• Skip to main content
Berkshire Links

Berkshire Links

  • Book rooms
  • Berkshires towns
  • Berkshires dispensaries
  • Berkshires parks
  • Bob Dylan
You are here: Home » Jazz

Jazz

Tony Bennett Lady Gaga throng swamps Tanglewood

July 1, 2015 Article by Dave Read

As Lady Gaga herself mentioned from the Koussevitsky Music Shed at Tanglewood early in her concert with Tonay Bennett June 30, 2015, it didn’t rain! But a steady drizzle and dreary skies did prevail all day long as a vast crowd assembled, causing miles-long traffic jams and overwhelming the usually efficient parking protocol at Tanglewood. With an hour to go before 8 pm showtime, Hawthorne St. was reduced to a single-lane parking lot – all the way back up Old Stockbridge Rd. to Lenox Town Hall. Tanglewood reported the audience a sellout of 19,000.

Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga performing at Tanglewood, Tuesday, June 30, 2015 (Michael Blanchard)
Tanglewood law audience Tony Bennett Lady Gaga concert, June 30, 2015; photo:Dave Read
Tanglewood law audience Tony Bennett Lady Gaga concert, June 30, 2015; photo:Dave Read
Tanglewood law audience Tony Bennett Lady Gaga concert, June 30, 2015; photo:Dave Read

It seemed like a bigger audience than the 2012 James Taylor concert that included a guest appearance by Taylor Swift, but probably not equal to Taylor’s July 17, 2002 concert, with the Boston Pops, that set the Tanglewood attendacne record – 24,470, and which led to the B.S.O.’s agreement with the towns of Stockbridge and Lenox to cap ticket sales at 19,000.

Tony Bennett sings Cheek to Cheek with Lady Gaga

Altogether the concert included 31 songs in about two hours; duets included their grammy-winning Cheek to Cheek and Anything Goes, while Bennett did a set of Frank Sinatra songs, mentioning the Sinatra Centennial celebration later this year in Las Vegas. Ms. Gaga reminded us that Ole Blue Eyes called Bennett the greatest singer in the world. Besides all the costume changes and vamping, the highlight of her performance was a beautiful rendition of La Vie En Rose. They have taken the entertainment world by storm since teaming up a couple years ago, and this is no novelty act. Nearing 89, Tony Bennett simply sounds great – still. Nearing 30, Lady Gaga sure has chops, and it shouldn’t belong before she’s a great singer, too.

George Shearing tribute at Berkshire Gateway Jazz

George Shearing tribute at Berkshire Gateway Jazz

Article by Dave Read

George Shearing; photo:James KriegsmannThe 3rd Annual Berkshire Gateway Jazz Weekend, scheduled for various venues in Lee, MA June 5-8,2014, features The Sounds of Shearing, paying the music of former Lee resident Sir George Shearing. Sounds of Shearing is led by Charlie Shoemake on vibraphone, a member of one of Shearing’s Quintets, and includes Joe Bagg on piano; Ron Anthony, guitar; Luther Hughes, bass; and Bill Goodwin, drums. Concert is Fri. June 6 at 8pm, First Congregational Church; tickets are $20 advance; $25 at the door. Tickets & info.

Berkshire Gateway Jazz Weekend is ponsored by Berkshire Gateway Preservation, Inc., in collaboration with Berkshires Jazz, Inc.

The Sounds of Shearing starts its first-ever northeast tour in the town where Sir George spent his summers for 10 years (in fact, the band will be staying at the very residence where Shearing stayed, the home of Dee Dee Fraser). Sir George Shearing was one of the most beloved and honored jazz pianists of all time. His widow Ellie will introduce the band via video.

Sonny and Perley Thursday June 5

The festival opens on Thursday, June 5 with the exciting duo of Sonny Daye and Perley Rousseau. After a successful performance at last year’s event, Sonny & Perley return by popular demand. The duo achieves a rare musical symbiosis, having spent the last several years developing and perfecting their unique blend of jazz, bossa nova, American songbook standards, and international cabaret, which has become their musical signature. (Spectrum Playhouse, 8pm, $15 advance seating, $20 at the door). Tickets & info.

