The new Wynton Marsalis and Eric Clapton album, Marsalis And Clapton Play The Blues: Live From Jazz At Lincoln Center, was released yesterday and is currently streaming online. Here is a little background followed by the link to check it out: New York City's premier jazz venue got the blues last April when Wynton Marsalis and Eric Clapton performed together in Rose Theater at Frederick P. Rose Hall, home of Jazz at Lincoln Center for two sold-out shows dedicated to vintage blues. The extraordinary collaboration, billed as Wynton Marsalis & Eric Clapton Play the Blues, paired these musical virtuosos with members of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra as they brought to life a repertoire of songs selected by Clapton and arranged by Marsalis.
Marsalis, Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center and nine-time Grammyฎ Award winner, writes about his collaboration with Clapton, a 19-time Grammy recipient, in the album's liner notes: "...we wanted these concerts to sound like people playing music they know and love, not like a project." To help them achieve that level of devotion, Marsalis and Clapton were joined on stage by Dan Nimmer (piano), Carlos Henriquez (bass), Ali Jackson (drums), Marcus Printup (trumpet), Victor Goines (clarinet), Chris Crenshaw (trombone, vocals), Don Vappie (banjo) and Clapton's longtime keyboardist/sideman Chris Stainton. Marsalis says the group combined the sound of an early blues jump-band with the sound of New Orleans jazz to accommodate the integration of guitar/trumpet lead, a combination that gave the musicians the latitude to play different grooves, from the Delta to the Caribbean and beyond.
Listen here
