Boosey & Hawkes

Jazz on Classical: Classical on Jazz

(December 2006)

Noted composer, scholar, and educator Gunther Schuller has been credited with giving birth to the term “Third Stream,” a style of jazz that combines classical and jazz techniques. The broader practice of the cross-fertilization between elements of European classical music and jazz has been going on well before this or the last century.

Historically, the irresistibly fresh new sound and back-story associated with jazz has intrigued classical composers. As far back as Johannes Brahms in the latter part of the 19th century, composers steeped in European traditions were known to have explored early foundations of jazz, such as ragtime. On a trip to the US in 1922, French composer Darius Milhaud experienced jazz first-hand as he ventured into Harlem. Soon after his jazz discovery, Milhaud wrote his ballet, The Creation of the World (1923), which is considered to be the first full-length composition to incorporate jazz and classical music. George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue (1924) premiere had been advertised in a program entitled as "An Experiment in Modern Music." This unprecedented musical foray written for solo piano and orchestra or band, backed by the respected Paul Whiteman Orchestra, marked Gershwin as a serious composer and propelled jazz onto the “legitimate” concert stage. Maurice Ravel, another composer from the French school who was inspired by this new American music, commented on the skill of Gershwin, focusing in on his use of jazz, "Personally I find jazz most interesting: the rhythms, the way the melodies are handled, the melodies themselves. I have heard of George Gershwin's works and I find them intriguing." (Cambridge Companion to Ravel, by Deborah Mawer and Jonathan Cross (Eds.), p. 42). American composer Aaron Copland's early works such as his ballet Grohg (1925/32), Dance Symphony (1925), Music for the Theatre (1925) and Piano Variations (1930) all exude a distinctive jazz quality.

Premiering on March 25, 1946, at New York's Carnegie Hall, Russian composer Igor Stravinsky's Ebony Concerto (1945) for clarinet and jazz band was written specifically for clarinetist Woody Herman and his orchestra. Commissioned by Herman, the piece was characterized by the composer as "a jazz concerto grosso with a blues slow movement." Like Milhaud, Stravinsky experienced jazz in New York’s Harlem. However, Stravinsky also was known to have heard and been affected by the "Negro" bands in Chicago and New Orleans hence the “ebony” in the title of his new work. Igor Stravinsky did not conduct the premiere of his concerto but did lead the orchestra at the recording, which occurred several weeks after the concert. Stravinsky’s memory of the recording session: “"What I remember most clearly was the smoke in the recording studio. When the musicians did not blow horns they blew smoke... the atmosphere looked like Pernod clouded by water."

Prelude, Fugue and Riffs was written in 1949 for Woody Herman's band, but actually premiered in 1955 with clarinet virtuoso Benny Goodman. Wladyslaw Szpilman, the extraordinary pianist and composer from Poland whose life was the basis of Roman Polanski 's Oscar-winning film "The Pianist”, too found inspiration in jazz music. In fact, when the Nazis invaded his homeland, Szpilman was in the process of composing his Gershwinesque Concertino for piano and orchestra (1940). The work was ultimately salvaged and continues to be performed.

“America’s classical music” (jazz as first referred to by pianist and educator Dr. Billy Taylor) has made its way across the Atlantic to inspire 21st century Boosey & Hawkes composers such as Louis Andriessen. He grew up listening to Stan Kenton’s jazz orchestras on the radio in his native Netherlands. Andriessen has written On Jimmy Yancey (1973), which was inspired by the masterful Chicago boogie-woogie pianist of the same name. Additionally, the Dutch composer has written an amplified string quartet for the Kronos Quartet entitled Facing Death (1991), whose creation was prompted by his lifelong admiration of jazz icon, alto saxophonist Charlie Parker. Then there is Austrian born composer HK Gruber, who has also written jazz-influenced works including his chamber orchestra piece Manhattan Broadcasts (1962-64). Most recently, British composer Mark-Anthony Turnage wrote A Man Descending (2003), a concerto for tenor saxophone and chamber orchestra created for saxophone giant, Joe Lovano. Here in the States, Steve Reich, who was recently called "America's greatest living composer" (The Village Voice), has embraced not only aspects of Western Classical music, but the structures, harmonies, and rhythms of non-Western and American vernacular music, particularly jazz.

Jazz musicians of today and yesteryear have been attracted to works by and have drawn upon the inventive usage of harmonies employed by classical composers, including Debussy, Ravel, Delius, Stravinsky, and many others. Take Charlie (“Bird”) Parker. In 1948, during a blindfold test for Downbeat magazine (where a musician is challenged to name and respond to unidentified recordings), Parker acknowledged Stravinsky’s “The Song of the Nightingale” by exclaiming, “Give that all the stars you’ve got,” and continued the conversation by waxing prolific about Serge Prokofieff, Paul Hindemith, Debussy, and Ravel (The History of Jazz by Ted Gioia, p. 205).

In this same tradition, Chick Corea has celebrated the works of classical composers by recording and performing concerti by Mozart and the piano music of Béla Bartók and Ravel. In the same vein, David Benoit has committed himself to an ongoing investigation into the classical music world as he has conducted, performed, and recorded his classical-influenced works and standard concert repertoire with major orchestras in the US and abroad.

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