themelvinator Blog

I went to the Swing Dancing (aka taxes are done, let’s dance) party. I had a lot of fun, and it was the first time that I swing danced.  I have played swing in high school/college in jazz band but dancing to it was a different thing. Thanks to Jade and his roommates for hosting, it was awesome! Definitely will be up to learn more about swing… I guess practice makes perfect!

Until next time…

Last night’s performance was awesome! The theme of the performance was “Ellington Love Songs”, which featured some of Duke Ellington’s ballads. Wynton sounded as wonderful as ever, his tone sounding of the warmth of the emotions. His long time rhythm section (Ali Jackson on drums, Carlos Henriquez on bass and Dan Nimmer, on piano) were right on cue. The ballads provoked a sense of a time where things moved slower, things were not so complicated and “people danced on stairs”.

Now for some of the cons of the concert. The biggest one was of the guy that sat behind me with the cell phone. Wynton was playing a solo in the ballad, “Creole Love Call” when his cell phone rang. This was about 15 minutes into the concert. The funny thing was that the ringing was going on for like 60 seconds and when I turned around to ask him to turn it off, the guy was still not aware of it, (or probably just ignoring it). He eventually turned it off. I think this is even a worse atrocity than people who leave their cell phones on in the movie theater; this is at a LIVE concert, during a SOLO. Another thing that bothered me is when the audience claps at the wrong time. Ryan Kisor, trumpet, was playing “Concerto for Cootie”, which featured him as the soloist. After a phrase of him playing, people started clapping. He’s the soloist, he is not done with the solo. One more thing that bothered me, don’t remember what the song was called, but when the orchestra started to snap their fingers during on of the solo’s, some people of the audience felt compelled to snap their fingers to complement the ballad. What, does the audience now have a copy of the sheet music in front of them all of a sudden? That bothered me.

Anyway, overall my concert experience was “eh”, but the main feature, listening to Wynton’s voice (trumpet voice, that is) and the support of the Orchestra was awesome. Their interpretation of Duke Ellington’s ballads were spot on.

Until next time.

I going to see Wynton Marsalis perform tonight! I’m so excited! Here are some clips of him playing some jazz…

These two, Sean Jones and Marcus Printup, are going to put you in the jazz mood…

Until next time…