Marsalis’s Magic
Bob Edwards is stepping down as host of NPR’s “Morning Edition,” a post he’s held for 24 years. I’ll miss his no-frills style and dry wit.
A few days ago he interviewed one of my musical heroes about his latest record, The Magic Hour.
Those final minutes of the day, when parents everywhere are trying to get restless kids to settle down and go to bed, are what Wynton Marsalis calls “the magic hour.” It’s also the title of the acclaimed trumpeter’s new CD, which he says celebrates the childishness in all of us.
“When they know they’re getting ready to go to bed, it’s like they go crazy,” Marsalis tells NPR’s Bob Edwards. “Then you have to put the blues on them to calm them down. Then when you calm them down, you can get into a groove …. Then you read them the little bedtime story. Everything calms down and then they go ahead and go to sleep. That’s why it’s magic.”
The Atlantic had a great piece on Marsalis a year ago.
The fourth song was a solo showcase for the trumpeter …. He played a ballad, “I Don’t Stand a Ghost of a Chance With You,” unaccompanied. Written by Victor Young, a film-score composer, for a 1930s romance, the piece can bring out the sadness in any scene, and Marsalis appeared deeply attuned to its melancholy. He performed the song in murmurs and sighs, at points nearly talking the words in notes. It was a wrenching act of creative expression. When he reached the climax, Marsalis played the final phrase, the title statement, in declarative tones, allowing each successive note to linger in the air a bit longer. “I don’t stand … a ghost … of … a … chance ….” The room was silent until, at the most dramatic point, someone’s cell phone went off, blaring a rapid singsong melody in electronic bleeps. People started giggling and picking up their drinks. The moment—the whole performance—unraveled.
Marsalis paused for a beat, motionless, and his eyebrows arched. I scrawled on a sheet of notepaper, magic, ruined. The cell-phone offender scooted into the hall as the chatter in the room grew louder. Still frozen at the microphone, Marsalis replayed the silly cell-phone melody note for note. Then he repeated it, and began improvising variations on the tune. The audience slowly came back to him. In a few minutes he resolved the improvisation—which had changed keys once or twice and throttled down to a ballad tempo—and ended up exactly where he had left off: “with … you ….” The ovation was tremendous.
Lorraine Gordon had come in shortly before the final notes. Leaning over to me, she said, “What did I miss?”
