Branford Marsalis - Eternal
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CD Details
Artist: Branford MarsalisEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2004-09-14
Music Label: Marsalis Music
Soundtracks:
- The Ruby And The Pearl
- Reika's Loss
- Gloomy Sunday
- The Lonely Swan
- Dinner For One Please, James
- Muldoon
- Eternal
Music reviews of Eternal
Music Review: One of the greatest ballad albums ever recorded
Rating: 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.
Description of Eternal
Branford Marsalis knew that his quartet had achieved a new level of eloquence when two listeners told him on separate occasions that a ballad by the band had made them cry. "I had rarely heard that said about jazz before," says the acclaimed saxophonist, "and the comment made me realize that the quartet and I were achieving emotional development as musicians." The revelation led to Eternal, the September 2004 collection of original and classic ballads that realizes Branford's goal of "aiming for what Billie Holiday could do, which was to get to the emotions of each song." Eternal Features Joey Calderazzo, Eric Revis, and Jeff "Tain" Watts.Here Branford Marsalis takes on the special challenges of the all-ballad album: to make a CD that's distinctive and that maintains interest at slower and medium tempos. He starts by avoiding the usual repertoire, instead dividing his program between seldom-heard tunes--like "Gloomy Sunday" and "Dinner for One Please, James"--and originals. Each member of the quartet--pianist Joey Calderazzo, bassist Eric Revis, and drummer Jeff "Tain" Watts--contributes a ballad. What's most striking is Marsalis's concentrated emotional focus. On tenor he reaches deep into the tradition, summoning up some of the expressive depth of Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster, while his soprano saxophone is piquant over the Latin beat of "The Ruby and the Pearl" and crystalline on Calderazzo's graceful, melancholy "Lonely Swan." Marsalis's own "Eternal" is a multi-faceted voyage sparked by Watts's inventive drumming and climaxing with a keening, swirling tenor solo of real lyric passion. --Stuart Broomer
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