David Fricke: Jazz & Heritage Festival 2011
More Gumbo
by David Fricke (Rolling Stone)
Delfeayo Marsalis at the Louisiana Music Factory: Wynton's younger brother, fronting an eight-piece band pressed onto a tiny stage at one of my favorite record stores in the land, performed selections from his audacious new album, Sweet Thunder (Troubadour Jass), a compelling investigation and reinvention of Duke Ellington's 1957 suite, Such Sweet Thunder. Ellington's work was itself an adaption, big-band portraits of characters from Shakespeare, and in his half-hour sampling, Marsalis showed a deft balance of fidelity and ambition in his re-creation and expansion of the original themes. It also sounded good and loud, brassy in tone and temper, in the storefront setting.
Glen David Andrews at the Blues Tent: "You've seen him on Tremé," the MC said, introducing this singer and trombonist, who is a cousin of Trombone Shorty and trumpeter James Andrews. Isn't everybody in town on that HBO show? Onstage, Glen seemed too big for any screen, with a Jay-Z physique and a voice big enough to accommodate James Brown and Wilson Pickett. Andrews also has a catholic enthusiam when it comes to New Orleans funk: His band included barrelhouse-blues pianist Marcia Ball and the young Cajun fiddler Amanda Shaw. And it is rare to see crowd surfing at a Jazz Fest show – especially by a guy in a cream-colored suit wielding a trombone. Thirty minutes into his set, Andrews still hadn't played the thing. But everybody in the tent knew of his chops – and the showtime was too good to complain. (05/09/2011)
Glen David Andrews Artist Page
