REVIEW: BRANFORD MARSALIS AT THE QUEEN ELIZABETH HALL
Branford Marsalis
By Chris Pearson
The jackets came off early at Branford Marsalis’s concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall last Monday, promising another evening of no-nonsense, high-energy jazz.
And its true that Marsalis’s racing tenor sax solo on the manic opener, Return of the Jitney Man, was firmly in the mode of genial rage for which he is celebrated. But the saxophonist has been widening his horizons of late, and while the energy levels were kept up, the range was wider than that of his usual top-notch Trane tribute. As early as tune two, Marsalis had switched to Monk as an inspiration, playing a discordant call-and-response over Eric Revis’s persistent walking bass.
Ballads were also to the fore, courtesy of pianist-composer Joey Calderazzo, to whom the leader also generously yielded much of the limelight. The Blossom of Parting, on which Marsalis played soprano, was a desolate work whose yearning qualities occasionally recalled Jewish art music. Picking up on this, Calderazzo’s heartfelt solo ventured into semi-classical territory, before the rest of the band joined in for a bout of simultaneous soloing that built to a clamorous coda. The similarly titled The Last Goodbye began drowsily, with Marsalis’s Eastern-tinged sax gently climbing to a boppish riff that culminated in a fluid free-jazz workout.
But Calderazzo’s finest moment, indeed the high point of this excellent concert, was his solo on In the Crease. Another rhythm-shifting tour de force, this began with a probing tenor sax solo before Justin Faulkner’s insistent drumbeat took it through a dancing Latin pattern then on to a funky groove. Over this, the pianist played a series of trenchant, dissonant lines that grew progressively freer until he was practically snatching at the keyboard, throwing out angry, jubilant chords to the audience’s delight. Marsalis’s return took the piece to a punkish crescendo.
For the encore, Calderazzo stayed in the wings and British pianist Julian Joseph, who had been interviewing Marsalis on stage earlier in the evening, took over. The second surprise was the choice of tune: a remarkably reverent St Louis Blues that, in its blend of Bechet-like soprano sax, emphatic stride piano and marching press-rolls, evoked the spirit of Branford’s more traditionally minded younger brother. Joseph stood his ground with an earthy solo straight out of New Orleans before a Satchmo-style payoff brought the show to a bizarre but satisfying end.
