A Hit and a Miss for Ellis Marsalis

Irvin Mayfield and Ellis
Marsalis
Love Songs, Ballads and Standards
Basin Street Records

Trumpeter Irvin Mayfield has
often been an artist who wears his heart on his sleeve. This sentimental
exuberance has helped put the panache in Los Hombres Calientes, made
his breakup concept CD, How Passion Falls, especially vivid, and
has fueled his tireless efforts (as musician, cultural ambassador, library
board member, you name it) to resurrect New Orleans after the hurricane
and flood that took the life of his father. But the combination of overripe
ballads and the chance to record with his mentor, the pianist and patriarch
Ellis Marsalis, makes Mayfield’s most every bleat bathetic, and the
sum of Love Songs corny and starchy. I wouldn’t quite call
it elevator music. But if I heard it on an escalator, I’d want to
get off.

The disc’s problems are symbolized
by the fact that there are not one, but two versions of the hoary, somnambulant
Beatles standard, "Yesterday," bookending the record with a studio
opener and concert closer that aren’t different enough to justify
the redundancy even if the improvisational acumen were more apparent.
The song selection sets a high bar—"Superstar" and "A House
Is Not A Home" have plenty of stirring versions even without Luther
Vandross’s definitive takes, and material like "Round Midnight"
and "In A Sentimental Mood" require more than lush atmosphere and
a few swoons to become distinguished.

The best things here are a
solid version of "Mo’ Betta Blues," a "Don’t Know Why" that
provides much needed whimsy, and Marsalis’s elegant piano on Corinne
Bailey Rae’s "Like A Star." Not coincidentally, they are three
of the four tunes recorded last June, post-Katrina; whereas the other
ten numbers are from 2004. Most of these arrangements were sufficiently
dewy just with a quartet (drummer Jaz Sawyer and bassist Neal Caine
abet the leaders), but the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra is brought
in for further sweetening, another sign of overreach. In the liner notes,
Mayfield says he "didn’t intellectualize" his song choices. Next
time, a few more brain cells might be a better investment.

Love Songs, Ballads and
Standards * (one out of five stars)

Ellis Marsalis Quartet
An Open Letter to Thelonious
ELM

An Open Letter To Thelonious,
likewise, had the potential to be stodgy and hackneyed. Monk tributes
come a dime a dozen, and Ellis Marsalis—the father of Wynton Marsalis,
after all—is a thorough but resolutely orthodox jazz scholar and musician.
He remains that way on Letter, and proves you don’t have to
take liberties with classic material to keep it refreshing.

Marsalis admits in the liner
notes that he didn’t initially "get" Monk, and there is the diligence
of atonement in the way he burrows into the crevices of Monk’s fractured
rhythms and invests himself in both the earnest and wry aspects of the
great composer’s work. Ellis himself takes the lead on songs involving
the ladies in Monk’s life, unveiling the languid contentment of "Crespuscule
With Nellie" and the sweetness of "Ruby, My Dear." He delivers
a brief but memorable two-handed solo on "Light Blue" (misspelled
"Light Bue" on the disc) that helps portray an essential Monk contradiction,
relaxed complexity. And his dappled notes showcase the beauty of "Monk’s
Mood," including a solo that captures Monk’s ability to be elliptical
and allusive yet never lax or otherwise inattentive.

The other star of the quartet
is Ellis’s youngest son, drummer Jason Marsalis, who among other things
was Irvin Mayfield’s cohort in Los Hombres Calientes. His drum solos
on Letter are plentiful and thus inevitably garrulous on occasion,
but his turn on "Jackie-ing" is pure delight, an adventurous mixture
of crisp Monk and New Orleans march time, and his hard-bop propulsion
on "Straight, No Chaser" gives the tune the feel of Blakey’s Jazz
Messengers. Saxophonist Derek Douget and bassist Jason Stewart round
out the ensemble, with Douget’s soprano horn leading the dialogue
on "Epistrophy" and the whole band exuding a light-hearted vibe
on "Teo" (Monk’s paean to his longtime producer, Teo Macero) and
the irrepressible "Rhythm-A-Ning." After a nifty solo that drops
in a "Sweet Georgia Brown" quote on the latter tune, Marsalis closes
out the disc with a solo rendition of "Round Midnight" that is luscious
with sentiment yet never cloys. Compare its acuity to the pro forma
romance contained in the "Round Midnight" on Love Songs, and
hear why good intentions don’t suffice without an artistic follow-through.

An Open Letter to Thelonious
**** (four stars)