Any duo of professional musicians can collaborate and produce a high quality product, but it takes a special understanding between two artists to deliver truly memorable music. Every night musicians are thrown together and they make music based upon shared knowledge and professional behavior; it might sound good, but it rarely reaches a level of shared understanding. In order to move music to that higher plane, musicians need to find common ground and build a healthy respect for their background, abilities, and artistic goals. This leads to a strong exchange of ideas and aesthetics that ultimately results in a sympathetic approach to collaboration. In the end, the music will be more than simply professional; it will be truly magical.
Composer Roberto Sierra brought his developed compositional skills into his collaboration with jazz saxophonist James Carter, producing fantastic results. Born in Puerto Rico, Sierra spent his youth practicing piano and soaking up the sounds of New York salsa and the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra. He took his classical piano studies deeper at the conservatory, until he discovered his deep interest in composition. Hoping to gain a more diverse view of the world and broaden his compositional skills, Sierra left Puerto Rico and began collegiate studies at the Royal College Of Music In London. He eventually found his way to Hamburg, Germany, where worked with composer György Ligeti, best known for his musical contributions to Stanley Kubrick's movies. The influential composer filled Sierra's head with ideas while Sierra shared his knowledge of African and Caribbean music; both men moved ahead with greater tools to express their artistic ideas. Sierra returned to the States and started to garner attention in the classical music world with pieces like “Júbilo," “Missa Latina," and “Concierto Barroco." He became an in-demand composer for the modern era, having works performed around the world and gaining a professorship at Cornell University in New York. Upon seeing jazz saxophonist James Carter perform live, Sierra was taken with his musicianship and asked about collaboration. Carter agreed and Sierra began composing. The result was “Concerto For Saxophones And Orchestra," a brilliant piece that blended Sierra's classical background with Caribbean rhythms and jazz improvisation. For both Sierra and Carter, the piece pushed their artistry into different directions—Sierra compositionally tapped into the world of improvisation, a realm often unexplored in contemporary classical music while Carter was faced with the challenge of finding a jazz voice within a classical context. The premiere of the piece in 2002 grabbed the audience with a passionate vitality, an element that remained present in the recording later found on the 2011 album Caribbean Rhapsody. Despite the two musicians treading into unfamiliar waters, the musical product exploded with the vibrancy of their shared vision.
The collaboration between Sierra and Carter is a testament to their individual artistic merit, but it's also an interesting statement about their complementary musicianship. “Concerto For Saxophones And Orchestra" overflows with Sierra's magical ability to write classical structures around Caribbean rhythms, but it also resonates with the powerful presence of Carter's improvisatory voice. There's a sympathetic musicality in the recording that emerges from the shared work of the two artists. In Part One of our interview with Sierra, we looked at his early exposure to classical music and salsa in Puerto Rico, his interest in composition, and his work with Ligeti. Today, we dig into “Concerto For Saxophones And Orchestra," exploring the roots of the collaboration between Sierra and Carter, the presence of jazz in the classical world, and more.
LATIN JAZZ CORNER: What was it that struck you about James Carter that told you he was someone that you wanted to work with?
ROBERTO SIERRA: He's just an amazing player. You hear him and he can do anything! And he does—you bring him anything and he does it!
LJC: Had you worked with any jazz artists before him?
RS: No. I guess if you listen to my earlier works, there's always some rhythm or something that is related to jazz. But to have done a jazz piece like this, it was the very first time for me. It was a very daring thing to do. A lot of people do this after having tried other types of jazz pieces, but I just went for it. I've never really written anything before that would incorporate the player improvising because classical players generally are not comfortable with that.
Improvisation actually was a tradition in classical music—Beethoven and Mozart, they would improvise. Not differently from what jazz players do now in many ways.
LJC: It's kind of interesting that improvisation doesn't really hold a large spot in modern composition. Do you feel that's a loss or a gain for classical music?
RS: I think it's a loss. I haven't been to many jazz concerts, but in that particular concert, the people playing with James were of the first rank. Cyrus Chestnut was playing the piano and Romero Lubambo was playing the guitar, among others. The vibrancy of the playing is something that you seldom hear in classical music. Sometimes I go to classical concerts and I just want to fall asleep! Classical music is gorgeous in the way that it's played, but at this other concert with James, you could see this vibrancy in terms of communication. I thought that I was back in time in the late eighteenth or nineteenth century—I'm pretty sure that's the vibrancy that was there. I don't know that—I'm just speculating—but I had a sense that it was like that. It was very, very interesting to me. These people take it for granted; they do not think the way that I do. But I thought that it was really amazing. The way that they responded to each other . . . in classical music, you have these over studied gestures—it's just boring at times. There are great performers that do not do that; those are the ones that are interesting.
