Friday, January 28, 2005

Somebody keep Delfeayo away from Ascension.

And watch that old guy, Ellis, too.

Francis Davis's typically great jazz page in this week's Village Voice features an assessment of Wynton's LCJO take on Coltrane's A Love Supreme, alongside a sidebar review of brother Branford's live quartet take on same. Per Davis, Wynton suffers mightily by the comparison--
On Wynton: "Coltrane ends up sounding like Ellington, right down to the trombone wah-wah. But not even Wynton's crush on Duke explains the twee flutes." Egad.
On Branford: "He does honor to a classic while finally emerging as his own man."
Me, I would've pitted brother against brother, but Davis doesn't even whisper a word about sibling rivalry, instead pairing his Wynton/LCJO review with a different approach to jazz repetory, Don Byron's recent collaboration with the Sugarhill Gang.

One gets the impression that Papa M. could teach Richard Williams a thing or two about fostering intra-family competitiveness. I like how Branford went to the trouble of releasing the thing on his own label, Marsalis Music, as if to say, "Keep your fancy new house, I'm doing this in the backyard and I'm still going to take you down."

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