Following is a translation of an article that recently appeared in All About Jazz Italia. Link to the original article is here: http://italia.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=7099
“Such a sweet thunder,” as Shakespeare describes in the words of Othello for Desdemona, and so win the beautiful Duke Ellington wanted to name the new suite (1957) dedicated to the characters of the Bard. “Such Sweet Thunder,” produced in close collaboration with Billy Strayhorn, is one of his most beautiful and is one of the most valuable results of the jazz orchestra in the twentieth century. Half a century later Delfeayo Marsalis has decided to dismiss an album that reinterprets the famous suite for a small staff and an excellent mixture of respect and innovation.
Versatile trombonist and great quality, is best known as a producer, a role which has recovered the traditional methods of recording the double bass, returning to the instrument its characteristic color and summarizing the operation in the phrase “To Obtain more wood from the bass sound , this album was recorded without usage of the dreaded bass direct “, which are printed in a lot of brothers Wynton and Branford discs. It ‘also very involved in social work, working with young people in his Uptown Music Theatre in New Orleans.
Returning to Sweet Thunder, the first thing that strikes you is the ability to capture sounds and colors Delfeayo Ellington orchestra despite having a staff that varies, but never more than nine elements. Obtains a result that those who really understood the secrets of writing ellingtoniana, the movement of the inner voices, the timbre and the games known to define the essential harmony of the Duke.
So even the most faithful to the original songs come out transformed for different balances in the body and the different personalities of the soloists. Often the assumptions, music and text, of Ellington’s compositions (and Strayhorn …) developments arise that appear very natural and convincing. Madness and power seem very stimulating Delfeayo, Victor Goines pushing (Madness in Great Ones) and Branford (Sonnet for Caesar) in exciting improvisations that SFOR at free without any sense of incogruità. Star Crossed Lovers, dialogue between Romeo and Juliet, in the original played by Johnny Hodges and Paul Gonsalves, here revived in the notes of Delfeayo and Mark Gross, with the precious support of Mulgrew Miller on piano. The grandiose opening is enhanced by blues solos of remarkable Marsalis brothers. The leader excels in steps plunger muted and faces the final Circle of fourths, a ride through all the shades, taking the place of Gonsalves and convincing in a tour de force even more impressive when given to an instrument like the trombone theory, less agile .
The meeting with the classical texts is the nature of the sons of Ellis Marsalis, Wynton witnessed by so many jobs with the Lincoln Jazz Orchestra, Foosteps of Our Fathers by Branford and now this remarkable Delfeayo Sweet Thunder.
