I was busily writing for three music magazines when early in 2003 I got a call out of the blue from Michael Quinn. Would I like to review a disc for Gramophone? A new work by Wynton Marsalis called All Rise, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, on Sony Classics. I had worked with Quinn when he was deputy editor of Classic FM magazine (RIP). He was now deputy editor of Gramophone. I demurred. This was repertoire out of my comfort zone – and I’d be making my Gramophone debut with it. Who would not be excited to be invited to join such an illustrious roll call of contributors, past and present? But it was still a daunting prospect: for me, this magazine has always represented the gold standard. The review took me about a fortnight to write. 

Clearly the Marsalis was a one off for I heard nothing further. Then a year later, Quinn rang again. This time he took me to (a very good) lunch and several glasses later had persuaded me to come aboard the good ship Gramophone as a regular member of the crew. The first disc I reviewed was Lang Lang’s Carnegie Hall debut (DG 474 8202) for the May 2004 issue. Reading it again, I think I was right to give it a mauling and to question ‘whether his musicianship matches his profile’.  It doesn’t seem to have affected his career too badly. 

Marsalis All Rise

Wynton Marsalis tpt Paul Smith Singers; Morgan State University Choir; Northridge Singers of California State University; Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra; Los Angeles Philhannonic Orchestra / Esa-Pekka Salonen

Sony Classical S2K89817 (106' • DDD) (Buy from Amazon)

Perhaps I've lived too sheltered a life, but I haven't heard anything quite like this before. It's a huge 12-movement work lasting a little under two hours, structured in the form of a 12-bar blues, separated into three sections of four movements. The first four of these are concerned, so the composer tells us, 'with birth and self-discovery; they are joyous. The second four are concerned with mistakes, pain, sacrifice and redemption. They are sombre and poignant. The last four are concerned with maturity and joy'. Marsalis has attempted a remarkable, unselfconscious fusion of many different musical styles, elements and textures. Dominated by what can be described loosely as the Big Band sound, these include folk song, jazz, gospel, Latin dances, ragtime and spirituals. Mahler, Ellington, Stravinsky, even Ives, get a look in. E pluribus unum: Marsalis. 

Commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and Kurt Masur who premiered the work in December 1999, All Rise is classy entertainment, by turns exhilarating, challenging, irritating and stimulating. The orchestration of this mammoth score, embracing such a wide range of musical disciplines, is a remarkable achievement in itself. The integration of the impressive Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with their classical colleagues is adroitly handled by Salonen. The well-drilled choral forces sing with confident exuberance. 

Like many another composer setting his own libretto and/or lyrics, Marsalis has not provided texts for the seven choral sections of commensurate accomplishment and dignity. The spiritual strain running through the whole work – 'I wanted to give thanks to God and reaffirm my commitment to continued creativity' (Marsalis) – is vocalised in the anodyne, happy-clappy strains of contemporary hymns and pop songs. 

Only the final three minutes (from 8'57") disappoint, a Dixieland jazz band pastiche which comes as a bathetic conclusion after the magnificent 'I Am (Don't You Run From Me)', which precedes it. Otherwise, 'cliché' is the last word one would use to describe this engrossing and courageous work which reconciles diffuse musical cultures and languages without descending to populist musical gestures.

Jeremy Nicholas (Gramophone, March 2003)