New Black Eagle Jazz Band, Saturday June 7

The June 7 concert marks the return of the New Black Eagle Jazz Band to the Berkshires after a five-year hiatus. Perhaps the country’s most renowned exponent of traditional jazz, this seven-piece band has delighted audiences all over the world for more than 30 years, with their huge and eclectic repertoire of jazz from the 1920s and 30s. (First Congregational Church; $20 in advance; $25 at the door).

The Black Eagles have a mature mastery of this great American music, from Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton to early Duke Ellington to Cole Porter; from blues to rags to popular songs of the era. In fact, the New York Times’ John Wilson wrote that the Black Eagles are “so far ahead of other traditional bands…there is scarcely any basis for comparison.”

Monty Alexander Trio at Tanglewood

Monty Alexander Trio at Tanglewood

August 25, 2004 performance; by Dave Read

Monty Alexander Trio in concert Aug. 25, 2013 at Tanglewood's Ozawa Hall Monty Alexander peered out from the Ozawa Hall stage at Tanglewood, saw the auditorium half full, and proceeded to deliver a concert of upbeat and optimistic music to an enthusiastic audience that occupied way less than half the hall. Such is the nature of the Jamaican-born pianist, whose reputation apparently carries insufficient weight in the Tanglewood market, despite a fifty year career, more than 60 albums as a leader, and performance credits with legends of jazz including Dizzy Gillespie, Frank Sinatra, Benny Golson, and Oscar Peterson.

The concert began with a piece that quoted I Got Rhythm, begun by drummer Dennis Mackrel (Obed Calvaire was listed in the program) and bassist Hassan Shakur before Alexander made his entrance. A few minutes later, his composition Look Up seemed to be running alongside the A Train, and the next tune, Just Wait, was written in response to a successful bout with cancer.

Mr. Alexander evinced an easy rapport with the audience, even if he did seem to value his early experience with Sinatra more highly than today’s jazz fan would. And he was as generous with his sidemen as any leader could be. He stood aside while Shakur took a long ambling solo that somehow encountered The Pink Panther along the way. Other familiar tunes heard tonight were Come Fly With Me, Day O, The Battle Hymn of the Republic, and Sweet Georgia Brown.

The BSO was bolder than usual during the 2013 Tanglewood season with its “Popular Artist” programming. Tonight’s program had all the requisite merit on the artistic side, but as with a few earlier events, the marketing effort wasn’t up to par. That is unfortunate because, just as a full house can raise the level of excitement, a nearly empty one can be an un unhappy distraction.

Yo Yo Ma’s Goat Rodeo Show at Tanglewood

August 15, 2013 performance by Dave Read

Yo Yo Ma's Goat Rodeo Show at Tanglewood; Hilary Scott photoIf Tanglewood were simply Tanglewood, summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, its Tanglewood Music Center and eight or nine weeks of classical music performed by the BSO and their various guest soloists and conductors, we Berkshires locals would have plenty to be grateful for. But it is so much more, for so many reasons, not least of which is that Yo Yo Ma claims it as a sort of home for his seemingly boundless musical explorations. Incidentally, he also has an actual home in the Berkshires. (Goat Rodeo Show at Tanglewood photo: Hilary Scott).

His latest musical trip led to the Goat Rodeo Sessions, the 2011 album he recorded with bsssist Edgar Meyer, fiddler Stuart Duncan, and mandolinist Chris Thile, which won Grammys for Best Folk and Best Engineered non-classical. Both the album and tonight’s show featured singer Aoife O’Donovan, of Crooked Still and Sometymes Why. She reprised No One But You, Here and Heaven, from the album and added a stunning rendition of Bob Dylan’s Farewell, Angelina.

Everybody but Mr. Ma took turns on other instruments; Meyer played piano on Franz and the Eagle, and No One But You; Thile, whose singing blended nicely with Ms. O’Donovan’s, also played fiddle and guitar; Duncan also played banjo. Except that Ma seemed to indicate that Meyer is musical director, the impression from the audience is that these are four musicians equally expert in their own domains and equally excited to be making music with peers, just for the fun of it.

Hotels in the Berkshires

Berkshires hotelsFind hotels near Tanglewood with user reviews, check amenities, nearby attractions, availability and then book your room reservations at these lodging establishments through our partner, International Hotel Solutions (IHS), the leading provider of secure online hotel reservations.

