And all that jazz

Gershwin
in a characteristic pose

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Music with a heavy jazz and Afro-Cuban influence takes center stage at Powell Hall this weekend as the St. Louis Symphony presents an evening of music by George Gershwin and John Adams. Saxophone virtuoso Tim McAllister and pianist Jon Kimura Parker join music director David Robertson for what promises to be a high-energy evening.

Things kick off with Gershwin's "Cuban Overture," a kind of musical postcard of a 1932 trip to Havana. Composers have been drawing on their travels for inspiration for centuries, of course. Mendelssohn's "Hebrides Overture," Tchaikovsky's "Capriccio Italien," Saint-Saëns's "Egyptian" piano concerto—the list goes on and on. Gershwin did them all one better, though. He brought back not only some Afro-Cuban tunes (including Ignacio Piñeiro's "Échale Salsita") but some traditional percussion instruments as well. The haul included a bongo, claves, gourd, and maracas—all of which would be featured in a piece originally titled "Rhumba" (and performed under that title for the first time in August, 1932) and later retitled "Cuban Overture." It's lively stuff, made even livelier and more visually interesting by Gershwin's instructions (in the autograph version of the score) to place the Cuban percussion downstage in front of the conductor instead of off in the percussion battery. I don't know whether Maestro Robertson plans to follow that instruction or not, but the results should be interesting in any case.

John Adams

Next up is the local premiere of John Adams's newly minted "Saxophone Concerto," first performed on August 22nd by the Sydney [Australia] Symphony with Mr. McAllister (for whom Adams wrote it) as the soloist. Mr. McAllister's performance of the piece here is being recorded for Nonesuch on a disc that will also contain the recording of Adams's "City Noir" he made with the SLSO last season. Mr. McAlliser had some interesting insights into both pieces in the "minterview" I did with him, and I invite you to read what he said there.

Quoted in Paul Schiavo's program notes, Adams says that his "lifelong exposure to the great jazz saxophonists" inspired him to write the work. When he met Mr. McAllister and realized both his virtuosity and "exceptional musical personality," he knew he had found the perfect match of performer and composition.

The SLSO has had a close relationship with John Adams during Mr. Robertson's tenure, performing many of his works and recording four discs worth. Indeed, the orchestra's 2009 recording of the "Doctor Atomic Symphony" (based on themes from the Adams opera of the same name) was named "Classical Album of the Decade" by The Times of London. The symphony has always done well by Mr. Adams, in my view, so I'm looking forward to the concerto.

Tim McAllister

Adams is, along with Philip Glass, one of the most well-known advocates of a school of composition known as "minimalism," a term borrowed from the visual arts and first applied to music by composer, filmmaker, and photographer Michael Nyman in the early 1970s. "Prominent features" of minimalism, sayeth Wikipedia, "include consonant harmony, steady pulse (if not immobile drones), stasis or gradual transformation, and often reiteration of musical phrases or smaller units such as figures, motifs, and cells." I'm not entirely convinced that the emotional scope of the approach isn't a bit limited, but in the hands of composers like Adams it often generates a tremendous amount of excitement.

The music of John Adams is featured again after intermission, with a performance of "The Chairman Dances, Foxtrot for Orchestra," written for but eventually dropped from his ground-breaking opera "Nixon in China." It was intended to accompany a surrealistic scene in which a painting of Chairman Mao comes to life and dances with his widow during a state dinner. It has since had a life of its own as a concert piece, and is probably one of the composer's most commonly heard short works.

Jon Kimura Parker

Next is the other Big Piece of the evening, Gershwin's 1925 "Concerto in F" with John Kimura Parker at the keyboard. The concerto isn't particularly complex from a purely structural point of view, but I still find it amazing to contemplate that it was written only a year after the far more rudimentary "Rhapsody in Blue." Gershwin's development as a serious composer took place with an almost supernatural rapidity, as though he somehow knew that his life on this planet would be tragically short (he died of a brain tumor just a few months short of his 40th birthday).

As it is, the "Concerto" is a beautifully crafted piece: lean, powerful, without a spare note. Reviewing the December 3, 1925 premiere of the concerto for the New York World, critic Samuel Chotzinoff noted that Gershwin's "shortcomings are nothing in the face of the one thing he alone of all those writing the music of today possesses. He actually expresses us. He is the present, with all its audacity, impertinence, its feverish delight in its motion, its lapses into rhythmically exotic melancholy." You can feel and hear that "jazz age" urgency in every note of this music. Soloist Jon Kimura Parker is both an experienced virtuoso as well as an ardent advocate for music in the popular media, so he looks like an ideal choice for this piece.

The St. Louis Symphony's jazz-inflected concerts this weekend are Saturday at 8 PM and Sunday at 3 PM. For more information: stlsymphony.org, where you can also download the program notes. The Saturday concert will be broadcast live on St. Louis Public Radio at 90.7 FM and HD 1, as well as via their web site. My experience has been that the web stream has the best sound quality.

If want to really geek out, you can also download the scores for the "Cuban Overture" and "Concerto in F" (only the two-piano reduction for the latter, alas) and follow along with the music. The Adams scores are, of course, under copyright and not available on line.

