Wynton Marsalis & Orion String Quartet - At The Octoroon Balls / A Fiddler's Tale Suite (1999)

16 Jul, 12:17
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Artist: Wynton Marsalis, Orion String Quartet, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center
Title: At The Octoroon Balls / A Fiddler's Tale Suite
Year Of Release: 1999
Label: Sony Classical
Genre: Jazz, Classical
Quality: FLAC (tracks)
Total Time: 1:16:36
Total Size: 307 MB
WebSite: Album Preview

Tracklist:

1. Orion String Quartet – At the Octoroon Balls - String Quartet No. 1 : I. Come Long Fiddler (09:42)
2. Orion String Quartet – At the Octoroon Balls - String Quartet No. 1 : II. Mating Calls & Delta Rhythms (05:30)
3. Orion String Quartet – At the Octoroon Balls - String Quartet No. 1 : III. Creole Contradanzas (05:00)
4. Orion String Quartet – At the Octoroon Balls - String Quartet No. 1 : IV. Many Gone (08:56)
5. Orion String Quartet – At the Octoroon *Balls - String Quartet No. 1 : V. Hellbound Highball (08:21)
6. Orion String Quartet – At the Octoroon Balls - String Quartet No. 1 : VI. Blue Lights On the Bayou (02:32)
7. Orion String Quartet – At the Octoroon Balls - String Quartet No. 1 : VII. Rampart St. Row House Rag (04:48)
8. The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center & Wynton Marsalis – A Fiddler's Tale Suite: I. The Fiddler's March (03:21)
9. The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center & Wynton Marsalis – A Fiddler's Tale Suite: II. Fiddler's Soul (03:15)
10. The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center & Wynton Marsalis – A Fiddler's Tale Suite: III. Pastorale (04:12)
11. The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center & Wynton Marsalis – A Fiddler's Tale Suite: IV. Happy March (02:24)
12. The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center & Wynton Marsalis – A Fiddler's Tale Suite: V. Concert Piece (03:07)
13. The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center & Wynton Marsalis – A Fiddler's Tale Suite: VI. Tango, Waltz, Ragtime (07:29)
14. The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center & Wynton Marsalis – A Fiddler's Tale Suite: VII. The Devil's Dance (02:37)
15. The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center & Wynton Marsalis – A Fiddler's Tale Suite: VIII. Big Chorale (02:48)
16. The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center & Wynton Marsalis – A Fiddler's Tale Suite: IX. The Blues On Top (02:26)

Will Wynton's omnivorous appetite ever be satisfied? Seemingly enthralled with the string quartets of Bartók, he tries to write one of his own that basically takes off upon Bartók's (and America's Charles Ives') own methods of drawing upon vernacular language to create thoroughly contemporary classical music. While Bartók's inspiration was Hungarian folk music, Marsalis, like Ives, seems to draw upon American fiddle tunes and blues. Sounds interesting, but Wynton's reach has again exceeded his grasp over seven, often disjointed movements that stretch some 45 minutes - a lot longer than Bartók dared go. Wynton employs a lot of slithering portamentos, occasional passages of dissonance in a tonal framework, flinging ideas out there that are not developed or even hammered into a groove. The best movements are the rambunctious fifth, where the nod to Bartók is explicit in its insistent rhythms and glides, and the charming, straight-forward ragtime of the seventh. Though the liner notes are thankfully not by Stanley Crouch, they are of little help in determining the motivations behind the piece, and the Orion String Quartet works hard to pump life into this lofty attempt to jump genres. Classical listeners will make the associations more readily than jazz fans, who will be hard-pressed to relate this to anything Wynton has recorded before 1998. The disc is filled out by Marsalis and musicians from the Chamber Music Society Of Lincoln Center playing a suite from Marsalis's A Fiddler's Tale - which is essentially the music stripped of the narration - and the slithering, subtly swinging metamorphosis of Stravinsky's L'Histoire du Soldat holds up a lot better this way. This was the third of Marsalis's eight releases in 1999.

Wynton Marsalis & Orion String Quartet - At The Octoroon Balls / A Fiddler's Tale Suite.rar - 307.6 MB