2019 Tanglewood schedule

The Boston Symphony Orchestra has released the schedule for the 2019 season at Tanglewood, which will be remembered for the opening of the Tanglewood Learning Institute, the four buildings overlooking Seiji Ozawa Hall on the Leonard Bernstein camopus.

Music director Andris Nelsons will be present for the month of July, conducting 13 programs, including the world premiere of a new work by Kevin Puts, The Brightness of Light, based on letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz on July 20, and a concert performance of Wagner’s complete Die Walküre on july 27 and 28.

Esperanza Spalding at Tanglewood

Esperanza Spalding at Tanglewood

August 4, 2013 performance; by Dave Read

Esperanza Spalding at Tanglewood
Esperanza Spalding in performance at Tanglewood; Hilary Scott photo.
Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood was transformed Sunday evening into Ms. Esperanza Spalding‘s neighborhood; she is the phenom, who at age 4 made up her mind to have a life in music while watching Yo Yo Ma perform on Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. A year later she had taught herself how to play violin; by 20, she was on the faculty of the Berklee College of Music; and in 2011 she won the Best New Artist Grammy, the first time it was awarded to a jazz musician.

Tonight, her neighborhood was the locale for a session of the Radio Music Society, comprised of a crackerjack 11-piece band, which takes its name from her 2012 double-Grammy release. The horn section was set up behind music stands covered by a giant radio facade. Ms. Spalding made her entrance a few moments after the band had begun laying down the hypnotic beat of Radio Song. A little later, she implored our indulgence while she got a few things off her mind, relating to “friends. family, loved ones…”. For most in the near-capacity audience, it was easy to assent to her wish, if not an outright privlege to attend to her artistry.

Going back and forth between upright acoustic bass and electric bass guitar, Ms. Spalding occupied a musical space that could evoke a range of progenitors from Willie Dixon, to Jack Bruce, to Ron Carter. And her singing is just as impressive and various, if not peerless. For an encore, she cut loose with some terrific scat in duet with pianist Leo Genovese, promising us that it would be an improvement over the previous night’s effort at the Newport Jazz Festival.

Over the course of nearly 2 hours, we were treated to an abundance of jazz that was so contextualized that if you zoomed in to a small fragment, it was indistinguishable from mainstream jazz, but when you relaxed and took the long view, the music was the dominant fragment of a larger work, and any number of sub-genres could be identified, from hip hop, to blues, to opera.

Yes indeed opera! A case could be made that opera is the most appropriate milieu for Esperanza Spalding. Besides her duly noted accomplishments as bassist, composer, and vocalist, she evinces a perfectly entertaining knack for story and drama – a sort of sturm und drang marked by a wink and a smile.

Radio Music Society followed Ms. Spalding’s Chamber Music Society, and after tonight’s performance, the last in the US, we’re left in eager anticipation of her next venture. Besides entertaining and delighting audiences, it’s probably a good bet also that she inspires young would-be musicians, because she exudes the same joy in performance as Yo Yo Ma does. How’s this for a coincidence? Mr. Ma was the featured soloist at this afternoon’s Boston Symphony Orchestra concert next-stage over in the Koussevitsky Music Shed!

Terrence Blanchard Quintet performance Ozawa Hall, Tanglewood

Terrence Blanchard Quintet performance Ozawa Hall, Tanglewood

June 28, 2013 performance, by Dave Read.

Terrence Blanchard Quintet performance June 28, 2013 Ozawa Hall, TanglewoodThe Terrence Blanchard Quintet filled Tanglewood’s Ozawa Hall with two sets of dense jazz before a sparse audience on June 28, 2013. It was a lovely evening in the Berkshires, but rain had been forecast, so maybe that had something to do with the nearly empty lawn and four-fifths empty hall. Has the Berkshire county reached the tipping point, where there’s so much stuff going on, that so many tickets for such an accomplished artist as Blanchard could remain unsold?

Terrence Blanchard Quintet performance June 28, 2013 Ozawa Hall, TanglewoodBy “dense” we mean that the music made by Blanchard and his band occupied all the space available; the spacious Ozawa Hall with its renowned acoutistics sometimes seems to be accompanist, rather than mere facilitator, for a musical performance. Besides his brillance as a trumeter, Mr. Blanchard is a charming m.c., engaged with the audience, and generous to his band, which is terrific. He told a funny story about the Tuscon Jazz Society by way of introducing tenor sax player Brice Winston, a wonderful player who is heavily involved in jazz education.

