Branford Marsalis - Eternal
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Artist: Branford MarsalisEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2004-09-14
Music Label: Marsalis Music
Soundtracks:
- Ruby and the Pearl
- Reika's Loss
- Gloomy Sunday
- The Lonely Swan
- Dinner for One Please, James
- Muldoon
- Eternal
Free Music Notes for Eternal
Free Music Review: One of the greatest ballad albums ever recorded
Hit: 5 Stars
With Eternal, Branford Marsalis has done something I wondered if he would ever do--release a record that fully puts on display his huge, prodigal talent.
The key here, I believe, is his willingness to ditch the awkward and ungainly mannerisms that have too often sabotaged his efforts, most recently embarrassingly displayed on Romere Bearden Revealed. What we've got on Eternal is pure jazz musicality filtered through a very sultry ballad modality.
And it works splendidly.
Amazingly, Branford manages to sound equally convincing on two different horns: soprano and tenor. Look, it's hard enough to play ballads convincingly on one horn, let alone two. But Branford manages to pull it off. As is so often the case with transcendent jazz, the key is the leader's ability to evoke the elegiac (melancholic) mood without a trace of sentimentality. All the greats from Prez to Getz to Coltrane to Bobby Watson have been able to do it. To put Branford Marsalis in such company may seem a stretch, but this disc proves he's the real deal.
His work on soprano nearly jumps out. This notoriously difficult horn--difficult to keep in pitch, difficult to achieve a distinct voice, difficult to convey genuine emotion--he masters with such ease and aplomb as to practically deconstruct its reputation for contrariety. Check out his transcendent work on "The Lonely Swan," a stunningly beautiful Joey Calderazzo (piano) original. Striking the exact apposite tonal and conceptual mode, he nails this ravishing tune with such insouciance as to almost rewrite the book on soprano ballad playing.
His tone and approach on tenor bespeak a nearly unprecedented appropriation of ballad literature. Refinement without loss of virility--that's what characterizes his move on the larger horn, most abundantly parlayed on "Dinner for One Please, James," which also features off-the-charts dusky jazz pianisms from Mr. Calderazzo.
One of the things that distinguishes this set from run-of-the-mill ballad offerings is its combination of obscure standards, miraculously transformed, with surprisingly appropriate--and sometimes just drop-dead gorgeous ("Eternal," "Reika's Loss")--originals. You'd better nail it on a ballad album if you go this route. And these dudes do.
A note about the band (Branford Marsalis, soprano & tenor sax; Joey Calderazzo, piano; Eric Revis, bass; Jeff "Tain" Watts, drums): They're in some weird ur-jazz ballad zone here. Not only do they provide the exact right context for the remarkable music on display; they also communicate with a serendipity that borders on the uncanny. This musical ravishment, most fully realized on the title cut, obtains throughout the proceedings.
Listen, Branford: All is forgiven. You da man. And you proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt with this fabulous disc.
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