Music review jazz

MUSIC REVIEW
At Philharmonic, Jazz
Blended Unevenly
Hiroyuki Ito for The New York
Times
Alan Gilbert conducting the New
York Philharmonic.
By ANTHONY TOMMASINI
Published: September 23, 2010
What better way to open an
orchestra ’s new season than with a
new piece? That was Alan Gilbert’s
reasoning last September, when he
inaugurated his tenure as music
director of the New York
Philharmonic with the premiere of
“EXPO,” an exciting work by
Magnus Lindberg, the
Philharmonic ’s composer in
residence.
On Wednesday night at Avery
Fisher Hall, Mr. Gilbert began his
second season at the helm of the
Philharmonic. Again the program,
broadcast on PBS’s “Live From
Lincoln Center,” began with a
premiere, this time of a sprawling
new score by Wynton Marsalis,
“Swing Symphony” (Symphony No.
3), written for and performed by
the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra
and the Philharmonic.
This was actually the American
premiere. The piece was jointly
commissioned by the New York
Philharmonic, the Berlin
Philharmonic, the Los Angeles
Philharmonic and the Barbican in
London. The first performance took
place recently in Berlin. Still, an
American premiere counts as new.
And sharing is a good thing,
especially in recessionary times.
Mr. Marsalis has described “Swing
Symphony” as a symphonic
meditation on the evolution of
swing. The concept had great
potential and possible pitfalls, and
Mr. Marsalis ’s piece both fulfilled
some of the potential and
succumbed to some of the pitfalls.
The five movements of this 45-
minute work evoke, pay homage
to and juxtapose styles of jazz and
pop: ragtime, mambo, bebop, black
American church music. And
bringing the 15 virtuosos of the
Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra,
including Mr. Marsalis, together with
the players of the Philharmonic
was, in theory, an inspiring idea.
Still, during long stretches the music,
as orchestrated here, hovered
uneasily in some middle ground,
sounding at times like a jazz
ensemble beefed up with an
orchestra and at other times like an
orchestra jolted by jazz. Though it
made acoustic and dramatic sense
to place the jazz musicians in the
center of the stage, surrounded by
the Philharmonic players, this
enhanced the impression that the
jazz artists were more of a solo
ensemble than true collaborators. I
liked the piece best whenever Mr.
Marsalis worked hard to blend the
two instrumental contingents and
when the music seemed not just a
homage to old jazz styles but a
transformed synthesis, something
fresh, subtle and startling.
Actually, there are six movements
to this symphony. But at the Berlin
premiere the piece lasted nearly an
hour. The Philharmonic had
commissioned a score of about 40
minutes or so, since the gala was
being televised and had to clock in
under two hours. So one
movement was dropped for this
occasion, the only performance of
the work this season. (Next season
the entire piece will be performed
in a subscription series program.)
The first movement, “St. Louis to
New Orleans,” builds quickly into a
growling, organic blast from the
joint forces. Then the music segues
smoothly into a perky, syncopated
march. But Mr. Marsalis lays things
on thick. The textures were
sometimes so dense that the
chords were indistinct and lost their
punch. I was relieved when the
second movement, “All-American
Pep,” a homage to early-20th-
century pop music, began, because
the textures thinned out and you
could hear many more of the
music ’s nuances and intricacies. Riffs
and bits of tunes are tossed from
section to section of the orchestra;
the music is scored with clarity and,
at times, welcome delicacy. In a
captivating episode for solo
baritone saxophone -- played here
by Joe Temperley, a master -- a
sensual, unabashedly romantic
melody is cushioned by pungent
string chords.
“Midwestern Moods,” the third
movement, had engrossing
moments, especially a mellow
episode for subdued yet restless
strings backing up solo turns by the
jazz musicians. “Manhattan to L.A.”
pulses with rippling bebop. “The
Low Down Up On High,” the finale,
flows with muted brasses and
woodwinds, like bittersweet gospel.
A hymnlike section featuring the
five saxophones ushers in the
surprise ending, where the music
just slips away.
Mr. Marsalis is a staggeringly
talented musician and a Pulitzer
Prize-winning composer.
Still, just evoking older styles of
music, however astutely and
sensitively, seemed not enough.
You could have believed that this
work was from, say, 1959 and had
been introduced by Leonard
Bernstein.
Mr. Gilbert seemed totally in his
element, conducting with a mix of
cool command and jazzy swing.
The Philharmonic players should be
proud. They played with verve and
color, never sounding like classical
music stiffs. Quite a few players
looked as if they were enjoying
themselves immensely, as did
members of the audience, which
gave Mr. Marsalis and the musicians
a standing ovation. I have never
seen so many people at a
Philharmonic concert tapping their
feet and hands. And this time it was
entirely appropriate, not at all a
distraction.
After intermission, the program
became like an entirely different
concert. Mr. Gilbert led a blazing,
rhapsodic and impressively lucid
account of Strauss ’s voluptuous
tone poem “Don Juan.”
He ended with a work that the
Philharmonic introduced in 1944,
Hindemith ’s “Symphonic
Metamorphosis on Themes of Carl
Maria von Weber. ” Once a staple,
this piece does not turn up that
often these days. The title may
sound a little convoluted, but it
describes what goes on. Hindemith
borrowed obscure tunes from
Weber and, in a true
metamorphosis, generated a
delightful, dazzling and ingenious
four-movement symphonic suite.
The score proves that sometimes a
tune is just a little thing a composer
can use to get a piece going.
Mr. Gilbert and the Philharmonic
played it to the hilt. The Hindemith
and Strauss works will be repeated
as part of the Philharmonic ’s first
subscription program through
Tuesday at Avery Fisher Hall. There
will also be a work by Dutilleux and
Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto with
Itzhak Perlman, no less, as soloist.