Terrence Blanchard features new release Magnetic in Tanglewood performance

Terrence Blanchard Quintet performance June 28, 2013 Ozawa Hall, TanglewoodThe rhythm section was good enough to be booking their own gigs! Pianist Fabian Almazan, from Cuba, shone especially brightly on his composition, Pet Steps Sitteres Theme Song. The tune is on Blanchard’s current Blue Note release, Magnetic, which also includes Time to Spare, a groovy up tempo composition by Winston, which got the evening underway in good order. Robert Hurst lll was on bass; his 2nd set solo was mesmerizing. Blanchard told us drummer Justin Brown “has great time” and a great career ahead. Blanchard himself demonstrated total artistic mastery of the trumpet, including loud high passages where it felt like notes bolted off the stage and became hecklers in the empty balcony.

Remembering Dave Brubeck

Remembering Dave Brubeck in the Berkshires

Dave Brubeck in the Berkshires, Pittsfield CityJazz Festival, Oct. 17, 2009
Dave Brubeck in the Berkshires, Pittsfield CityJazz Festival, Oct. 17, 2009; photo: Dave Conlin Read.
We’re re-posting material in the wake of Dave Brubeck’s death Dec. 5, 2012, the day before his 92nd birthday. Dave Brubeck performed in the Berkshires throughout his legendary career, from the 1950s at the fabled Music Inn in Lenox to a 2009 Pittsfield CityJazz Festival performance at the Colonial Theatre.

Mr. Brubeck’s last performance in the Berkshires was a presentation of BerkshiresJazz.org, which afforded us the opportunity, as a member of the organization, to shoot some video during the afternoon rehearsal, where he prepared for his duet with high school student Sam Landes on Duke Ellington’s Take the A Train.

Dave Brubeck rehearshing “Take the A Train”

Dave Brubeck at 2002 Tanglewood Jazz Festival

September 1, 2002 performance review by Dave Conlin Read.

Three tunes into his 2½ hour 2002 Tanglewood Jazz Festival concert, Dave Brubeck said, “I like to introduce new stuff when I play here because the audience is so kind.” Makes you wonder if “here” referred to the seven year old Ozawa Hall where tonight’s gig was, or the Koussevitsky Music Shed, which opened when he was 18 in 1938, or just hereabouts, which would include the site of the fabled Music Barn and the Lenox School of Jazz, where he performed and taught during the 1950s. Regardless, what a treat it was to be in the audience while Dave Brubeck is introducing new material!

That new song was Crescent City Stomp, and it was built around an infectious beat established by drummer Randy Jones, a beat Brubeck said you hear all over New Orleans. Bobby Militello’s saxophone was the featured instrument after the drum intro and Brubeck himself was the most enthused member of the audience for a while, as he would be throughout the evening, whenever his bandmates took their many solos.

Rounding out the quartet, all dressed smartly in dinner jackets and black slacks, was bassist Michael Moore, who plucked and bowed several eloquent passages from his bass, which his languid body fairly enfolded. There were times when you’d think Moore was a ventriloquist for the cleanly enunciated lines he drew from his instrument, but an inartful one because all the while you could see his lips moving! (Read comprehensive bios of the band, from Hedrick Smith’s PBS show “Rediscovering Dave Brubeck.“)

Introducing the evening’s first tune, Brubeck said that for fifty years he started concerts with St. Louis Blues, but tonight would start with the title tune from his current release, “The Crossing.” He told about a trans-Atlantic jazz cruise with about 100 musicians aboard the QE II, which got underway on the Hudson, passed the Verazzano Narrows and into the Atlantic, ” – and we worked up a head of steam, which I hope we do tonight.”

They did.

The tune was some piece of magical mimicry; it was easy to imagine a grand ship honking and chugging away from the pier and soon enough finding its way into rough waters evoked by churning bass notes, then Brubeck took the helm playing long melodious lines, the ship rocking smoothly through eddies and swells.

In telling us that on September 21, he’ll celebrate his 60th wedding anniversary, Brubeck introduced the next tune, All My Love, a translucent ballad that had him hunched over the keyboard, his eyes only inches away from his hands playing so few notes that you could count them.

