Search - Marcus Printup :: Song For The Beautiful Woman

There's no question that Marcus Printup is a gifted jazz trumpeter. Already a veteran of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and Marcus Roberts' band, the young Georgian boasts a brash tone and a rare ear for melodic improvisation. Nonetheless, Printup's debut solo album, Song for the Beautiful Woman, sounds too little like a personal statement and too much like one more hard-bop exercise from another member of the "Marsalis Mafia." Printup produced the album himself and composed six of the nine pieces, but the results still sound like recycled Lee Morgan and Kenny Dorham. You can hear Morgan's punchy riff playing on Printup's "Minor Ordeal" and Dorham's languid ballad phrasing in Printup's title track. Printup's mentor, Wynton Marsalis, could get away with such recycling because he possesses the most overpowering trumpet chops since Dizzy Gillespie, but Printup's skills are more modest. Like a music-school recital, "Song for the Beautiful Woman" is a good summary of how much Printup has learned in his apprenticeship under Marsalis and Roberts and how well he has learned it. One can only hope he will marry that education to an original vision for his next recording. --Geoffrey Himes