Branford Marsalis Quartet live at 34. International Jazzweek Burghausen 2003

Branford Marsalis, tenor saxophone
Joey Calderazzo, piano
Eric Revis, bass
Jeff „Tain“ Watts, drums
recorded live at Wackerhalle Burghausen, May 8, 2003

1. In the Crease
2. Mumphkin Man

"The intricate "In the Crease" is the kind of set-opener that would rather set up an evening's universe of discourse than knock you flat for starters. Even so, there are probably very few bands who could play it and live. The vamp on which it is constructed will probably defy your attempts to count it. For the record, it's two bars of 4, then one each of 6, 3, 4, 6, followed by three bars of 4; that's on the improv: the melody chorus features an extra bar of 5/8 before the bar of 3, and if you think I worked that out without asking the composer you're mistaking me for some other guy. Anyhow the vamp would only be a wiz-kid math-trick worth its approximate weight in gnats" wings did it not make musical sense and were it not for the fact that the quartet gets into its furious complications and swings it high and wide. Branford's choruses are procedural and logically constructed, and he surprised me by not wrapping himself in sheets of sound, as is sometimes his wont, for a climax: there's just the smallest flash of linen and it's not at the end: there goes another predictable feature of his playing wiped away by fresh development. Quiet as it's kept, I think Joey Calderazzo gets into more interesting terrain on this tune than the leader. While you're enjoying the landscape, do note Tain's serial thunderbolts cannonading down the valley over the vamp near the finish." Rafi Zabor wrote the liner notes for the Grammy winning 2000 album "Contemporary Jazz".