A Concert of Jazz

This post is weirdly overdue. As such, I am forced to backfill some pretty incredible items from the month of February. I'll do it in separate posts, wrapping up our dedicated month of listening, because each of our pieces of music deserves their own little space.

First, today, now, Gershin. We met at Margaret's home, and got so engrossed in a fine French wine from, according to our translating somalian (that's the term, yes?) , a vinyard called "between two horses". I don't if that's true. I suspect it isn't. But the simple fact is I don't know French well enough to say otherwise and our new friend was very sincere and convincing. But there we were, enjoying wine and conversation and a marvelous meal of roast chicken, pasta with amazing, possibly unpasteurized butter so engrossed in one another and the liveliness of good company and food that we almost missed listening to Rhapsody in Blue altogether. But we didn't. Thankfully.

I managed to track down two important things for the evening. First, I found the New York Times review of Rhapsody in Blue, published the morning after the concert. We read this astonishing review, which looks very little like a review today prior to listening. The concert, Paul Whiteman's "Experiment in Modern Music" was billed as a kind of educational affair, a speculation on the future of Jazz and its role in serious concert halls. At the time Jazz was dance hall music, low music, but it was also beginning to influence both American and European composers. Eric Satie had already begun to explore synchopation, very inspired by jazz, and he wasn't alone. So Paul Whiteman, a music promoter, set up this concert as an exploration of what jazz was capable of and a statement of his belief in the future of jazz. Here's what Paul Whiteman later said:

"I sincerely beleive in Jazz. I think it expresses the spirit of America and I feel sure it has a future - more of a future than a past and present. I want to help that future pan out"

So, "An Experiment in Modern Music" was set up in the concert hall attached to the Aeolian Piano factory. Interestingly enough, just a few blocks away, Duke Ellington was playing the Kentucky Club (a mob joint) and Fletcher Henderson's orchestra was keeping folks dancing at the nearby Roseland (interestingly, just 8 months away from hiring a young Louis Armstrong as his cornet player). That was the landscape. Jazz was on the brink of something, wondering about it's future, and that future was linked somehow to the American character. Olin Downes, the Times reviewer, gets all of this, and gets in February 13th, the morning after the concert. His article is worth reading, and you can find it here:



I think Downes' prescience is interesting, as is Downes flamboyant writing, which seems to take on the character of the concert nicely, at times sounding bouncy and improvisational as the music. But I also reckoned it was interesting to re-assess where jazz has or hasn't gone since 1924. I'm sure a jazz historian could correct me on this, and I hope one will, or perhaps I'll just have to read more about it, but I have the distinct impression that jazz has instead bifurcated itself into very cerebral, philosophic jazz (Thelonious...I'm looking at you) and very watered down directions. There's just not a great deal of series concert jazz that seems to display an evolution from Gershwin's youthful Rhapsody. There is some, and it's noteworthy (Wynton...).

Anyway, I'm rapidly wading in out of my depth to speculate on that, so I'll bring up the second item of the evening.

Maurice Peress re-created the entire 1924 Aeolian concert, and did so very faithfully. He even managed to get (in 1987...so do the astonishing math) some of the original musicians from the 1924 recording. This recording (the 1987 one) was, I think the first recording of Rhapsody in its entirety. The reason for this is an interesting, mechanical one. Paul Whiteman's recording had Gershwin at the piano, but it was recorded to fit on two sides of a 12-inch, 78-rpm record. To do this, cuts had to be made and Gershwin chose to omit almost the entire middle section. The Peress concert, according to Peress, was the first recording to restore it.

Anyway, the recording is interesting, and wildly different than other recordings of Rhapsody in Blue. The principle thing is the banjo. It's really very prominent. Usually recordings downplay this, they smooth everything out, and the piece has become a kind of archetype of smooth sophistication, the wilder themes evened out to a kind of machine efficiency. But Peress' recording is a battle. The bouncing, jittery, banjo driven synchopations of the jazz compete unsteadily with the smooth sophistication of the orchestra. The piece was orchestrated by Ferde Grofe, and it bears the mark of his sense of counterpoint, but I think the essence of the piece, which I'd never quite heard before this night, is one of stark contrasts.

It's easier to see, having listened to that recording, why Downes would be so aware of what was happening on stage. The music makes it fascinatingly plain that there are two worlds in conclict within Rhapsody, the world of sophistication and the world of jazz. So it's still fascinating to consider how this would ultimately play out, and to see the question posed by Gershwin in 1924, as Rhapsody in Blue, quientessentially American in its quest to rise above its class, takes on the world of classical discipline.

Gershwin's Show Tunes

While Gershwin, had he lived past 40, might have become a "serious" composer--he only wrote 4 major orchestral pieces, and one opera--his legacy in music was already sealed, though he didn't know it, with his show tunes. The delightful melodies--at times quick and engaging, at other times soft and mellow and sad--match with his brother's excellent lyrics, became the backbone of jazz, and the first major figure in what are now known as American Standards. You'd be surprised, even if you aren't a jazz lover, how many of his show tunes you know.









Also: the embedding is disabled by request, but don't miss this live version of 'A Foggy Day in London Town' with Nat King Cole on piano and Mel Torme doing vocals.

Gershwin Biography

Um... so, we've clearly all been in way over our heads the last week or so. I've been sick and barely had a lucid thought. So I won't be writing a recap or our wonderful evening listening to George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. Nor will I provide the detailed and fascinating biographical background that J dug up about the Rhapsody, and the concert wherein it premiered.

