If there’s one thing that the audience learned from the 90 minute performance by Branford Marsalis’ quartet of Eric Revis/b, Justin Faulkner/dr and Joey Calderazzo/p, it’s that there are some things that simply cannot be replaced by the benefits of a long term relationship.
The master soprano and tenor saxophonist has had an impressive career from his early days with Art Blakey, including stints with Sting and brother Wynton Marsalis before forming his own team of 13 years. The benefits of keeping a band together were evident in every tune, as each song, basically divided into three types, contained moments of intuition, silent communication and anticipation that can only be accomplished by years of developing trust and empathy.
The more bold and adventurous tunes, such as “The Mighty Sword” and “The Snake Hip Waltz”, featured Marsalis’ pure and pristine soprano working through a quirky calypso on the former and an angular three-legged race of a waltz on the latter. But those are simply the starting points, as Calderazzo and Faulkner dug in and volleyed off of each other, throwing lightning rods of chords and resounding drums on “Sword”r, while going from stop starts to hesitatin’ blues to down right funk on “Snake”. All the while, Marsalis and one of his partners would create spontaneous and simultaneous accents, bank shots ricochets and even stop on a dime finishes. Where’s the Amazing Kreskin?
Then there were the reflective and moody pieces with Calderazzo solemn and melancholically Chopinesque around the brushes and a desultory Marsalis, anchored by Revis on an Ellingtonian “Conversation Among The Ruins”. Likewise, a tribute to Wayne Shorter’s widow, “A Thousand Autumns” had the leader in a bel canto form on tenor sax, floating around Faulkner’s mallets and the Calderazzo’s dancing snowflakes, with the team softly building up into an agonizing climax and suddenly letting go to the drifting end.
Last, but not least was what seemed the dna of Marsalis, which were the Tin Pan Alley ditties, as his tenor imbibed the waters of Sonny Rollins and Illinois Jacquet in a deftly swinging “When I Take My Sugar To Tea”, or the stately jaunt of “The Sunny Side Of The Street” and Marsalis’ soprano evoking the Grand Canyon wide vibrato of Sidney Bechet, with Calderazzo and Revis pulling the piece apart like Salt Water Taffy. The evening closed with a downhome and completely at home chicka-boom’d “My Bucket’s Got A Hole In It”. Marsalis and his long time team are able to deftly bridge musical gaps spanning the hundred years of jazz history, and it’s only because of the inherent knowledge and trust of time team work can this take place. By the evening’s end, everyone that took in the night of music and mirth realized that for a man who has been in bands both young and old, one is silver, the other gold
Upcoming shows at Royce Hall include Antonio Sanchez & Bad Hombre 11/03, Tigran Hamasyan 11/12, Cecile McLorin Salvant 01/26 and MVF Band 02/23