Wynton Marsalis was born in New Orleans and began his musical career in the world of jazz. He soon made his way via the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood to the Juilliard School of Music, where his prodigious technical skill was quickly recognized. This is readily demonstrated in the finale of the Hummel concerto and in the dexterity with which he approaches the higher reaches of the solo part in the work by Leopold Mozart. But his phrasing is curiously self-consciously stiff, as if he is anxious, in the world of 'straight' music, not to be free (a problem apparently shared by Benny Goodman). The slow movement of the Haydn concerto is strangely inexpressive and there is no sense of fun in the first movement of the Hummel. Raymond Leppard directs crips, lively accompaniments, and the recording is bright in the CBS digital manner, but the performances are musically unpersuasive and convey little or no sense of participatory enjoyment. Nevertheless, the trumpet-plaing itself is very impressive indeed.'