CD Review: Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra debuts The Lights Suite
This article appeared in Jazz Steps San Francisco, January, 2002
The Lights Suite, the first recorded offering by the San Francisco-based Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra, will be greatly appreciated by fans of true ensemble playing and post-bop style. Especially within the four compositions that make up the title suite, the CD offers compelling, understated arrangements, energetic section work and superb individual performances. Solos arise to provide insight and commentary within evocative tone poems, yet the soloists showcase the freedom of invention and the instrumental excellence that resides at the heart of jazz. In the meantime, the whole thing swings.
Bandleader and bass player Marcus Shelby, at age 35, is a veteran performer, recording artist and composer for theatre, dance and film. While this is the orchestra’s first CD, the group has been performing with the same personnel for close to two years, providing a cohesiveness that comes through on the recording.
Shelby’s adapted the CD’s centerpiece, “The Lights Suite,” from music composed for The Lights, a play by Howard Korder that deals with the tensions of modern urban life. The bluesy “The Lights” opens the suite with Rob Barics’ introspective tenor solo taking us on a romantic city tour, until a final burst of discord from the orchestra shatters the reverie. “Afro Mission,” alternating between African rhythms and an Ellingtonian Harlem jump, is a portrait of an embattled neighborhood holding its ground against the swirl of the city around it. “Portrait” is the highlight. According to Shelby, the composition follows a displaced newcomer on a sojourn through the play’s unnamed city as she decides to embrace urban life, struggles and all. The solos of altoist Gabe Eaton and pianist Matt Clark are revelations along this journey. “Dance of the Mission Babies” provides a burst of bebop street fervor.
The CD begins and ends with jazz classics. The opening “Moten Swing” gleefully invokes Kansas City, while the concluding number, “Dinah,” takes us straight to a New Orleans fairground. The relaxing Afro-Latin fun of “Maia” and the after-hours ballad “Anais Petit,” both Shelby originals, complete the project. Theater-related program notes aside, the music here stands its own as an earful of extremely enjoyable orchestral jazz.
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