After The Crossing, came the haunting Elegy, an intimate composition that Ozawa Hall was designed for, where it seems to become part of the ensemble. Continuing in that vein, Brubeck introduced Don’t Forget Me with a few minutes of distant romantic lines that suddenly turned immediate and raucus with another of Militello’s expansive sax solos, and then had Brubeck’s hands flying all over the keyboard before he returned to the lonely little melody that he began with.

This was a very special evening of jazz, a million miles away from being a museum piece, every tune imbued with freshness and vigor. Brubeck’s age was apparent only when he stepped over to the mic, which he did several times to introduce tunes during the first set, which was probably pre-arranged as opposed to the second which I think he made up from the bench as he went along.

It began with Pennies From Heaven, dedicated to the people on the lawn who were being rained upon lightly. Brubeck played out the celestial theme in the next two tunes, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, and Sunny Side of the Street, developing each while the band listened to hear where they were going. Militello’s flute solo on – Rainbow was ineffably sublime. Sunny Side – was rollicking, and at one point Brubeck pointed toward Moore and drew a circle in the air, indicating another round of solos for all.

The audience responded to the celestial set with thunderous applause, which the quartet accepted graciously and which Brubeck seemed overwhelmed by, his grin so broad as he looked into the audience and then around to his band to spread out the acclaim. After his fans got quiet again, he mischievously noodled a few lines from Singing in the Rain then broke into the first notes of Take Five, the Paul Desmond composition from “Time Out,” the world’s first million-selling jazz record.

It was a thrilling rendition, featuring Militello’s slow reinterpretation of the theme before returning it to a rambunctiousness that Brubeck brought to a gleeful level which Randy Jones exploded with a virtuoso display of drumming. Brubeck brought the tune back to earth and then Jones laid down the tastiest little drum coda for the ultimate punctuation to this landmark of jazz.

Sustained applause brought these giants back on stage, Brubeck played a few notes of Brahm’s Lullabye to everybody’s amusement before the quartet re-loaded for Take the A Train, which was a rumbling jam session, the sea cruise of two hours earlier long over. It went on until Brubeck, answering a questioning look from Militello, raised his hands from the keyboard, turned them into pistols and fired a volley into the air.

This performance was a slice of jazz for the ages, delivered by the ageless gentleman genius Dave Brubeck and his virtuoso sidemen, each of whom was brilliant tonight.

Wynton Marsalis Quintet Christian McBride Trio at Tanglewood

August 20, 2012 Article by Dave Read

Wynton Marsalis Quintet and Christian McBride Trio performed one set each in Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood and then assembled for a mashup that looked to be as much fun for the musicians to do as it was exciting for the audience to see and hear. If there were an equal number of musicians and instruments, we would’ve called it a jam session, but with only one bass, one piano, and one drum kit on stage but two musicians for each, their playing was more in concert than what you’d expect to hear during a typical jam session.

Wynton Marsalis and drummer Ali Jackson, Jr, Ozawa Hall Tanglewood , Aug. 20, 2012; photo:Hilary Scott.
Wynton Marsalis and drummer Ali Jackson, Jr, Ozawa Hall Tanglewood , Aug. 20, 2012; photo:Hilary Scott.
Built around Cherokee, it was called by Wynton Marsalis after he recounted an episode from his early days on the road, when the legendary Pearl Bailey surprised him with a gift and told him to do likewise once he’s a headliner. Declaring that the chance to imrovise with other musicians is a jazz musician’s best gift, he invited McBride, pianist Christian Sands, and drummer Ulysses Owens, Jr. to join himself and pianist Dan Nimmer, bassist Carlos Henriquez, saxophonist Walter Blanding and drummer Ali Jackson, Jr. for the rousing finale.

Marsalis said that it requires good manners and being a good listener to be a good musician – so that you know when to play high or low, when to play loud or soft. He didn’t say anything about being a good dancer, but the several transitions between Christian McBride and Carlos Henriquez were so smooth that they coud’ve been choreographed.

essential element of jazz

Wynton Marsalis performs with his quintet, Ozawa Hall Tanglewood , Aug.20, 2012; photo:Hilary Scott.
Wynton Marsalis performs with his quintet, Ozawa Hall Tanglewood , Aug.20, 2012; photo:Hilary Scott.
Tonight’s performance put jazz in perspective in a way that made its European antecedent seem a bit stiff, at the very least. Beyond the equal parts of artistry to be found in the compositional and instrumental components of both European and jazz music, the latter has it all over the former by virtue of its allowance for improvisation, which cedes back to the musician some of the responsibility (credit and/blame) otherwise held by the composer alone.

