PLAY THE BLUES – WYNTON MARSALIS AND ERIC CLAPTON

After Willie Nelson he only makes music with Eric Clapton, after the American Songbook he will “marsalize” the Blues live.

And he starts off with the street hit “Ice Cream” - a reference to the roots of Jazz in Blues and the logic of the cooperation with Clapton and the (also contributing) Blues ethnologist Taj Mahal, who dedicated his whole career searching for the roots of Blues. And so it seems that nothing has a definable beginning, not even the Blues, everything is always in transition.

These masters demonstrate just that with relish and with a wide range of instruments: a lot of horns, banjo, keyboard, bass, drums, piano, which makes Clapton and his throaty voice occasionally toil to assert himself in midst of this hubbub - especially as Marsalis also takes up a big chunk of the pie.

Evergreens like “Joe Turner's Blues” or Clapton's slowed down “Layla” get an old times flair which suits them well. It surely was an intoxicating evening for the audience in the New York Lincoln Center; and for the artists too. And they all learned something in the most pleasurable of ways.