Branford Marsalis
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THE SCOTTISH NATIONAL JAZZ ORCHESTRA DIRECTED BY TOMMY SMITH PRESENTS THE MUSIC OF WAYNE SHORTER FEATURING BRANFORD MARSALIS September 2013 Legendary saxophonist BRANFORD MARSALIS occupies a unique place in jazz history and joins the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra tonight to pay tribute to another of PROGRAMME NOTES jazz’s true greats, saxophonist and composer, WAYNE SHORTER. Featuring charts including Nefertiti, ESP and Virgo Rising, Branford Marsalis and the Sometimes, you just know that something duties in North America. It’s hard not to SNJO will present music of extraordinary subtlety, passion and melodic character. is going to be special. It’s hard to imagine detect an ever-growing respect among a more potent combination than the critics, fans, pundits and commentators collective power of the SNJO under Tommy worldwide for its courage, its daring and its Smith and the lyrical virtuosity of Branford professionalism. It’s not surprising either Marsalis. It’s harder still to imagine more that audiences are now wondering what expressive music for them to explore they’re going to do next. than selections from the Wayne Shorter repertoire. Wherever you find great jazz minds who think alike you find convergence and There are few late-twentieth century confluence. One of the warmest embraces If you enjoyed tonight’s concert, please do also consider becoming a Friend and help exponents of jazz composition who have in orchestral jazz comes from Tommy support the future of the orchestra and jazz in Scotland. influenced modern music more profoundly Smith and the SNJO. Branford Marsalis, than Wayne Shorter. His contribution to Membership is available by at his soul-searching best, plays in a way jazz is undeniably significant, from his that often feels like a gentle touch on your personally productive Blue Note years, • Picking up a form at the SNJO desk shoulder. Together, they will be performing through several creative surges with Miles the music of Wayne Shorter, a composer • Downloading a form from our website: www.snjo.co.uk Davis to the creation of truly new music who wants to put his arms around the • Purchasing online at www.snjo.co.uk with Weather Report. world and hold it very tightly indeed. We do look forward to welcoming you. There have also been long and fruitful associations with Herbie Hancock and Shorter’s gutsy take on life and work is Joni Mitchell that cemented personal and reflected in the pieces selected for these artistic relationships. Now in his eightieth performances. Every journey begins with a year, Shorter continues to astonish first step and we may follow Footprints or, www.snjo.co.uk like Shorter, leave them behind for others with a fiercely independent attitude to composition and bravura performances. to trace. Branford Marsalis should need no Many of the tunes you will hear are nothing introduction to fans of beautifully shaped, less than signposts to an imagined future. SPONSORS lyrical jazz and elegant interpretations of It’s fascinating to listen again to the early We are deeply indebted to all our sponsors and thank them for their support. classical romanticism. You will, of course, This is for Albert; the concentrated juice of know him as a member of the pre-eminent Speak No Evil and the mysticism of Miles in Marsalis family, as a major contributor ESP and Nefertiti. to several stylish Sting albums and as a classical soloist performing with leading Along with 1989’s idiosyncratic Virgo Rising, orchestras. Naturally, his work with this music seems to punctuate the very his own quartet will be familiar to you. point of artistic discovery with exhilarating Perhaps less well understood in the UK visions of the shapes of things to come. If are his accomplishments in composition; one is to take anything away from these most notably his music to accompany a shows then it must be a restored faith Broadway revival of August Wilson’s play in our ability to navigate into tomorrow Fences and film score work for Spike Lee’s brightly, fearlessly and perhaps even a little Mo’ Better Blues. optimistically. Tonight, he is a very special guest of the SNJO, recently returned from a highly successful tour and ambassadorial Michael Stephen Clark cover photography by Palma Kolansky | graphic design Nadja von Massow / nadworks of the most respected making music without a map, Shorter Secondly, his commitment to excellence in his names in jazz is also was interested in plotting a course into chosen field is underscored by the clutch One one of its most vital and the unknown. Together, they made of awards, winning no less than nine creative forces; a saxophonist whose seminal music that still shapes our sense Grammys for either best instrumental compositional portfolio has made a of the last century; a time when man met composition, solo or performance. profound contribution to modern music. machine