Wynton Marsalis + Tanglewood

THe 50 year old Marsalis has a long history with Tanglewood; at 17, he was the youngest student admitted to the Tanglewood Music Center, (before enrolling at Julliard), and in 1995 he had the use of the still un-opened Ozawa Hall for the production of Marsalis on Music, an educational series along the lines of Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts, which featured Seiji Ozawa, Yo-Yo Ma, and Tanglewood Music Center students.

One of the most exciting concerts we’ve attended was the one in 1999 at the Koussevitsky Music Shed when Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra shared the stage with Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra for a program that alternated between Peer Gynt Suite being played by the BSO and the Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn arrangement being played by the LCJO.

Former young lion Christian McBride

Christian McBride, 40, who also studied at Julliard, talked about arriving where his mother had long-ago told him he would, when he no longer is a “young lion,” and expressed his delight in employing the young Sands and Owens. Sands’ mentors include Billy Taylor and Oscar Peterson, who were represented in the set by Easy Walker and Hallelujah Shout. McBride dedicated his set-closing number, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World, to Phyllis Diller, telling the audience that she’d died that day “with a smile on her face.”

McBride’s set was so thoroughly satisfying that it seemed as if his trio format must be the essential and sufficient blueprint for jazz. We held onto that assessment with confidence during intermission and until about five bars into Marsalis’ set, when we could only laugh at how wrong we were. Easy to get carried away trying to describe the addition of trumpet and sax to piano, bass, and drums in a jazz band, but here goes: from the ability to laugh/cry to the ability to tell funny/heart-breaking stories.

Diana Krall at Tanglewood June 23, 2012 review

Diana Krall at Tanglewood

June 23, 2012 performance reviewed by Dave Conlin Read

Diana Krall performing at Tanglewood, June 23, 2012
Diana Krall performing at Tanglewood, June 23, 2012; photo: Hilary Scott
Miss Diana Krall gave a bravura performance in the Shed on the opening weekend of 75th season of concerts at Tanglewood. The show featured a crackerjack combo Anthony Wilson (guitar), Robert Hurst (bass), and Karriem Riggins (drums) in support of an almost wierdly diverse setlist that visited many provinces of the jazz empire. While it wasn’t the sort of program Miss Mary Aspinwall Tappan had in mind in 1936, when she laid the family cottage (and 210 sylvan acres) on Maestro Koussevitsky (and the BSO), it was the sort we locals have become accustomed to while the BSO has become an increasingly important element of life in the Berkshires*.

Since her first Tanglewood apearance years ago, on a bill as Tony Bennett’s guest, when “show-stealing siren” could’ve been an apt description, Miss Krall has become a full-fledged star with a commanding stage presence and an easy rapport with the audience. That was especially evident during the solo portion of her two hour set when she led into several numbers with references to her parents; and talked about her 5 year old twins. (She made a surprise appearance just before their birth during husband Elvis Costello’s performance on Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz during the 2007 Tanglewood jazz Festivl).

Miss Krall’s artistry is a melding of her voice and the piano; combined with her personality and musical sensibility, tonight’s two hour concert thouroughly satisfied. Her band was equally brilliant, bass and drums blending in primarily supportive roles, but bassist Robert Hurst had some prominence, including one passage where he brought a song home with descending notes until perfect silence was made to reverberate.

Guitarist Anthony Wilson alternated between solo and support all night, as well as being Miss Krall’s go-to guy in deciding the setlist. He played several leads and riffs that excited the audience, and altogether produced the perfect complimentary sound to Miss Krall’s.

setlist: Fats Waller, Nat King Cole, Peggy Lee, Sergio Mendes, Tom Waits …

Her setlist drew from the work of Fats Waller, Nat King Cole, Peggy Lee, Sergio Mendes, Tom Waits, and Bob Dylan and included a stunning rendition of John Lennon’s Come Together. Since Quiet nights was released in 2009, Krall has performed on four continents, produced Barbra Streisand’s Love Is the Answer, contributed Simple Twist of Fate to the charity album Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan Honoring 50 Years of Amnesty International and performed on Paul McCartney’s new album, Kisses On The Bottom.