Minterview: Saxophonist Tim McAllister

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[Minterview = mini-interview]

Saxophonist Tim McAllister is as comfortable in a jazz club as he is on the concert stage.  Praised by the New York Times as “one of the foremost saxophonists of his generation,” Mr. McAlister has appeared with symphony orchestras around the world as well as with big bands, regional music theater ensembles, and studio orchestra touring productions.  He has also performed with big jazz names like saxophonists Jimmy Heath, Rick Margitza, and Dave Liebman as well as with trumpeter Ed Sarath.  He's in town this week to perform and record John Adams's "Saxophone Concerto" with the St. Louis Symphony for a Nonesuch CD that will include the performance of Adams's "City Noir" that he recorded in concert with the symphony last season.  I threw him a few questions about his career and the music he's performing this weekend.

Photo: Ernie Tacsik

Q: Saxophone soloists don't have anything like the high public profile of soloists on other instruments, at least in the classical world.  What made you decide to pursue that career path?

A: You’re correct that the saxophone has something of a “low profile” in the classical world.  When you think about orchestral soloists, it’s an elite society; many of the same major figures on violin, cello, and piano.  One might think, therefore, that the role of classical saxophone is limited, but, in fact, the saxophone in classical music is quite rich and deep. It just exists more in the realm of niche chamber music and solo recital literature.
Major universities like mine, Northwestern, and its counterparts (Indiana, University of Michigan, Eastman, among many others) all have thriving saxophone programs devoted to classical instruction and literature. This doesn't even take into account the countless conservatories worldwide that offer classical saxophone, and the professional organizations committed to further its cause, such as the North American Saxophone Alliance and the World Saxophone Congress.

For those of us that choose to pursue this path, the number of iconic (classical) figures in the last 150 years rivals that of other instruments, as well as the obvious luminaries in jazz. However, it is largely an 'academic' path that has thrived at the university level, yet has made major strides in breaking into the larger classical community over the years. My mentors were part of this movement to bring the instrument more into the concert hall, as their mentors were before them, and I feel like it is part of my mission to continue this track.
Of course, the instrumentation of the modern symphony orchestra has been set for a long time, but skilled freelance players are still necessary to fill the parts that we see come about each season in orchestras all over the country by Bartok, Bernstein, Berg, Bizet, Britten, Ravel, Gershwin, Prokofiev, Vaughan-Williams, among hundreds of other composers to choose from that included saxophone in their orchestrations. To have even the slightest chance to be among the privileged few who get the chance to play these parts, in addition to the possibility of a solo career devoted to promoting new works by living composers alongside work with an active saxophone quartet, was worth all the effort and hard work over the years; because, ultimately, even though I was attracted to the the instrument because of its huge presence in popular culture and my early love of jazz, it was classical art music fused with the voice of the saxophone that spoke to me the most.

Q: You performed in the world premieres John Adams's "City Noir" as well as his "Saxophone Concerto".  What appeals to you about his music? 

A: I have always adored John's music. I heard the premiere of his famous opera "Nixon in China" almost 30 years ago with my private teacher at the time playing in the saxophone section. I was riveted, puzzled, surprised, and inspired all at once. All I had known to that point was school concert band music, jazz and the 80's fusion/R&B movement, rock, some orchestral music and the handful of appropriate level saxophone solos I might be assigned for lessons from week to week. "Nixon" was huge, a spectacle. It really didn't even dawn on me that this was 'classical' music. It seemed bigger than that label. I went on to be curious about this sphere of music that existed beyond what popular culture understood orchestra and opera music was supposed to be: music by dead, European men. I think from then on, and certainly once in college, I realized 'contemporary' classical music might have a place for me.

John became the “Number One” composer on my list whom I dreamed someday would write a major work for saxophone. It seemed like a 'no-brainer' given the grandeur, rhythmic drive, and indelible link to vernacular styles in his post-minimal works. Since Philip Glass and Terry Riley had such an affinity for saxophone, it just seemed logical that Adams might be next.  However, apart from the saxophone quartet parts in John's "Nixon" and "Fearful Symmetries," the saxophone wasn't really there in his music until "City Noir" came along in 2009. "City Noir" changed everything. It was (is!) demanding, difficult, taxing, you name it. But, it's exhilarating, and, as Gustavo Dudamel once said in an NPR interview, the piece "is about the saxophone."

Photo: rrjones

Q: What do you see as the biggest challenges in playing these works?

A: "Noir," like the new "Concerto," creates enormous challenges for the player to spin seemingly endless passages of intervallic writing, sometimes, at peak volume to project over large orchestral textures, while displaying a precision of rhythm that is almost unattainable. The virtuosity demanded of the player centers around total control sustained over long spans of music, even requiring circular breathing in places. The concentration required can be exhausting.

Q: How do you think that experience of playing in both the classical and pop/jazz worlds informs your playing of Adam's music?

A: Well, one must have a deep color palette to choose from when playing these Adams works. The music in the "Concerto" is not jazz nor is it typical classical writing for the instrument, but characteristics of both must pervade the player's approach at all times. In the end, it's all still John Adams  -- that is foremost in my mind. To distract from that fact might create a caricature of the music he is emulating. One critic recently lauded the "Concerto" as a work that does more to "evoke rather than reproduce" jazz music, quite possibly in the seamless way in which one might view Gershwin's or Bernstein's music, so the saxophone has to be such a chameleon, something it does so well. Although I have always loved and studied jazz, I don't consider myself a jazz artist by any means, but I wouldn't be comfortable calling myself a saxophonist, either, if I didn't recognize and incorporate jazz concepts, history and pedagogy into my overall musical awareness. I think this is what John perceived in my Los Angeles performances of "City Noir" [recorded for the DG Concerts label], and he felt he had that broad palette to work with in me when it came time to consider the new Concerto.

I have to say if I hadn't loved jazz first, I wouldn’t be the classical player I am today.