Nope. Instead I am going to cop out and share with you a link to a review of a fascinating new biography of Gershwin from the Washington Post:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that George Gershwin (1898-1937) wrote some irresistible melodies. After that, the debate begins.

Was Gershwin an inspired tunesmith, pure and simple, who nevertheless remained a rank amateur when he attempted to compose in larger forms, such as in his piano concertos or for the opera house? Or did his early death rob us of a distinctly American master, somebody who might have yoked all the strains that made up our wondrously polyglot musical culture of the mid-20th century - jazz, blues, popular song, European classical stylings, modernist experimentation - into a sustained and unified expression?

Larry Starr's valuable new book, titled simply George Gershwin, makes a strong case for the latter view. This is not a traditional biography (although Starr shares some potent biographical vignettes in a section called "Snapshots") but rather an insightful, technically intricate yet easy-to-follow study of Gershwin's music, particularly as it came out of the Broadway tradition.

The book can be found here. Read the whole review here.

Also, for fun: a rare video of Gershwin (playing his own "I Got Rhythym"):

On Mahler

Sometime in the past few months I finished Song of the Lark by Willa Cather. I say sometime because it took me so long to eek out the last 20 pages it seemed more like it evaporated than I completed it. However, the story has made a lovely and lasting impression on me. Interestingly SofL was written in 1915 and the Lied were composed in 1908--and as I listened to Mahler's Lied, I thought again and again of the similarities of the Lied and SofL both in theme and in subject, in tone and in the finale. In fact listening to the Lied helped me to finally understand the end of SofL, and helped me think through the Lied with some more coherence.

The subject matter immediately jumped to mind--with the German Mahler being influenced by the Eastern motifs and poetry--bringing it to bear on the rather tense Modernism with which he struggled, all within the somewhat florid context of the Art Nouveau style. Thea, also struggling with Modernism in a sense--what it means to be an artist in a time when most people are consumed by business and the newest fad--she heads to Germany to pursue serious voice training. The audiences in Europe and America sharply contrast--in Europe the masses are informed and trained listeners, in American the masses are swayed at the merest note from a critic and love singers for character rather than for excellence. Interestingly, Mahler first performed these Lied while at the Met in New York--where Thea eventually makes her break out debut.

In the Lied, Mahler starts with the troubadour's introduction--much like Cather's introduction--full of boisterous and somewhat jumbled first impressions--the earth's fiery sand cliffs, Thor bumping along in the wagon, the deep ruts of the old wagon trails, Spanish Johnny's mysterious disappearances when the mood strikes him, the low undertone of Thea's mother's understanding and Ray Kennedy's devotion and tragic death. All of the themes of exultation, sadness, striving, triumph, and loneliness are there, though it's unclear how the song hangs together (it was my least favorite), and it is not until the end that you see how the threads all do develop and lead to a coherent narrative. 

Mahler, and Cather move then to Autumn--as an aside, this is markedly odd--typically both in symphonies and in narrative--the conceit is to begin with Spring--with the bursting forth of youth. Neither artist does this however. We are plunged in Mahler's Lied into a drudging and sad song of decay. Thea escapes from Moonstone, we initially think in order to finally have the chance to meet her potential--instead she spends her time focussing on the wrong instrument (the piano, not her voice), has to return to Moonstone (again more frustration, since she is totally alienated from those who are there), and back to Chicago again, only to spend her time with a capricious and unhappy instructor, drearily changing from boarding house to boarding house (seemingly always in the rain), and making no real progress or connection. Yet there are glimpses of hope. Thea knows with certainty what her true gift is, and meets Fred Ottenburg. 

Onward to Youth, Beauty and Spring. Fred allows Thea the chance to spend time in Arizona, where she recaptures her vigor amongst the ancient spirits of the cliff people, the sparrows, and the sun--solidifying her identity and connection with human industry and striving, and lifting her to see the strength and delight she can communicate. She trains in Germany, and begins to sing in major productions in Europe. Conversely parallel to the Autumn, hints of sadness pervade the exultation--the cliff dwellers are absent--all of their industry is known only through remnants, Fred's tragic deception of Thea, and his being trapped, unable to fully enjoy or marry Thea, Thea's mother's death, and her inability to be there, the tragi-comic death of Dr. Archie's wife. 

In Mahler's stunning Farewell all of the elements hinted at and developed in the earlier songs come into vivid coherence. As Jack's post point's out his farewell is mournful and resigned, but hopeful. Cather finishes too with a Farewell of sorts. Thea's final direction as an artist is defined through the last conversation we overhear between her and Fred Ottenburg. There is a farewell, and Thea progresses on to what appears to be entirely musical being. There is very little humanity left in her, and I think, very little hope. It's a sad depiction of the Modern person I think, and one that even though Mahler shares, and perhaps perceives an even greater pathos involved in the human struggle of achievement and decline, his is more humane finally than Cather's. 

2/15/2011

Our next piece for exploration is George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.

Rhapsody in Blue was inspired in part by this painting, Nocturne in Black and Gold – The Falling Rocket, by James McNeill Whistler (which is in the Detroit Museum of Art). More precisely, the name was inspired by Whistler. Where Whistler used musical terms to describe his paintings, Gershwin used art (rather, color) to describe his rhapsody.

We'll be listening on Friday, but in the meantime, posting about the piece this week. (Full disclosure, this is my favorite orchestral piece...ever.)