Willie Nelson Wynton Marsalis
Two Men With The Blues

America. So loved and criticized, overrated and underrated, yet always discussed.

America today imperialist and tomorrow pacifist, America with a silly president yet capable of lining up for succession a super-ambitious woman and a black man who seems nothing but good.

America that invented jazz as a fruitful and exciting meeting of cultures, America the homeland of blues and great singer-songwriter tradition, America of bad food and good local pride, America of the guitar and the trumpet.

In short: America. The one no one of us, culturally, can or should do without.

And if my daughter one day becomes like the young people I happen to know for various reasons, those with America and great culture within a download's reach, but alas inexplicable victims of a TV-style illiteracy and completely indifferent to almost everything that preceded them... if my daughter, I said, will ask me for a nice synthesis of Great America, well... I will probably pull out this wonderful album from the shelf.

This "posthumous" album already alive. Out of time and times.

This live album born from a perfect evening, almost unbelievable.

This album where two giants, one of jazz and one of folk-country singer-songwriting, meet to play blues and standards. They meet, I don't know how consciously, but this is without a doubt the result, to celebrate Great America.

Willie Nelson's voice is more beautiful, more biting and in tune. It defies the years and indeed improves. He doesn't indulge in warbling or unnecessary technicalities, the prerogative of the greats (have you ever heard Faber in our country or the Boss across the sea engage in useless vocalizations?). Splendid is also his old and battered guitar. Wynton Marsalis's trumpet, former prodigy boy of jazz overseas, is perfect. It has a beautiful timbre, halfway here between Chet and Louis, with more than a glance at the latter.

Yes, because the album is presented - so it seems from the title - as a blues album, but it is not. Or, at least, it is not just that. Inside there are splendid and well-known standards, and the country-blues vocal training of one of the protagonists emerges preponderantly and never hidden. The band, then - absolutely perfect - often veers into ragtime and pure New Orleans style, especially in the trumpet solos, where Marsalis frequently pays homage to Armstrong and not only (there's Bix and Clifford...in short...it's America of the trumpet...), while taking into account his own technique and his long, now - personal training, never letting himself go to unnecessary and cloying technicalities (which had characterized a part of his past).

The evening is cheerful, the concert fun and enjoyable. Everything runs wonderfully. And this ancient 2008 album can be listened to continuously, and deeply loved.

I said: if my daughter will ask me (we'll make sure she asks...), what was there before the usual tokio hotel, before the neighborhood rapper with a full wallet and a difficult childhood, small idols that talk too much and say nothing, what is, in short, the origin of the music that revolves around and what this undressed dad insists on playing with the guitar around the house... well... I'll pull out "Two Men With The Blues" and cross my fingers, hoping that whatever surrounds her has not yet done too much damage.