Septet heaven
Would you believe that this concert ended at nearly 11pm? After six, or was it seven encores a thoroughly wide-awake and enchanted audience finally filed out of the packed concert hall.
They knew who and what they had come to hear and responded accordingly. So did the Septet - they gave us everything - blues, jazz, honky tonk - the works.
Wynton Marsalis must never be separated from his grubby-looking trumpet (it must be an antique). It's a part of his being, his soul. He speaks, laughs and sobs through it and his six merry men swing along with him as though they had come from the same womb.
If I have one gripe it's that he stopped using the mike to announce the numbers after the second one. It seemed to bother him. Not that it mattered. When these guys got their reptilian tongues around a tune, they went to heaven and back again.
It was especially moving - so much so that I heard a man during the interval say he felt like crying when Marsalis played Hoagy Carmichael's Stardust. I wish I had sat next to him - we could have shared a handkerchief.
Equally poignant was one of Marsalis's own compositions, About a Man and a Woman.
We heard Thelonius Monk's music, Jungle Blues by Jelly Roll Morton - There Will Never Be Another You - announced as East of the Sun.
Pianist Eric Reed at first appears to be ham-fisted, but he turned out to be as loose as a goose and offered a completely new The A Train which was simply indescribable.
Wess Anderson on alto sax is big and beautiful. You wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley unless he was sweet-talking into that horn.
Wycliffe Gordon wore white spats which in no way detracted from his superb playing. He has breath control and phrasing that's out of sight even when he's clowning around.
Benjamin Wolfe, the bass player, kept a steady, tuneful backing throughout. Towards the end he showed himself to be a musician of some consequence. Ditto the drummer Herlin Riley and tenor sax and clarinet Victor Gaines.
I'm sure if this great Septet had been jamming in a Harlem dive in the 50s everybody would still be there begging for more.
Wynton Maraslis Septet, Cultural Centre Concert Hall
