Wynton Marsalis

Wynton Marsalis was one of the speakers in those movies we watched in class, but I forget when we watched them. He came to UB on Saturday with his Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. He was just one member in the band. They put on a 1.5 hour show, so not too long, but that's about how long a jazz concert goes. It was a real nice show. I was sitting up in the balcony with my friend from Fredonia and we were underdressed. I was planning on putting on a nice shirt, but I just forgot, oh well. I knew it was a nice theatre because I had been there for Derek Trucks last year. Wynton introduced the first couple of songs, said some jokes, and said how everyone in the band can improvise and write their own music. The band was a way to express theirselves and share their ideas. This was not what I expected. Wynton did take solos, but the other members of the band played equally well. After about two songs, he turned it over to a Saxophonist, Ted Nash. He had written a seven movement piece and they played the whole thing. What was cool about it was each piece was inspired a an artwork by an artist. He was explaining how music can also be art. The names of the pieces were of the inspired work. One was called "Picasso," another "Van Gogh," and another "Pollack," just to name a few. Before each movement of the piece Nash would describe the artist and how they did their work. Next, he would describe the piece of artwork that inspired him for the song. He would also describe his thought process behind each song. The one I remember best was his movement titled "Pollack." Jackson Pollack was an artist that would seemingly put random splashes of paint onto a canvas, but to Pollack each splash meant something. To a lot of people it just looked like one of those paintings that "I could paint that, I can't believe this is famous." Pollack's art could be described as "organized chaos." Nash said he wanted to make his music sound like "organized chaos." He said he just wrote out all his ideas separately, and then he rearranged them to make a song. This was the last song on the concert and it was phenominal. I could picture Pollack's art in my head. It almost seemed as though Nash was changing things on stage as the band was playing the song. It was incredible. I thought this was an excellent show and shows that you can listen to music visually too. I had never seen this done before, so it was a first for me.