Jazz and Classical

When French pianist Jacques Loussier and composer Claude Bolling died within a year of each other, jazz and classical fusion music lost two masters. Around that time in America, an effort was made to bring upbeat swing rhythms and classical instrumentation together. That gave new, vibrant life to immediately identifiable music. Many of the themes were deliberately well-known, as they had been widely heard in concert halls and advertising campaigns.

A series started with the Justin Varnes Orchestra led by Justin on his drum kit at The Jazz Corner in South Carolina. They played the orchestral standard "Rhapsody in Blue" written by classically trained pianist George Gershwin.

Next, Justin presented a weekend of "The Peer Gynt Suite," the tale of a dissolute philanderer seeking forgiveness. He travelled far and wide, then returned home to Norway because his Mother had died. In its first incarnation, composer Edvard Grieg wrote "Morning Mood," also known as "The Legend of the Selkie," as incidental music to an Ibsen play based on the Norwegian folk story. In this early movement, Grieg depicted the morning light entering a woodland with birds performing their dawn chorus on flute and oboe. Then sunlight burst through the trees. Varnes accentuated that moment with a mighty clash of cymbals as sharp as light.

The original piece of music had already been rewritten once by Duke Ellington in partnership with Billy Strayhorn and reflected Ellington's instrumentation, with Justin adding oboe and flute. The basic score used was Ellington's, because that would be hard to improve.

In the next performance, after the full stop at the end of Maurice Ravel's "Boléro," Justin led his orchestra into a thundering version of Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries." So that one long, drum-rattled crescendo was followed by a grand Norse legend, with a break for breath in between.

In a second series, Noel Freidline was commissioned to write an interpretation of Beethoven's mighty 5th Symphony and play it with his jazz trio and a string quartet from Charlotte. Beethoven's music accepts jazz fifths and sevenths smoothly, seamlessly leaving space for innovative piano interpretations. Noel spent long hours composing and writing the parts for all the musicians, which ran to over 800 sheets. The melody was largely carried by the string quartet to create an authentic and recognisable sound.

They also interpreted one Season from Vivaldi's Four Seasons and the haunting lament of the interminable failed crescendo that is Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings, composed in 1936.

Those performances were at The Jazz Corner and later repeated at the Columbia Museum of Art.

With not inconsiderable priming of the pump, it seems inconceivable that the move to bind classical themes with jazz rhythms withered on the vine. Audiences gave ecstatic standing ovations, musicians spoke of recordings, but all came to nothing.

Below is Jacques Loussier playing Bach's Toccata and Fugue.

Continue...

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Posted to Big World with Martin McFie IN THE All About Jazz GROUP
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About Justin Varnes

Location: Hilton Head Island