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Willie Nelson/Wynton Marsalis: Two Men With The Blues |
Contributed By: Dan Schwartz
Created On: Tuesday, 08 July 2008
Hits: 83
 Two Men With The Blues To say that these shows were a hot ticket would be an understatement. Luckily, the tapes were rolling and the results of this unique collaboration now constitute the Blue Note album Two Men With The Blues for everyone who couldn't cram into The Allen Room. Featuring great playing from one of the hottest bands around these classic tracks are given new life by the extraordinary dual talents of Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis. At a time when most people are thinking of retirement, Willie has never been busier. His profile has been high in recent weeks with his various career retrospective releases and sold out tour and this album can rightly stake it's place alongside anything else he has done. Wynton rarely sounds so relaxed and both of these musical giants are clearly having the time of their lives together on these new interpretations of some of the greatest songs of the 20th century.
Recorded live at New York City's Lincoln Center on January 12 and 13, 2007, the album finds the Wynton Marsalis quintet – Walter Blanding on sax, Dan Nimmer at the piano, Carlos Henriquez playing bass, Ali Jackson on drums, and Marsalis himself playing trumpet – quite jovial and at ease playing alongside Willie and his harmonica player, Mickey Raphael.
“Listen to the blues they're playing,” sings Willie in his classic “Night Life.” And at that line, it’s a cue for Wynton to wail a dramatic cry on his plungered trumpet. It’s a song that was begging for a jazz treatment, and here it is. Willie even gets some solo space with his guitar, and while his leads in the slow-walking “Night Life” are typically clunky in that patented Willie Nelson way, he rises to a more graceful execution in the band’s short but swingin’ rendition of “Caldonia.” By “Basin Street Blues,” which symbolizes the historically color-blind nature of so many musicians with its line “where the light and the dark folks meet,” his leads are sounding even more seamless and graceful.
 
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