Branford Marsalis 'Eternal'

Beautifully recorded, its performances full of concentration, "Eternal" (Marsalis Music) is a record of ballads by a saxophonist who has historically been much more impressive at fast, hard, dense music, a kind of boxing-ring jazz.

These days jazz musicians reflexively put together well-balanced CD's: there is a tacit consensus that jazz audiences are not perverse enough to want only one prolonged mood for an hour. But by programming seven ballads in a row, most of them fairly long, and switching between soprano and tenor saxophone, Mr. Marsalis gambles something and wins. It is his best record since "The Dark Keys" of 1996.

Slow tempos energize the group inwardly: this quartet's pianist, Joey Calderazzo, finds traction in montuno vamps; the drummer, Jeff Watts, plays the subtlest brush rhythms on "Dinner for One Please, James," recorded by Nat King Cole in the 1950's, and "Gloomy Sunday," made famous by Billie Holiday; and on Mr. Marsalis's "Eternal,'' he plays quiet essays on the cymbals that fall in and out of regularly stated time.

Mr. Marsalis, for his part, forgoes his cutting humor and musical slang; he lays back in a style informed by John Coltrane, but perhaps even more by Ben Webster: notes are plump, and long breaths become a greater part of the music.
[NY Times]