LJC: I know that the saxophone does have a classical presence, but it's not as major as some other instruments. Was writing for the saxophone something that was new for you?
RS: You are absolutely right; the saxophone is mostly an accessory in classical music. It's the accessory that tells you about something foreign or not belonging. So when a composer wants to portray something out of the culture, then they will use a saxophone —in the same way that they would use Latin percussion. In classical music, if you hear castanets, it's probably referring to something foreign or Spanish; something out of the mainstream is being portrayed. It's the same case for the saxophone.
Since I have basically already acknowledged Latin percussion in my music as mainstream within my mind, the saxophone, I just said, “This is like a violin." It's a great instrument. Somebody like James can play it like a great virtuoso on the violin can play.
LJC: Can you talk about how you worked together with James to build the piece?
RS: The piece was written; he had the completed piece. What was growing in him was how to approach the improvisation within the piece. If you look at the score, you'd see the saxophone line precisely notated and then there are measures that are empty. Those are the spots where he needs to improvise. You can imagine—James comes strictly from a traditional jazz background, although he perfectly reads music—as well as any classical musician can. But he doesn't really play in a classical world. Even when he did things with Kathleen Battle, but that was still a lead sheet and improvised. He was coming from this aspect where now he has a score, he has these instruments that are plying behind him, he has music that he has to read and play, and then he has these empty spots that he has to fill in with improvisation.
The process for him was how to build off a continuum of ideas. When we would talk about it, we both sort of agreed that it had to be one thing. It could not just be like now there's some odd part that sounds like it doesn't belong and that's the improvisatory part. That was a challenge. I think that to call it a challenge is too strong though, because he really has such a natural aspect to what he's playing and he has such a natural understanding of the music. He understands it in a profound and instinctual manner. He hears something and he reacts to it.
It's like what I was telling you about his players—they hear something and they react; they know what to do with it. They can react almost instantly. I think through the years having played at this, he hears something and then he hears music in it. So he grows with and through the piece. And the piece also grows in that way.
LJC: As I've listened to the concerto over and over, the one thing that I would say is that it's so natural. It's almost like you have to look for the improvisatory spots . . .
RS: You cannot tell. Even now, since I don't have the score in my mind as a photographic thing, I would have to look at the score to see where he is improvising. When you look at the score, you will see that a lot of it is written, but there are a lot of improvisatory spots. You would be hard pressed to tell them apart just by listening.
The cadenzas are improvised—that's clear, it's when he's playing by himself. In the cadenzas, what he does is he uses the material that we heard before. That is very much what classical musicians used to do in the late eighteenth, early nineteenth centuries. A cadenza in a concerto was based upon the material performed before in the piece, but improvised on the spot.
LJC: The idea of writing for a specific musician seems like a very jazz oriented idea—do you think that some of that natural feeling came out in the performance because you were looking at the way that James played when you wrote?
RS: Absolutely. In fact, it's more common in classical music than you might think. There are people that write generically, but when you look historically, concertos were written for particular performers. If I get a commission to write a work and I don't feel very confident in the performer, it's a very hard thing to do. I have to have the sense that I am working with someone that I really admire and respect. That was the case with James.
LJC: Did you go back and study his earlier recordings?
RS: Yea, I got some of his recordings and I listened to them. I was totally amazed with his recordings.
LJC: I heard James talking about the tenor an the soprano saxophones as male and female voices in piece . . .
RS: That was his idea. I didn't see it like that. I just picked the two saxophones. I think that he really didn't want the alto in the piece and the baritone would have been too low. The tenor and the soprano provided an amazing range, from very low notes to very high notes. My idea was more abstract than his. Then as he was playing the piece, he had this sort of gender-oriented definition to the two instruments.
LJC: You premiered “Concerto For Saxophones And Orchestra" in 2002; was there any performance between that and the recording and did the piece evolve?
