WYNTON MARSALIS: CARNAVAL

Here, Wynton Marsalis switches to cornet and tries to recreate the ambience of the proverbial village wind bands of long ago -- albeit with the emphatically big-league help of Donald Hunsberger and the massive Eastman Wind Ensemble. This means a program of transcriptions of classical tunes, variations on popular ditties, dollops of sentimentality, heaping amounts of showoff display figurations, and other stuff that used to go over big in Middle America in the days before radio and electrical recording came in.

From the hoary old hurdy-gurdy tune "The Carnival of Venice" that leads off the album onward, this is a record for dedicated antiquarians who dote on their Edison band cylinders because they like the music. But Marsalis works earnestly with the idea, playing those insidiously hummable tunes absolutely straight, with acres of flawless rapid-fire technical displays and even a touch of soulfulness on the token spiritual, "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child." And Marsalis' pass through the nonstop minefield of Paganini's "Moto Perpetuoz," using circular breathing to make the dumbfounded listener think that he doesn't have to take a breath, is a pretty astounding technical feat. Richard S. Ginell

1. Variations on "Carnival of Venice," for trumpet 7:32
Composed by Jean-Baptiste Arban
2. The Debutante, caprice brillant for cornet & piano (or band) 5:49
Composed by Herbert L. Clarke
3. Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms (AKA: My Love's On The Cold Ground) 3:26
Composed by Irish Traditional
4. Grand Russian Fantasia for cornet & orchestra 6:19
Composed by Jules Levy
5. Moto perpetuo, for violin & guitar (or orchestra) in C major, Op. 11, MS 72 4:31
Composed by Niccolò Paganini
6. 'Tis the Last Rose of Summer 1:46
Composed by Thomas Moore (composer/poet)
7. The Flight of the Bumble Bee, musical picture for orchestra (from The Tale of Tsar Saltan) 1:03
Composed by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
8. Napoli for cornet/trumpet & band/orchestra "Canzone Napolitana Con Variazioni" 5:43
Composed by Herman Bellstedt
9. Fantasie Brillante, for cornet & ensemble 8:16
Composed by Jean-Baptiste Arban
10. Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child 3:20
Traditional Spiritual
11. Valse Brillante for cornet & band 8:07
Composed by Herbert L. Clarke

Wynton Marsalis (cornet), Donald Hunsberger directing the Eastman Wind Ensemble
Recorded in the Eastman Theater, Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester, NY