Jazz Hands - Wynton Marslis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra

After a long period of more mainstream music, it was time for a change! Wolf Trap was happily graced with wonderful jazz music from one of the greatest trumpet player in the world, Wynton Marsalis. He has had a long and fruitful career and has racked up 9 grammy awards for his numerous recordings. He was also the first jazz musician to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music for his epic jazz recording of Blood on the Fields. Surrounding him last night were some of the best jazz musicians in the business. I have always been in awe of the improvisational skills of many musicians and the sheer talent of those men last night was unbelievable. Every musician took turns arranging the music and their solos all sounded great. You could tell the style of each musician individually, which shows that they're all comfortable playing with each other and are very proficient at building off what their colleagues are doing. What I also liked was that Marsalis was usually just a another member of the band for most of the pieces. While he did have a long solo at the end of the show, he happily let the other musicians have their share of the spotlight and only took over to explain the next piece. The pieces themselves were often simple but that's the beauty of jazz, even the simplest songs can sound fantastic when played by great musicians! Thats exactly what happened last night and it was no doubt one of the most pleasant evenings we've had.

With the women of the lawn gone on vacation, it was time for the bros to take charge. We lucked out that our first show alone was pretty easy and not sold out like the previous nights have been. Our only problem came up when we had too many wheel chairs and not enough usher to take them. We worked it out though and I think we did a great job overall. The day was nearly perfect weather wise and it was a very enjoyable evening. As always, looking forward to more shows in the future!

My favorite part of the night was when the band played they song called "Cape Verdean Blues". While much of what the band played was mellow and soft, this piece immediately jumps out at you and offers a lot of room for the band to find a tight groove. As a musician, it was wonderful to hear this band play and it definitely encouraged me to keep up with my music!

DC

The best trumpet player I've ever heard