Opening the show were the Canadien duo Denzell Seymore and Devon Thompson; really tasty music, but just too much patter for an un-familiar opening act.

*We overheard a conversation – someone was bemoaning the Berkshires remoteness from the ocean or the great lakes – her interlocutor said true enough, but can’t you imagine Tanglewood as a sort of ocean where wave after wave of great music washes ashore?

Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis at Tanglewood

June 27, 2003 Article by Dave Read

Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis performed at Tanglewood June 27, 2003.
Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis performed at Tanglewood June 27, 2003.
The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis gave a spell-binding concert in the Shed at Tanglewood for an audience of 5,378; two sets with the whole contingent, 15 brilliant jazz players duded up in matching Brooks Brothers suits, followed by a mini-gig featuring Mr. Marsalis accompanied by the rhythm section and saxophonist Wes “Warmdaddy” Anderson. And you gotta know something about spelling to write about it because the titles of the compositions played include words such as “rhapsody,” “diminuendo,” “crescendo,” and “blues.”

This is the LCJO’s “Rhythm is our Business” tour so let’s mention the rhythm section first: Eric Lewis, piano, Carlos Henriquez, bass, Herlin Riley, drums. Second thing to say about them is that the second set was their’s, a set consisting of but one number, John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, which we didn’t time but must have run 45-50 minutes. The first segment of the piece built up to Henriquez’ haunting bass solo with the rest of the band chanting/intoning “a love supreme, a love supreme…”. Instead of being a tasty coda, that just gave way to a searing sax solo and then came “top professor” Eric Lewis’ virtuoso piano solo that not only kept the audience rapt for a long time but also seemed to stun his colleagues, who peered at him in awe and looked at each other with expressions that ranged from disbelief to joy.

All the while in the back sat Herlin Riley, keeping time, always smiling, glancing over his left shoulder at Mr. Marsalis, and then he started hitting the rim and sides of his drums and we were off to rhythm heaven – all we can report is that it’s a beautiful place. Mr. Riley’s tour de force elicited movement from everybody in the house, of course, except for professor Lewis, who looked as if he were alone in a mountain-top monastary, head bowed before an altar. The collegial leader Wynton Marsalis, who was a warm and witty m.c. throughout the concert, and spoke of his special affection for Tanglewood (but mumbled the not-that-long-ago year of his T.M.C. fellowship!), remained seated for his own lofty solo which coalesced the extraordinary rendition of Coltrane’s eloquent composition, and brought the most-appreciative audience to its feet for a prolonged and heart-felt ovation.

sourced from a medley of composers

Lastly, the first half consisted of the Marsalis composition Back to Basics followed by the novelty of a 3-minute rendition of Fletcher Hendersons’s arrangement of Ravel’s Bolero, then LCJO trombonist Ron Westray’s arrangement of the Charles Mingus tone poem The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady, Billy Strayhorn’s arrangement of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, and closing with Duke Ellington’s Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue.

Marsalis and the LCJO last performed here on July 25, 1999, sharing the stage with Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra for a program in celebration of the centennary of Duke Ellington‘s birth. The featured composition that night was Edvard Grieg’ “Peer Gynt Suite” and the program alternated between Marsalis leading the LCJO in Billy Strayhorn and Ellington’s arrangement with Ozawa leading the BSO in the Grieg score of the same passages. Pretty cool.
Members of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra:

  • Wess Anderson – sax
  • Seneca Black – trumpet,
  • Walter Blanding – tenor sax,
  • Vincent Gardner – trombone,
  • Victor Goines – sax,clarinet,
  • Andre Hayward – trombone,
  • Carlos Henríquez – bass,
  • Ryan Kisor – trumpet,
  • Eric Lewis – piano,
  • Ted Nash – sax, clarinet,
  • Marcus Printup – trumpet,
  • Herlin Riley – drums,
  • Joe Temperley – sax, clarinet,
  • Ron Westray – trombone.
  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Go to Next Page »
  • Piretti Tennis and Sports Surfacing
  • Lenox rentals, SunnyBank Apartments

© 2001–2021 Dave Read WordPress by ReadWebco