James Gaffigan featured in The New York Times for incorporating jazz influence
Gaffigan’s choice of program from his recent Komische Oper Berlin appearance which included Gulda’s jazz-inspired Cello Concerto is highlighted (Photo credit: Komische Oper Berlin)
A Composer Shows the Way to Give Classical Music Swing
By Seth Colter Walls
The New York Times
August 24, 2021
Interest has been building in the works of Nikolai Kapustin, who wrote in classical styles, with a jazzy spin.
Back in 1936, savvy listeners may have sensed that the novelty tune “Rhythm Saved the World” wasn’t only about its nominal subject: the drummer boys who motivated Revolutionary War soldiers at the Battle of Bunker Hill. No, as played by Louis Armstrong, it was clear that the song’s real subject was jazz itself, and its ability to conquer foreign lands — and other genres — with ease.
This wasn’t bluster. Berlin had already thrilled to fox trots in the 1920s. Stravinsky wasn’t shy about his thirst for jazz. And Parisian audiences, including composers like Georges Auric, received Armstrong with rapture early in the 1930s.
Yet audiences today aren’t often given the opportunity to appreciate the global impact of American improvisers on classical music. Among major American orchestras, the upcoming season features almost no jazz-influenced works — with the occasional exception of a Duke Ellington piece or John Adams’s bebop-tinged Saxophone Concerto. This sad state of affairs has resulted in long stretches of inattention to works like the chamber orchestra version of Mary Lou Williams’s “Zodiac Suite.”
Though Kapustin had some early experience as an improviser in jazz ensembles, he didn’t make space for improvisation in his notated works. Osborne describes this as something of a blind spot, and on his Hyperion disc, he includes brief bits of improvisation (though he is modest about his own jazz skills).
“It feels unnatural somehow to feel completely hidebound to the score,” he said, in music “which is so obviously trying to give the impression of freedom.”
Such improvisational interventions move this music still closer to American trends. Dupree’s forthcoming trio recording brings to mind what the composer John Zorn has done with some of his recent pieces: notating a piano part precisely, while setting a rhythm section loose to improvise.
These and other points of connection are waiting to be explored in mainstream American classical programming. It’s easy to imagine a series of concerts connecting the music of Ellington and Williams with that of Gershwin and Bernstein — before venturing into the broader catalogs of global orchestral swing.
“Bernd Alois Zimmermann can write his violin concerto, and have amazing bossa nova grooves in the last movement,” the conductor James Gaffigan said in an interview. “Or William Grant Still wrote these symphonies that are so jazzy and so well-crafted.”
That litany might also include some of the works of Friedrich Gulda, a star pianist particularly famous for his Mozart interpretations, who improvised and composed with an ear to jazz influences. His Symphony in G — a punchy piece that gives pastiche a good name — had its first recording released this year.
And when Gaffigan made his debut with the orchestra of the Komische Oper Berlin this spring, the program included Gulda’s Concerto for Cello and Wind Orchestra. “Even the most cynical concertgoer has to smile in this piece,” he said.
While American music might have swept the world off its feet last century, the works of composers like Kapustin and Gulda — and the efforts of their contemporary champions — might now be able to help return the favor.
“A place like Berlin or New York City, the public needs a balanced diet, not just all Mahler all the time,” Gaffigan said. “We’ve got into some weird patterns, in the U.S. especially. And it’s sad because the American orchestras are so great and versatile, and they can do anything.”
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