The concepts of jazz and program notes must be as distantly related as possible while remaining within the semantic universe of music. Nevertheless, the works presented in this concert, while jazz-inspired, are firmly within the classical milieu and therefore candidates for some written discussion and interpretation.

But first, a brief digression into the common threads and essential differences of the jazz and classical traditions is in order. Perhaps it would not be too much of a stretch to claim that, prior to the age of enlightenment, the purpose of all music was either to accompany physical movement, to make a statement, or simply to provide background noise. Examples of the first purpose are social and military: the age-old and ever-present needs of people to dance, either as a pure recreation or perhaps as a prelude to procreation, and the necessity of keeping soldiers motivated and in battle order. The statements that are made through music are either sacred or profane. Like the military band in battle, the organ, choir or orchestra in a religious or other ritualistic setting is designed to foster conformity, and at the same time avowing faith, passing on stories, myths and so on. Profane musical statements are equally important for passing on culture, history, ethnic standards, or to make personal statements of love, protest, misery or whatever. The third purpose, hitherto the preserve of the rich, is pure entertainment and was developed to help drown out the more noisome sounds of eating and other human activities, as in Tafelmusik (literally table music).

In Europe, largely because of the strength of the church and its secular counterpart, the aristocracy, these musical needs fostered the need for large groups of musicians. Religious practice is generally a group activity filling a large space, while the limitations of volume for portable instruments on the battlefield, at the dance hall, or in the theater demanded relatively large, and therefore expensive groups of musicians. Thus was the orchestra born and, with it, the desirability of playing from a predetermined score, lest the band sound thoroughly discordant. As the size of orchestras grew the first violin or keyboard player was obliged to keep the time, eventually neglecting his instrument altogether in favor of the baton. Thus we have the “classical” or dominant “western” musical tradition: large orchestras in the concert hall, military or brass bands playing in the open air, opera and ballet telling stories in the theater accompanied by orchestra, choirs in churches and monasteries, all playing from parts or “charts”.

The ingredients of the American, or jazz, form of music are mostly the same, but the catalysts are quite different. While Europe had a society divided by class and wealth, the America of the mid 19th century was divided by both freedom and race. The culture of the free white population was essentially copied from Europe. Victorian morals prevailed, and even in the otherwise wild and cosmopolitan city of New Orleans, the largest population center of the confederacy, there were three opera houses and two symphonies. Around the corner in Congo Square however were the slaves, only recently permitted to openly celebrate the culture of their African ancestors. As the music of the Baptist churches developed more and more outside the church and in the hands of individuals or very small groups, it evolved by the 1890s into the very personal improvised statements known as “the blues”. And as these melodies were transferred to instruments, the tone and style, especially that of vibrato, imitated the voice in the manner of West Africa. About the same time, another new form of music arrived in New Orleans on the keyboards of black musicians from further up the Mississippi. With its origins in “minstrel” music, spirituals, European folk music and military marches, this music, called “ragtime”, was very rhythmic and injected with an extreme form of syncopation. At the same time, the Jim Crow laws culminated in the disenfranchisement of 99% of Southern blacks as well as reclassifying Creoles as black. As a consequence, many classically trained musicians (one of the symphony orchestras was entirely made up of Creoles) were suddenly out of a job and thrust into the world of blues and ragtime. The result was jazz.

With their origins in the small spaces of clubs and bordellos, jazz ensembles could remain small, and able to retain the personal, improvisational and conversational aspects of the blues. Together with the rhythms of ragtime, and an ingredient of its own, later dubbed “swing”, jazz was ideally poised for the recording revolution around the time of the First World War, even if the improvisational nature was thus missing, and suddenly jazz was “hot” throughout the world among people of all colors and races.

