Wynton Marsalis: J Mood

Even as a teenager, Wynton Marsalis dazzled audiences with the sureness of his technique and the power and beauty of his tone. But the suppleness and variety of his rhythmic phrasing only came in his early twenties. By the age of 24when he recorded J Moodthe young trumpeter was pushing beyond the conventional boundaries of hard-bop phraseology, slicing and dicing the beat in ways few of his predecessors had attempted. He would continue to push ahead in this vein with a series of releases from the late 1980s, but we can hear an early example of these advanced explorations in this track. The performance begins with a quirky themelike a Blue Note head with extra beats tossed in hither and thitherbefore settling into a 12-bar blues, which Marsalis dissects with surgical skill. The rhythm sectionwhich, on its own, must rank as one of the finest trios of the decadeprovides a supple cushion for the proceedings.