Top Ten

Article updated Sept. 2, 2018 by Dave Read

Wynton Marsalis is every bit the national treasure that Leonard Bernstein was and it seems that we in the Tanglewood orbit keep getting luckier. This was dubbed the Bernstein Centennial Summer, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra segment of it was bookended with concerts by artists representing the city of New Orleans, currently in the midst of its own Tricentennial celebration!

The opening weekend of the 2018 Tanglewood season included Harry Connick, Jr. in concert and the Sept. 1 concert by the Wynton Marsalis Quintet and Ellis Marsalis Quintet closed it in a manner that makes an already memorable season unforgettable! (Producers for the Sept. 2 show in the Shed requested no reviews so – mum’s the word!)

Somebody ought to profile those two quintessential American musicians – wouldn’t you love to read a study that compares and contrasts the lives and work of Leonard Bernstein and Wynton Marsalis? To all appearances they are utterly different, yet exactly alike as American musical artists.

Donald Hall, their late poet peer, who also performed in the Koussevitsky Music Shed (as a guest on the 2008 A Prairie Home Companion), wrote about “…poetry’s continuous assertion that opposites are identical.'” I don’t think he’d mind if we substituted ‘music’ for ‘poetry,’ in order to properly align these Tanglewood Fellows, Bernstein and Marsalis.

The quintet headed by Ellis Marsalis, father of Wynton, played a flawless opening set, almost equally divided between covers and original material. The patriarch of the first family of New Orleans musicians (son Brantford has also headlined shows here) is an impressive presence with a deft but airy touch on the piano, with a minumum of talk between pieces.

Wynton Marsalis’ deep Tanglewood roots

This was a home game for Wynton, who recalled being in the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra under the direction of Leonard Bernstein for a performance of the Prokofiev Fifth in 1979. Marsalis, while singling out Gunther Schuller and trumpter Roger Voisin, besides Bernstein, for praise, stated simply that Tanglewood changed his life. Before the concert, we heard someone talk about the 1999 program here with the BSO and Seij Ozawa plus Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra combining to perform the Peer Gynt Suite, which Duke Ellington adapted for jazz orchestra.

The concert attracted a lage Lawn audience, but a rather sparse gathering in the Shed. Perhaps Ozawa Hall was the more suitable venue for this program?

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2018 Tanglewood schedule

The 2018 Tanglewood schedulefeatures a season-long celebration of the centennial of Leonard’s Bernstein’s birth, culminating in the Aug. 25 Bernstein Centennial Celebration hosted by Audra McDonald, with Maestro Andris Nelsons, four guest conductors and soloists Yo-Yo Ma, Midori, and others.

Article updated August 30, 2018 by Dave Read

Spirits were yet scurrying back to their haunting places when Christopher Eisenbach took to the podium less than fifteen hours after the Bernstein Centennial Celebration to lead the Boston Symphony and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus in the program that would conclude the BSO’s Summer of Lenny in the Berkshires.

Like wedding guests who meet for lunch the day after before resuming the routine of their lives, the audience today couldn’t stop talking about what they’d witnessed yesterday.

So, let’s get on with it, let’s play the program and put the season to bed. A routine rendition of that splendid chestnut – Beethoven’s Ninth, although never expected here in the Koussevitsky Music Shed, may have been acceptable – just this once.

Something else added to my enjoyment – two silences, lacunae less than a second in length, but of profound depth – a tremendous bit of artistry, accomplished by a visiting conductor, orchestra, and amateur chorus. Bravo!

It was my uncanny luck to be seated adjacent to a woman who sang in the Berkshire Chorus, antecedent to the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, in the news this summer because of policies instituted by director James Burton, in the wake of founder John Oliver’s 45 year tenure. Before the concert, she told me that she sees merit on both sides of the re-audition issue; later, she said that they had never sounded so good. Charles Munch conducted the last program she was part of; and she sang at Maestro Koussevitsky’s funeral!

July 18, 2015 Article by Dave Read

Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra gave a concert in Ozawa Hall yesterday that could serve as the template for all concerts: two sets artfully arranged to engage, sustain, and satisfy an auditor’s attention, with just the right measure of exposition from the stage to establish a conversation, contextualize the selections, and identify the musicians. Marsalis was an amiable host from his 3rd row seat in the trumpet section of the band, which he led through an overview of early 20th century jazz in the first set, followed by a set made up of compositions and arrangements by musicians in the band.

Tonight’s concert got underway with fairly quiet and subtle playing on compositions from the 1930s by Benny Carter, Symphony in Riffs and Duke Ellington, Mood Indigo. By the time the 3rd piece was over, George Gershwin’s Fascinating Rhythm, we knew we were in for quite a treat, as we’d already heard lovely solos by Marsalis on trumpet, Victor Goines on clarinet, and all three trombone players. The set ended with Things to Come by Dizzy Gillespie, which afforded everybody ample space to play, especially the exquisite rhythm section, emerging in the wake of a long trumpet run.

After intermission, the concert continued with a piece called 2/3 Adventure, by bassist Carlos Henriquez, then one rooted in spirituals by trombonist Chris Crenshaw. Next in the spotlight was pianist Dan Nimmer with a selection from a suite he composed from important political speeches. That was followed by sax player Sherman Irby’s arrangement of a composition by Wayne Shorter, who played with the orchestra recently.

The concert closed with Marsalis’s own Back to Basics from his Oratorio, Blood on the Fields, the first jazz composition to receive the Pulitzer Prize in Music (1997). Everyone in the band got another chance to solo, with Marsalis himself bringing it all to a humorous, muttering conclusion, waving the plunger mute over the bell of his trumpet.

Marsalis dedicates concert to the late Gunther Schuller

Marsalis dedicated the concert to the late Gunther Schuller, telling the audience that his stint at the Berkshire Music Center, which Schuller ran from 1970 until 1984, “changed my life.” At 17, he was the youngest musician ever admitted; two years later, he joined the Jazz Messengers lead by legendary drummer and bandleader Art Blakey.

• Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra Wynton Marsalis, Ozawa Hall, Tanglewood
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• Box Office: 617-266-1200; 888-266-1200
• Website: tanglewood.org