Tucson Blues

Friday night, I had my second opportunity to see and hear Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra in concert. I had high expectations and wasn’t disappointed.

Marsalis has won more awards, from Grammies to a Pulitzer Prize, than probably any other jazz musician living or dead, with the possible exception of Ellington. Opinion is divided among aficionados, though, about whether he warrants all the honors. I’ll just say that while he’s not my favorite musician, composer, or band leader, I’d never miss a chance to see him in a live performance. And the JLCO is comprised of fifteen of the finest musicians in jazz today, and together they put on a stunning performance of technical virtuosity and improvisational brilliance that leaves me dazzled and drained by the end of an evening.

The first time I saw them about two years ago, they performed a mix of jazz standards and a few compositions by different band members, but Friday night they only performed eight movements of Marsalis’ twelve-movement suite Vitoria, based on his experiences playing with various Basque musicians in Northern Spain. A Marsalis composition is generally very complex rhythmically and wickedly difficult to play, all the more impressive because he uses a lot of high-speed unison passages within his sections. I bought the CD set and have given it one listen. As always, a recording is a disappointment after a live performance, but I’ll give this one several chances. There are certainly lots of brilliant solos, even if the overall emotional effect can’t equal a live concert. And good CDs tend to grow on me, as they should.

Couple of interesting things: I saw the concert at the U of A concert hall in Tucson, where we’re camped in the desert a few miles out of town for all of February. We wanted to include a bit of an urban experience in our travels this year, and though a nice enough small city, so far Tucson hasn’t quite delivered on expectations. It’s no Portland (which is no San Francisco, which is no New York), but then Arizona is Arizona, and politically and culturally, it’s probably worse than you think.

The concert sold out, but I was surprised at the general age of the audience, which in and of itself constituted a drain on our already weakened Social Security System. Other jazz concerts I’ve been to have had a much more diverse audience. What’s wrong with the U of A student body? With small exceptions, this seems a decidedly less-than-hip college town. Basketball is big, though.

Another interesting note: I had dinner before the concert just outside the university main gate, and when I went outside onto the sidewalk, I was amazed to hear a very fine performance of Tuvan throat singing by two street musicians: a singer, also playing a guitar, accompanied by a young woman on cello. Talk about harmonic possibilities.

I had to leave for the concert but waited for them to finish a song so I could tell them how delighted I was to stumble on such an extraordinary thing in the streets of Tucson. I also bought their CD, which is nothing like I expected: either a very authentic folk music with which I am completely unfamiliar, or something very avant garde. Or both.

If you know even less about throat singing than I do, you can check out the entry on Wikipedia. Better yet, get a hold of the documentary film Genghis Blues about blind American blues singer Paul Pena, who discovered throat singing on a short wave radio and learned he had a knack for it. The film documents Pena’s trip to Southern Siberia to meet some of the native musicians and the warm welcome he received there. I got it from Netflix some time ago.

Finally: A total mix of weather here in Tucson in February: two nights in a row it got down to 17 degrees, and I thought we’d never left home.

Wind and rain. But mostly sunny and warm and wonderful on my old bones.

No snow here, but in the mountains around town a little.