Foto: Chad Batka, New York Times: Mr. Simon and Wynton Marsalis performed and brought their bands together for a concert of Simon songs at Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Wat had ik dit graag gezien.
Paul Simon zag ik lang geleden al eens toen hij samen met Art Garfunkel
hun reunie-tour maakte in de voetbalstadions (De Kuip, 12 juni 1982).
In navolging van ‘The Concert in Central Park’ (19 september 1981).

Wynton Marsalis zag ik op North Sea Jazz.
In 2003 was Pat Metheny ‘Artist in Residence’.
Zijn concerten zag ik toen allemaal:

Vrijdag:
Artist in Residence Pat Metheny / Yuri Honing Trio
Pat Metheny With Tony Overwater Group and special guest Ilse DeLange

Op deze vrijdag zag ik ook Wynton Marsalis:
Victor Goines (saxophones, clarinet);
Wess ”Warmdaddy” Anderson (saxophones);
Wynton Marsalis (trumpet);
Ron Westray (trombone);
Aaron Jamal Diehl (piano);
Reginald Veal (bass);
Herlin Riley (drums).
Wat een prachtig gezicht een en geweldige muziek was dat!

Zaterdag:
Pat Metheny with The Metropole Orchestra conducted by Jim McNeely (met Fay Lovsky)
Pat Metheny / Jesse van Ruller Duo

Zondag:
Pat Metheny with Michiel Borstlap Electric Band & Solis String Quartet (met Trijntje Oosterhuis)
Pat Metheny with Han Bennink & Co

Ook het optreden van Van Morrison moet vermeld worden.

Foto Chad Batka, The New York Times: Paul Simon Jazz at Lincoln Center, 20/04/2012.

By JON PARELES
Published: April 20, 2012

Transformations, extrapolations and a few collisions were on the program when Paul Simon performed with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra on Thursday night at the Rose Theater, part of a three-night fund-raising series. (With tickets costing hundreds of dollars, perhaps it was no coincidence that the first words Mr. Simon sang were x93Shex92s a rich girl,x94 from x93Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes.x94)

Mr. Simon and Wynton Marsalis performed and brought their bands together for a concert of Simon songs at Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Mr. Simon, not usually one to cede control of his music, brought his own band to perform side by side with the Lincoln Center big band led by Wynton Marsalis. Mr. Marsalis noted that Mr. Simon was playing (and paying his band for) x93three concerts for absolutely no money.x94

It was all about arrangements, old and new: easing in and out of Mr. Simonx92s usual band versions or completely revamping the songs. In the course of the night, the Lincoln Center band became a tag team, a beefed-up horn section, a new perspective and, now and then, a fifth wheel. As Mr. Simon sang, he breezed through the alterations to songs he has been singing for decades, toying with the timing of familiar lines to keep them conversational and immediate.

The program didnx92t focus on the Simon songs closest to jazz; it didnx92t include, for instance, the chromatic labyrinth of x93Still Crazy After All These Years.x94 Instead it favored his folky and rock-tinged repertory, his three-chord marvels. Nearly all of the new arrangements were by the orchestra members, and they had a hard act to follow: Mr. Simonx92s meticulous originals, with their ingenious cultural hybrids and ever nimble rhythms. His music is tightly wound, and within it are hints and implications that the big-band arrangements could pick up, and did.

The orchestrax92s bassist, Carlos Henriquez, heard the jubilant big-band mambo just under the surface of x93Late in the Evening,x94 and he bridged South African bounce and big-band swing in x93Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes.x94

Ted Nash, a saxophonist, surrounded the Afro-Brazilian core of x93Crazy Love, Vol. IIx94 with spiraling, twittering saxophones. And the saxophonist Victor Goinesx92s arrangement of x93Take Me to the Mardi Gras,x94 sung by Aaron Neville and segued into Huey Smithx92s x93Rockinx92 Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu,x94 flaunted the orchestrax92s New Orleans expertise. The trumpeter Marcus Printupx92s version of x9350 Ways to Leave Your Loverx94 had trumpets and trombones sassing the chorus.

Along the way, the concert underscored the difference between jazz and pop arrangements. Jazz arrangements show off the ensemble; pop arrangements show off the song. Itx92s the difference between thinking x93Wow!x94 and finding yourself singing along with the horn line of x93You Can Call Me Al.x94

But there were plenty of x93wowx94 moments. The little cascade of guitar picking that opens x93The Boxerx94 was turned into a kaleidoscopic rush of horns in an arrangement by the saxophonist Andy Farber, although it later tried to wedge too many melodic tangents between the lines of the song. The drummer Ali Jacksonx92s version of x93Further to Flyx94 meshed twittering flutes and supportive horns into the Afro-Brazilian pulse.

Mr. Marsalisx92s arrangement of x93Slip Slidinx92 Awayx94 moved it from gospel toward a convincing jazz shuffle. But in x93The Sound of Silencex94 x97 for just Mr. Simon, Mr. Marsalis and Mark Stewart on cello x97 Mr. Marsalisx92s obbligatos took a sauntering, traditional-jazz approach that didnx92t match the songx92s loneliness as well as, say, a pensive Miles Davis tone might have.

Inevitably there were spots where the heft of the big band just cluttered things. The trombonist Vincent Gardnerx92s reworked x93Bridge Over Troubled Water,x94 though gorgeously sung by Mr. Neville, attempted lush Ellingtonian voicings but made the song fussy rather than inspirational. But this was, as Mr. Simon put it near the end of the show, x93an experimentx94 x97 actually, more than a dozen of them. They didnx92t all work out, but those that did opened new pathways through Mr. Simonx92s songs