RS: One thing that James does is that the improvisation parts are always different. He never does a cadenza the same or even the other bits. I find that fascinating. I've heard the piece ten times or more with him—when you have a series of concerts, you play the piece two or three times. But the times that I've heard it, it always changes within those parameters. In the improvisational parts, he doesn't repeat himself.
LJC: Does that inspire you to change the compositions at all?
RS: No, it's just as it is.
Composer Roberto Sierra brought his developed compositional skills into his collaboration with jazz saxophonist James Carter, producing fantastic results. Born in Puerto Rico, Sierra spent his youth practicing piano and soaking up the sounds of New York salsa and the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra. He took his classical piano studies deeper at the conservatory, until he discovered his deep interest in composition. Hoping to gain a more diverse view of the world and broaden his compositional skills, Sierra left Puerto Rico and began collegiate studies at the Royal College Of Music In London. He eventually found his way to Hamburg, Germany, where worked with composer György Ligeti, best known for his musical contributions to Stanley Kubrick's movies. The influential composer filled Sierra's head with ideas while Sierra shared his knowledge of African and Caribbean music; both men moved ahead with greater tools to express their artistic ideas. Sierra returned to the States and started to garner attention in the classical music world with pieces like “Júbilo," “Missa Latina," and “Concierto Barroco." He became an in-demand composer for the modern era, having works performed around the world and gaining a professorship at Cornell University in New York. Upon seeing jazz saxophonist James Carter perform live, Sierra was taken with his musicianship and asked about collaboration. Carter agreed and Sierra began composing. The result was “Concerto For Saxophones And Orchestra," a brilliant piece that blended Sierra's classical background with Caribbean rhythms and jazz improvisation. For both Sierra and Carter, the piece pushed their artistry into different directions—Sierra compositionally tapped into the world of improvisation, a realm often unexplored in contemporary classical music while Carter was faced with the challenge of finding a jazz voice within a classical context. The premiere of the piece in 2002 grabbed the audience with a passionate vitality, an element that remained present in the recording later found on the 2011 album Caribbean Rhapsody. Despite the two musicians treading into unfamiliar waters, the musical product exploded with the vibrancy of their shared vision.
The collaboration between Sierra and Carter is a testament to their individual artistic merit, but it's also an interesting statement about their complementary musicianship. “Concerto For Saxophones And Orchestra" overflows with Sierra's magical ability to write classical structures around Caribbean rhythms, but it also resonates with the powerful presence of Carter's improvisatory voice. There's a sympathetic musicality in the recording that emerges from the shared work of the two artists. In Part One of our interview with Sierra, we looked at his early exposure to classical music and salsa in Puerto Rico, his interest in composition, and his work with Ligeti. Today, we dig into “Concerto For Saxophones And Orchestra," exploring the roots of the collaboration between Sierra and Carter, the presence of jazz in the classical world, and more.
LATIN JAZZ CORNER: What was it that struck you about James Carter that told you he was someone that you wanted to work with?
ROBERTO SIERRA: He's just an amazing player. You hear him and he can do anything! And he does—you bring him anything and he does it!
LJC: Had you worked with any jazz artists before him?
RS: No. I guess if you listen to my earlier works, there's always some rhythm or something that is related to jazz. But to have done a jazz piece like this, it was the very first time for me. It was a very daring thing to do. A lot of people do this after having tried other types of jazz pieces, but I just went for it. I've never really written anything before that would incorporate the player improvising because classical players generally are not comfortable with that.
Improvisation actually was a tradition in classical music—Beethoven and Mozart, they would improvise. Not differently from what jazz players do now in many ways.
LJC: It's kind of interesting that improvisation doesn't really hold a large spot in modern composition. Do you feel that's a loss or a gain for classical music?
RS: I think it's a loss. I haven't been to many jazz concerts, but in that particular concert, the people playing with James were of the first rank. Cyrus Chestnut was playing the piano and Romero Lubambo was playing the guitar, among others. The vibrancy of the playing is something that you seldom hear in classical music. Sometimes I go to classical concerts and I just want to fall asleep! Classical music is gorgeous in the way that it's played, but at this other concert with James, you could see this vibrancy in terms of communication. I thought that I was back in time in the late eighteenth or nineteenth century—I'm pretty sure that's the vibrancy that was there. I don't know that—I'm just speculating—but I had a sense that it was like that. It was very, very interesting to me. These people take it for granted; they do not think the way that I do. But I thought that it was really amazing. The way that they responded to each other . . . in classical music, you have these over studied gestures—it's just boring at times. There are great performers that do not do that; those are the ones that are interesting.
