New Orleans, the cradle of jazz, produced many trumpet players. Jazz innovator Louis Armstrong came from there, as did neo-boppers Wynton Marsalis, Terence Blanchard and Nicholas Payton. Christian Scott was recently added to that list. In 2006 he released the album Rewind That, good for a Grammy nomination. For his latest CD Anthem, Scott delved further into the New Orleans trumpet tradition. In
… his playing you can hear the bravado and fierceness of his illustrious predecessors. Anthem, like Blanchard's A Tale of God's Will, is inspired by the flood disaster that hit Scott's city in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina. In mainly his own pieces, Scott, assisted by guitarist Matt Stevens and pianist Aaron Parks, plays adult and emotional music that takes you from hard-bop blues and jazz rock to hip-hop jazz. The CD has a rather bombastic sound, drummer Marcus Gilmore, for example, is mixed as if he were playing in a symphonic rock band. If you manage to listen through that, you will hear an impressive CD with heavy jazz in the year 2007. (HB)more
