This summary of the trumpeter’s prodigious output in a short period of time (between 1999 and 2002), makes for a very big box. There are 11 CDs in all (one of which, Selections From The Village Vanguard is an edit from another box!), making the point in no uncertain terms, that the man many have cast in the role of ‘Uptown ruler’ is anything but royalty with idle hands. While Marsalis nails his colours firmly to the mast of an early jazz and swing-based vocabulary that makes his interpretation of the music of the likes of Jelly Roll Morton something of a rite of passage, his creative vessel does not run aground on the shores of ‘tradition’, or rather one of many traditions, as regularly as some allege. Although an obvious point, it is perhaps not made enough – the trumpeter is as much a classical composer as he is a jazz improviser and it is the tension, or rather connection, between these two worlds that frames much of his own work. So steeped is Marsalis in Ellingtonia that there are times when he, somewhat inevitably, falls into pastiche, but when his muse directs him towards long form ballet and operatic settings he excels as an exponent of ambitious sonic architecture that retains blues sensibilities while weaving in the kind of structural complexity that loosely extrapolates Duke’s own embrace of Grieg and Tchaikovsky. These lush, grandiose works – All Rise, Sweet Release and Ghost Story – stand in great contrast to the small group sessions where Marsalis the soloist takes the spotlight. Needless to say the playing is flawless but the level of imagination brought to the arrangements varies greatly from one piece to the next. Perhaps the real value of this retrospective is that the showcase provided of the distinct strands of Marsalis’ aesthetic moots the possibility of something exciting if they were to further entwine in future work.