I seldom listen to the radio when I’m driving, but on a really long journey I might break the silence with a few bars of Marriage of Figaro. But I can’t sing to save my life, so I eventually put on a Mozart CD instead.
Mozart was a genius, and few have since been equal to this inspired tunesmith. However, this generation has a near equal – the trumpeter Wynton Marsalis - whose eclectic performances range from classic baroque to home-spun jazz compositions from his own prolific pen. He’s not a bad poet, either, and his latest album ‘He and She’ explores in a myriad of jazz forms, the lines and themes of his poem of the same name.
He reads snatches of the poem throughout the recording, which concludes with the whole piece as a single track. Marsalis has a mellifluous, hominy grit voice that sounds for all the world like that of the big coloured guy that used to wander about in an overcoat and a floppy cap telling us in a poetic manner why we should bank at Barclay’s. (I think).
Somebody bought me the He & She album as a birthday present (I am six and a quarter, today, June 12) and I would love to play you the whole thing. However, the best I can do is point you at this YouTube trailer and invite you to taste a morsel of the Marsalis genius.
You will hear only a snatch of the poem, and miss one of the best bits: “One plus one make two, Like you and me before becoming we.” I wish I could write like that.
