Standard Time, Vol.5: The Midnight Blues

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Opening curiously with the classic reveler's benediction "The Party's Over," this 12-selection program of standard material finds Wynton Marsalis's buttery trumpet elegance in the superb company of Eric Reed on piano, Reginald Veal on bass, and Lewis Nash on drums. Augmenting this debonair quartet is the delicately balanced string orchestration of Robert Freedman, who some may recall from Marsalis's original with-strings date, Hot House Flowers. Removing the CD from its jewel-case tray reveals an inside back-cover photo of a recently vacated bed, leaving little doubt that this is another in Wynton's ongoing subseries of romantic interludes. His trumpet is aptly broad and gorgeous in tone, seeking the beauty spots inherent in these romantic short stories. "Baby Won't You Please Come Home" indeed! --Willard Jenkins

Product description

Opening curiously with the classic reveler's benediction "The Party's Over," this 12-selection program of standard material finds Wynton Marsalis's buttery trumpet elegance in the superb company of Eric Reed on piano, Reginald Veal on bass, and Lewis Nash on drums. Augmenting this debonair quartet is the delicately balanced string orchestration of Robert Freedman, who some may recall from Marsalis's original with-strings date, Hot House Flowers. Removing the CD from its jewel-case tray reveals an inside back-cover photo of a recently vacated bed, leaving little doubt that this is another in Wynton's ongoing subseries of romantic interludes. His trumpet is aptly broad and gorgeous in tone, seeking the beauty spots inherent in these romantic short stories. "Baby Won't You Please Come Home" indeed! --Willard Jenkins

Review

The most accessible album thus far by the most influential jazz artist of our time.... If a certain emotional reserve and air of calculation occasionally undercuts his impact, the album is nonetheless a major addition to the jazz-ballad canon. -- Entertainment Weekly

This is one long, slow kiss of a jazz album. The Midnight Blues isn t about raunchy conquests or saccharine fantasy but late-night, grown-up, wish-we-were- closer yearnings: It s a soundtrack for a party of two. -- People

With his extensive classical training and a background steeped in jazz tradition, trumpeter Wynton Marsalis made an indelible mark on both classical and jazz worlds in the early 1980s. Thus, Marsalis seemed a natural to combine jazz with strings. However, he has only sporadically used them in a jazz setting outside of his 1984 Grammy-winning classic, Hot House Flowers. On "Spring Will be a Little Late This Year" from the 1998 release The Midnight Blues -Standard Time, Vol. 5 (arranged and conducted by Robert Freeman), we hear him displaying his passion and strengths on both sides of the equation.
--- JAZZIZ Magazine Copyright © 2000, Milor Entertainment, Inc. -- From Jazziz

[T]his marks volume 5 in Marsalis's ongoing chronicle of the great standard songs of the 20th century. To the spare and entirely complementary setting of Eric Reed's piano, Reginald Veal's bass and Lewis Nash's drums, the date blends the string arrangements of Robert Freeman. -- Jazz Times, ISBN13: B0000062HE ISBN10: B0000062HE Material Type: audioCD