After several years of absence from us, the magnificent trumpeter from Syracuse, Joe Magnarelli, came back to visit us, thin as a paintbrush and with abundant gray hair, but with that exquisite sound that we reminded him of bygone days. On this occasion, he is forming a quintet of great interpretative solvency, accompanied by the Kentucky saxophonist and flutist Vincent Herring, the Swedish drummer Joris Dudli, the Californian pianist Peter Zak and our beloved and admired local double bassist Ignasi González. The session was planned, and everything turned out that way, as a tribute to the great trumpeter Lee Morgan, an ill-fated musician who disappeared prematurely but who nevertheless left behind him a work and sound recordings of a high compositional caliber and an undeniable influence on numerous colleagues. of his own generation and in many others of the following.
With room B at the Enric Granados Auditorium almost full, wonderful acoustics and an audience super predisposed to enjoying a bit of high school jazz, the show responded, without a doubt, to all the expectations created a priori, because they were noteworthy – very high– the lyricism and warmth with which both main performers showed themselves in the solo parts, or forming a duet, together with the magnificent phrasing of the pianist, and the rhythmic support parts made up of the double bass and the drums. Regarding Herring, whom we had not yet had the opportunity to see live, the reputation that preceded him and that work curriculum, recordings and collaborations of his that take your breath away, this first meeting to listen to him was most comforting, making good all the expectations that we had raised around his figure and his more than remarkable technical qualities. An authentic marvel that, added to the wonderful state of form of Magnarelli and company, left us with sensations of pleasant well-being as well as the desire to hear them all once more, together or separately, as soon as possible.
