MARSALIS, WYNTON

Recorded in 1987, Wynton Marsalis' brilliant Baroque Music for Trumpets is given a new lease on shelf-life in this 2005 Sony reissue. On the positive side, the label recognizes the tremendous artistic and commercial value of Marsalis' virtuosic forays into Baroque music with Raymond Leppard and the English Chamber Orchestra, and seems to acknowledge that this collection of pieces for multiple trumpets -- all multi-tracked by Marsalis, from two parts in Vivaldi's concerto to eight tracks in Biber's sonata -- is still sensational enough to attract the curious listener who might need such a hook to get pulled into classical music. But on the negative side, Sony has consigned this deservedly popular album to a slow demise in the dusty, musty Great Performances series, the label's drab looking econoline. It's hard to imagine how newcomers will be attracted by the ugly tan cover or the cropping of Marsalis' spiffy cover photo to a tiny black-and-white rectangle (the multiple exposure of his trumpet, which cleverly made the album's point, is hard to make out); but they should still give this fine album a chance, no matter how shoddy it appears. Remastered through DSD, this CD sounds better than ever, and all of Marsalis' parts seem evenly balanced, if not fully differentiated from each other. ~ Blair Sanderson, AMG

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