but still dreamt of the stars. Wayne Shorter is in many ways the Miles the adventurer and Shorter the If Shorter is competitive then it personification of modernity. His restless cartographer created new charts from is more likely that he is pitting approach to playing, his philosophical nothingness on albums like Kind of Blue himself against his own past perspective on life and his treatment of and In A Silent Way which were spiritual triumphs and trying new ways his own works has made him a daring in conception but technically exacting in to trump his own legend. You figure and a much admired man. their execution. have to wonder if there really is anyone else better equipped for He was first inspired to take up music Shorter’s liaison with Miles lasted six this task than Wayne Shorter; after sneaking in to see Lester Young hugely productive years. Both men were the man who drove Miles, play at The Carnegie Hall in New York compelled to continue their journeys forecast Heavy Weather and City. Right there and then, the young separately but they appeared at times lent jazz-minded rock the Shorter declared that he “had to get to be moving in similar directions, albeit credibility it needed to grow up me a clarinet”. It seems an impetuous along dissimilar paths. The ideas and and join the world of adults. beginning to a career marked by a instrumentation on In A Silent Way consistently cerebral way with music. morphed into a cosmopolitan (and The SNJO is joined by Branford Nevertheless, he was smitten by one of cosmic) outlook in Weather Report which Marsalis in an orienteering the most seductive propositions in music in turn provided Shorter with a vehicle for expedition through the music - the sound of jazz. some of his most dazzling compositions, of Wayne Shorter. Where they not least the irresistible Harlequin and lead we can only follow, and get Now in his eightieth year, Shorter is still panoramic Palladium. happily lost in some of the finest in love with jazz and is currently occupied jazz compositions in any century. with a new quintet engaged in complex Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter together re-workings of many of his most famous with Jaco Pastorius constituted a pieces. It is not premature to mention gravitational force that attracted many this so early in the narrative of his career, others. Weather Report did not break for Wayne Shorter has always operated down musical barriers so much as simply in the present tense. His compositional behave as if those borders did not exist. style may be governed by forethought, Many musicians have been inspired by meticulous scoring and precise notation, that swagger, and still strive towards but he has never been locked in by the similar goals. The great gift that Wayne past, nor held hostage to the future. Shorter has made to modern music is to suggest that a maverick tendency could His first roles as a sideman were be a modal approach to composition. with Horace Silver in the fifties, and subsequently with that great employer Shorter’s achievements in instrumental of emergent talent, Art Blakey. It was jazz music are essentially twofold. only after a prolonged courtship that he Firstly, he continually re-painted the walked through the revolving door of the high watermark for jazz composition WAYNE Miles Davis centre for dangerous minds. with original tunes such as JuJu, Yes or No, Infant Eyes and Footprints from his There were, if any, few arguments Blue Note years, and through his work between these kindred spirits. Miles was with Miles Davis and Weather Report. Photo by RobertAscroft SHORTER SPEAK NO EVIL SCOTTISH NATIONAL arrangement Pino Jodice JAZZ ORCHESTRA NEFERTITI arrangement Florian Ross BRANFORD VIRGO RISING REEDS arrangement Geoffrey Keezer Martin Kershaw MARSALIS THIS IS FOR ALBERT Paul Towndrow arrangement Christian Jacob Tommy Smith Konrad Wiszniewski YES OR NO Bill Fleming arrangement Fred Sturm There will be an interval TRUMPETS of 20 minutes Tom Walsh Cameron Jay WITCH HUNT Tom MacNiven Lorne Cowieson arrangement Jacob Mann EL GAUCHO arrangement Joe Locke Photo by Palma Kolansky TROMBONES FOOTPRINTS Chris Greive Branford Marsalis is a triple In the early 80’s, after graduating from arrangement Manu Pekar Berklee School of Music, Branford was Phil O’Malley Grammy award-winning jazz saxophonist Kieran McLeod who is widely respected for his quickly drafted into Art Blakey’s Jazz INFANT EYES Michael Owers achievements in vastly different musical Messengers and later joined his brother arrangement Michael Abene environments. Not only a jazzman, a jazz Wynton’s first quintet. This early phase innovator and a jazz educator, he is also a of his career was marked by his first ESP arrangement Mike Gibbs jazz emissary and has taken the best that recording, Scenes in the City and guest RHYTHM jazz can offer into the realm of classical appearances with Miles Davis and Dizzy music and of mainstream rock and pop.