Wynton Marsalis Septet playing at Jimmy’s Jazz & Blues Club on July 9, 2022. (Photo by Karen McCarthy)
Notes of love, friendship, integrity and the resilience of the human spirit floated through time in a one-of-a-kind space created especially for listening to such things, as Jimmy’s Jazz & Blues Club on Saturday welcomed the legendary trumpeter/bandleader Wynton Marsalis.
On evenings like this one, you get a sense that a bit of time travel is included in the price of admission. Here at Jimmy’s, a breathtakingly restored 1905 YMCA building in downtown Portsmouth — a venue sculpted from history to showcase and advance the quintessentially American sounds of jazz and blues — it is easy to close your eyes and imagine yourself in a modern-day speakeasy.
And with Wynton Marsalis in the house, guests were treated to a soul-stirring evening of music — punctuated by passion and precision, vitality and grace — conjured by men who possess extraordinary skill at creating such things.
Acclaimed as musical innovator, Mr. Marsalis also infuses his performances with a reverence for who and what has come before — on this evening sprinkling his in-between banter with anecdotes of saxophonist Ornette Coleman and trumpeter Don Cherry, and dedicating a song to his father.
Ellis Marsalis Jr., who died in April 2020 due to complications from COVID-19, was a noted pianist and educator, an all-around exemplar of New Orleans jazz who came to be regarded as the patriarch of the “first family of jazz” after his sons Wynton, Branford, Delfayo and Jason made their mark in music.
Sporting a powder blue suit and pink tie, Wynton spoke longingly of “people who lost people” in the pandemic and in 9/11, of the New Orleans tradition of honoring those lost with loud, uplifting funeral marches, and about a hope that people and communities could “come together with that type of intensity without a tragedy.”
The influential “Young Lion,” now 60, also poked a little fun at himself about playing with cats who are 21–22 years old. He also shared an anecdote about what it’s really all about — the synergy between the artists on the stage and their connection to the audience, the music and its elemental ability to make people feel. While doing a show in Greece, the band feared they might have to play without some of their tech gear, but Wynton turned tension to calm by reminding the group, “Hey, we’re only just standing 2 or 3 feet apart.”
And there they were, the Wynton Marsalis Septet, just 8 or 10 feet from the closest faces in a rapt audience who had come to see and hear — to feel — their music.
People took deep breaths and slow sips as they watched and listened to the world-class musicianship on display — the purposeful, impassioned solos, the … pauses, and the glorious commotion of seven top-tier musicians laying it all on the line.
Around the room, flatscreen monitors provided a thoughtfully curated flow of footage, showing the show from unique and intimate angles. A glimpse of sharp-dressed, dreadlocked pianist Sean Mason from behind, hands on his keys. Drummer Obed Calvaire playing the tambourine with his hands while using his foot petal to punctuate a solo with powerful thumps. A tight closeup of Wynton delivering squeaky notes from his horn. Carlos Henriquez leaning his left shoulder into his standup bass to reach down and pluck his higher notes.
And when the final note had been played, my companion — overcome with the power and the emotion of it all — confessed that Mr. Marsalis’ encore had left her a “tearful mess.”
At once wildly entertaining and arguably profound, the entire experience hung in the air like a second encore — one that connected the musicians now leaving the stage with the spirit of legendary jazzmen Wynton has cited as influences: Duke, Monk and Miles; Dizzy, Bird and Pops.
— John Breneman
Related reading:
Inside Jimmy’s Jazz & Blues Club