Sunday 19 October 2008

Waking up to Wynton Marsalis


I woke up the whole house this morning with a rousing call from trumpeter Wynton Marsalis. I've had this album for about eight years and decided to give this guy a good spin this morning. Marsalis is more inclined towards jazz but it doesn't mean that he doesn't have a good ear for the classics. In fact, his versatility showed in this album which is a vibrant collection of trumpet music - mostly baroque - by composers such as Vivaldi, Purcell, Handel, Bach, Charpentier, Mozart, Haydn, Hummel, Bernstein and Paganini among several more. If you are in need of some bright music to start off your day, this album will just be the one to use, starting with the first notes of Jeremiah Clarke's The King's March to the final notes of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight Of The Bumblebee. All in, 20 vastly enjoyable tracks.

P.S. I intend to give this next album a listen this afternoon. A compilation of three Joseph Haydn concertoes featuring Yo-Yo Ma (cellist), Wynton Marsalis (trumpeter) and Cho-Liang Lin (violinist). Haydn the composer of the three pieces .... that's the only common thread running through this album. Ma, Marsalis and Lin do not appear with one another.