LJC: I know that the saxophone does have a classical presence, but it's not as major as some other instruments. Was writing for the saxophone something that was new for you?
RS: You are absolutely right; the saxophone is mostly an accessory in classical music. It's the accessory that tells you about something foreign or not belonging. So when a composer wants to portray something out of the culture, then they will use a saxophone —in the same way that they would use Latin percussion. In classical music, if you hear castanets, it's probably referring to something foreign or Spanish; something out of the mainstream is being portrayed. It's the same case for the saxophone.
Since I have basically already acknowledged Latin percussion in my music as mainstream within my mind, the saxophone, I just said, “This is like a violin." It's a great instrument. Somebody like James can play it like a great virtuoso on the violin can play.
LJC: Can you talk about how you worked together with James to build the piece?
RS: The piece was written; he had the completed piece. What was growing in him was how to approach the improvisation within the piece. If you look at the score, you'd see the saxophone line precisely notated and then there are measures that are empty. Those are the spots where he needs to improvise. You can imagine—James comes strictly from a traditional jazz background, although he perfectly reads music—as well as any classical musician can. But he doesn't really play in a classical world. Even when he did things with Kathleen Battle, but that was still a lead sheet and improvised. He was coming from this aspect where now he has a score, he has these instruments that are plying behind him, he has music that he has to read and play, and then he has these empty spots that he has to fill in with improvisation.
The process for him was how to build off a continuum of ideas. When we would talk about it, we both sort of agreed that it had to be one thing. It could not just be like now there's some odd part that sounds like it doesn't belong and that's the improvisatory part. That was a challenge. I think that to call it a challenge is too strong though, because he really has such a natural aspect to what he's playing and he has such a natural understanding of the music. He understands it in a profound and instinctual manner. He hears something and he reacts to it.
It's like what I was telling you about his players—they hear something and they react; they know what to do with it. They can react almost instantly. I think through the years having played at this, he hears something and then he hears music in it. So he grows with and through the piece. And the piece also grows in that way.
LJC: As I've listened to the concerto over and over, the one thing that I would say is that it's so natural. It's almost like you have to look for the improvisatory spots . . .
RS: You cannot tell. Even now, since I don't have the score in my mind as a photographic thing, I would have to look at the score to see where he is improvising. When you look at the score, you will see that a lot of it is written, but there are a lot of improvisatory spots. You would be hard pressed to tell them apart just by listening.
The cadenzas are improvised—that's clear, it's when he's playing by himself. In the cadenzas, what he does is he uses the material that we heard before. That is very much what classical musicians used to do in the late eighteenth, early nineteenth centuries. A cadenza in a concerto was based upon the material performed before in the piece, but improvised on the spot.
LJC: The idea of writing for a specific musician seems like a very jazz oriented idea—do you think that some of that natural feeling came out in the performance because you were looking at the way that James played when you wrote?
RS: Absolutely. In fact, it's more common in classical music than you might think. There are people that write generically, but when you look historically, concertos were written for particular performers. If I get a commission to write a work and I don't feel very confident in the performer, it's a very hard thing to do. I have to have the sense that I am working with someone that I really admire and respect. That was the case with James.
LJC: Did you go back and study his earlier recordings?
RS: Yea, I got some of his recordings and I listened to them. I was totally amazed with his recordings.
LJC: I heard James talking about the tenor an the soprano saxophones as male and female voices in piece . . .
RS: That was his idea. I didn't see it like that. I just picked the two saxophones. I think that he really didn't want the alto in the piece and the baritone would have been too low. The tenor and the soprano provided an amazing range, from very low notes to very high notes. My idea was more abstract than his. Then as he was playing the piece, he had this sort of gender-oriented definition to the two instruments.
LJC: You premiered “Concerto For Saxophones And Orchestra" in 2002; was there any performance between that and the recording and did the piece evolve?
RS: One thing that James does is that the improvisation parts are always different. He never does a cadenza the same or even the other bits. I find that fascinating. I've heard the piece ten times or more with him—when you have a series of concerts, you play the piece two or three times. But the times that I've heard it, it always changes within those parameters. In the improvisational parts, he doesn't repeat himself.
LJC: Does that inspire you to change the compositions at all?
RS: No, it's just as it is.
