and best of a long succession that bore the name Herd, was a hard-driving ensemble with a precision-drilled brass attack, modulated by a sophisticated Ellingtonian touch. The first Herd's explosive rendition of such numbers as Apple Honey and Northwest Passage appealed to just about everybody-including Igor Stravinsky, who wrote the Ebony Concerto for Woody in 1946. The second Herd (1947-50) tried to hitch up with bebop, but muffled its big beat...
...Adams House will go hog-wild over them, but as I have observed before, the orchestra isn't everything at a House dance. I did like his theme song very much, and hope he plays it all the way through some time. It was a sort of atmospheric Ellingtonian piece with effective use of tomtoms, and I want to hear it again...
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