Branford Marsalis recently claimed that classical music has made him a much better saxophonist than jazz. “Because for saxophone technique, guys end up playing fast stuff,” he explained. “In classical music, you just have to develop a technique to execute melodies and ideas that are beyond the linear ways that we tend to think about music. And that's the challenge of it for me.”

 

Listeners can evaluate for themselves on Branford’s first solo saxophone recording, In My Solitude, which includes a broad repertoire encompassing jazz, classical and even a popular TV show theme tune. The concert was recorded in 2012 at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral, which played host to Duke Ellington’s first Sacred Concert in the mid-1960s, and is now home to some of the recitals at the annual San Francisco Jazz Festival.

 

The concert opens with Branford playing soprano on Who Needs It; fortunately this turns out to be a composition by jazz saxophonist Steve Lacy, rather than the Hazel O’Connor song from the soundtrack to Breaking Glass. The first thing that strikes you is the quality of the recording, which captures every nuance of his playing, but also the magnitude of the surroundings, the slight echo and sense of space.

 

He switches to tenor for a warm, soulful reading of Stardust; it would be easy to overplay in such a setting, but Marsalis does not, and the standard sounds new and fresh in his hands, which is no mean feat. He stays with the tenor saxophone for Bach’s Sonata for A Minor for Oboe which shows off his technique to good effect, whilst still allowing an element of his own sound to creep into the playing. One of the highlights of the concert is another classical piece by the Japanese composer, Ryo Noda, whose compositions are notoriously difficult to play and interpret. Mai Opus 7 was written for saxophone, and includes multiphonics, which demonstrate his superb breathing and control. It’s a quite astonishing performance, and fully supports his comments about the influence if classical music on his own playing.

 

Marsalis includes two of his own compositions – a beautiful tune entitled The Moment I Recall Your Face – which also injects a touch of humour into the proceedings, and a straightforward blues, simply entitled Blues For One.

The more formal compositions are broken up by four relatively brief improvisations, which show that he has lost none of his jazz licks. The encore is a delightful reading of I’m Glad We Had This Time Together, the theme from the Carol Burnett Show.

 

I have always enjoyed Branford’s recordings with his superb quartet, but would consider this solo performance a career high. Whilst the CD came out in late 2014, it looks set to be a contender for one of our top picks of the year. Essential