press

Date: 03.01.2008
Publication: Jazz Times
Author: Branford Marsalis

ALVIN BATISTE (1932-2007) Like many of the guys from his generation, Alvin played everything but was classically trained, so all of his music was informed by that classical training. When Larry Combs, the retiring principal clarinetist in the Chicago Symphony, was in New Orleans for a while, Alvin asked him for a lesson. Larry told Alvin to play something, and Alvin played a bit of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto. After listening, Larry said, “That’s great. Do you play jazz, too?” After he heard Bat play a few songs, he then said, “There’s nothing I can teach you, but thanks for stopping by.”
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Maybe some folks are getting tired of the New Orleans self-love thing. Maybe some folks feel like they’re going to scream if they hear one more time how much more interesting this place is than anywhere else in America.

I’m not one of those people. And I don’t think anyone at the New Orleans Arena Sunday night was either. And I really can’t imagine anyone watching it on TV could think so either. Read more »

Date: 02.12.2008
Publication: Jazz Times
Author: Jeff Tamarkin

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Date: 02.11.2008
Publication: The Associated Press

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Date: 01.06.2008
Publication: The Philadelphia Inquirer
Author: Karl Stark

(Marsalis Music ***)

The generations conjoin on this stacked Dixieland recording. The tribute goes to longtime New Orleans drummer Bob French, who runs the city’s longest continuing band, the Original Tuxedo Jazz Orchestra, nearing a full century of performance. (The band was run for many years by his banjo-playing father, Albert “Papa” French.)

Bob French is a righteous player even the hurricane couldn’t wash away. The supporting cast tips you to his importance: Pianist Harry Connick plays the whole set; so does saxophonist Branford Marsalis.
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Date: 12.27.2007
Publication: Hartford Courant
Author: Owen McNally

No one could have imagined that such a life-affirming disc as this would mark the final testament of the progressive New Orleans clarinetist Alvin Batiste, who died this year at 74.

Making a joyful noise unto the Lord, Batiste struts his genre-busting mastery of everything from high-flying modernism to the stompin’, Mardi Gras-like jubilance of the session’s grand finale.
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Date: 12.16.2007
Publication: All About Jazz
Author: Howard Reich

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Date: 10.01.2007
Publication: Boston Globe
Author: Kevin Lowenthal

Friday night, at Symphony Hall, the BeanTown Jazz Festival opened with an all-star offering that came within at least shouting distance of its advance billing as “concert of the century.” Titled “A Celebration of Jazz and Joyce,” the concert’s personnel was lovingly assembled by jazz impresario George Wein, the proceeds benefiting the Berklee scholarship fund named in honor of his late wife, Joyce Alexander Wein.

The show opened with rousing quintet versions of Thelonious Monk’s “I Mean You” and Tadd Dameron’s “Hot House.” Bassist Ray Drummond and drummer Jimmy Cobb were a Rolls-Royce of a rhythm section. Saxophonist Lew Tabackin and trumpeter Jon Faddis blended beautifully and soloed commandingly. On the second tune, Cobb traded whirlwind eight-bar solos with the other four.
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Date: 09.01.2007
Publication: Traps Magazine
Author: Robert L. Doerschuk
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Date: 07.16.2007
Publication: Marsalis Music

Since the release of The Marsalis Family: A Jazz Celebration in 2003 members of the Marsalis Family have been hard at work pursuing divergent but equally intriguing musical endeavors. In 2005 Ellis Marsalis, the patriarch of the family released An Evening with the Ellis Marsalis Quartet on ELM Records, a label he is developing with his wife, Dolores, and son Jason.

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