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Darius Milhaud (1892-1974)

La Création du Monde (Op. 81, 1923)

Ballet

Milhaud was a prolific composer with over 400 separate works including 15 operas, 17 ballets and 27 film scores.  He was born in Aix-en-Provence and studied at the Paris Conservatoire under Dukas and others.  Along with Poulenc and Honegger, he was one of the loose group labeled as “Les six”.  After spending two influential years in Brazil, and subsequently being introduced to jazz in London in 1920, he visited the USA and New York in particular where he eagerly soaked up as much jazz as possible from the Paul Whiteman band, and from clubs in Harlem and elsewhere.  Later, in 1940 as Nazi Germany swept into France, Milhaud left for California where he taught at Mills College, a position that he held, commuting across the pond for many years, until 1971.

SPM played Milhaud’s A Frenchman in New York in March 1993.  La Création du Monde was written soon after his return to France and is for a small orchestra with a prominent part for Alto Saxophone and a large percussion section.  From its hauntingly beautiful beginning to its reprise with flutter-tongue flutes, the music grabs the listener’s attention.  There are five short movements played without breaks.

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William Bolcom (b. 1938)

Clarinet Concerto (1990)

Allegro – Cantabile – Scherzo

Born in Seattle in 1938, Bolcom enjoys a very successful career as a pianist, composer and professor of music (at Michigan).  He has specialized in the performance of American music, including ragtime and late 19th and early 20th century popular songs, frequently in collaboration with his wife, singer Joan Morris.  His links with the early days of jazz and popular music include his studies with Milhaud at Mills College and his working with Eubie Blake.  SPM played his Spring Concertino for Oboe and Orchestra in May 1994.
The three movements of this concerto all show different aspects of the jazz idiom and could hardly be more different in their style.  The solo instrument itself is of course one of the key elements of a jazz ensemble with a tradition going back to Sidney Bechet and Benny Goodman.  The Allegro begins in a languorous mood almost blues-like and vaguely reminiscent of the opening of La Création du Monde.  By its end, the movement has taken on a ragtime quality with heavy syncopation, especially in the solo part.  The lyrical second movement is in a slow 12/8 with swing.  The tuba, the traditional bass of the jazz ensemble before the string bass took over, gets a chance to shine as it contrasts with the clarinet.  The finale is a virtuoso showcase for the soloist (it gets pretty wild!) with elements of waltz and rag/tango with the waltz sections appearing to pay homage to Ravel’s La Valse, especially the frenzied closing passage.

“Classical” composers in Europe and America, too, quickly jumped on the bandwagon, first Stravinsky, then Milhaud and Gershwin yielding three of our four jazz-inspired works.

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Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

Ragtime (1917)

Arranged William Ryden

Although born in Russia where his career was established (with the Firebird), Stravinsky spent most of his adult life in either France or the USA.  Like his contemporary Milhaud, Stravinsky was obliged to emigrate to the USA in 1940, where he lived until his death in 1971.  Stravinsky has been a popular composer for SPM players and audiences in previous years as his music, while it can be challenging for listener and performer alike, always works.  This short piece, originally for 11 instruments only, is actually a kind of byproduct of his brilliant but musically rather stark A Soldier’s Tale, scored for just seven instruments and narrator.  At one point in the story, three dances appear in succession: Tango, Waltz and Ragtime.  The present work is an extension of the Ragtime section.

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George Gershwin (1898-1937)

An American in Paris (1928)

Tone Poem

Like Stravinsky, Gershwin’s parents were Russians, but Gershwin was definitely all-American in his music and outlook. He had no formal musical training but was such a good pianist that at age 15 he was employed as a song “plugger” on Tin Pan Alley.  From this background he began to write his own songs and it is as a songwriter, including for Broadway and opera, that he is perhaps best known. He was such a natural musician that he was able to develop his own compositional skills, learning particularly from Ferde Grofé, who orchestrated his Rhapsody in Blue.  The purely orchestral tone poem An American in Paris was partially written in Paris while on a visit with family to Europe.  There, he was treated as a celebrity, receiving accolades from Ravel, Poulenc and others.  SPM last presented Gershwin in March 1998 with his Cuban Overture.
Like most of his music, An American in Paris, draws on the music of Black America with elements of the blues, swing and ragtime.  It is in three parts, played without a break.  The melodic invention of the piece is tremendous, with  the central “slow walk” section being especially lush with echoes of Rachmaninov at his most romantic.