WYNTON MARSALIS "From the Plantation to the Penitentiary" Blue Note
Friday, March 9, 2007; Page WE09
YES, "FROM THE Plantation to the Penitentiary" is stamped by Wynton Marsalis's post-Katrina outcries, and, yes, the trumpeter, who hasn't exactly embraced hip-hop in the past, raps and chants on the self-penned "Where Y'all At?" It's the album's closing track, a stirring coda in which Marsalis rails against apathy and finger-pointing across the entire sociopolitical spectrum: "All you 'In my day it used to be' frauds / All you 'So what's' and 'Leave It to the Lawd's' / All you 'I'll just deal with whatever cards' / All you extended adolescent American bards."
Not only does the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer vent on his latest release, he often does so with certitude and conviction, even while treading on thin ice. (Try to square "Supercapitalism," which depicts a consumer society gone wild for "a lot of stuff, expensive fluff," with the glossy Movado watch ad campaign that features Marsalis's image.) But what rewards repeat listenings isn't the words but the music: enticing swing, darting bop, sensuous ballads, Crescent City beats, Afro-Caribbean grooves and all shades of blues, the deeper the better.
Indeed, the splendid showcases for reedman Walter Blanding, which bring to mind sax titan Ben Webster's resonating tone, are among the album's chief allures. Marsalis himself is in fine form leading his quintet, his tone crackling and shaded by turns, and the original tunes he has arranged for young vocalist Jennifer Sanon reveal her considerable gifts in a series of colorful and often challenging settings -- op-ed pieces and all.
-- Mike Joyce
Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra perform "The Songs We Love," a program of standards, Tuesday at the Kennedy Center.
