Last October, Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra performed a special original piece called Untamed Elegance. The official full pro-shot video is now available on Youtube, watch above.
Untamed Elegance pays musical homage to The Roaring Twenties, a time period known for prohibition in the United States and the rise of jazz music around the world. Each song delves into a different facet of the ethos of the '20s and the idiom of jazz. The fifth movement of the show — "Drunk as a Skunk” — is a chaotic, snarling swing that evokes the antics of a wild drunkard on the loose. The piece preceding it, titled "The 'It' Thing" is a lilting, melancholy ballad inspired by Clara Gordon Bow, an actress famous for her role in the movie The It Girl, and the personification of the muted sensuality of the era.
Veteran JLCO member and saxophone virtuoso Victor Goines composed and arranged the 50 minute suite. In describing the final piece of the concert, “Bold, Naked, and Sensational,” Goines summed up the essence of the entire program, "This final movement… says everything about the jazz age… everybody did what they did because they wanted to do it, and they did it with transparency with no concern for what other people would say about it.”