There
is no way for me to ask my readers for a show of hands that
would be visible to
me, but I will ask my questions anyway:
How many of you are jazz lovers?
Now- how many of
you are
classical music fans? Do
the same hands
go up in both instances? I
feel
confident that for many of you that is the case. So how would you particular
folks like to
have both in the same package? If
you
would, the name of Claude Bolling should be familiar to you,
though it may not
be.
Nothing
amazes me more than the fact that so many music lovers I have
talked to, even a
few professional musicians, confess that not only is the work of
this man
unfamiliar to them but that the very name itself is equally so. How can this be? He is a six-time winner of
the Grand Prix du
Disque and has received international acclaim as a composer as
well as a
conductor, arranger and pianist.
He has
been celebrated mainly for his own compositions. A musicologist named Bobby
Finn describes his
work with these words: “There is great fluctuation of mood. . .caused by the
constant dialogue
between the jazz and the classical elements, which seem to
fight, to interrupt,
to stimulate, to mimic and even to embrace each other.” He is the supreme crossover
composer –
betwixt the two musical traditions. Duke
Ellington, among others, greatly admired Bolling’s achievements
and encouraged
him in his work.
What
makes my difficulty in finding other music lovers who know of
him even more
amazing is that his compositions are not hard to locate. It is not as though he is
some relic from
some stone age. He is
alive and
functioning in the twenty-first century, a modern master. His recordings, over thirty
in number and
covering a space of almost forty years, all do a mighty business
and are easy
to obtain. They can be
ordered on line,
and one is likely to find some of them in the remnant of the
record stores that
have not succumbed in their competition with the Internet.
He
was born in Cannes, France in 1930 and studied at the Nice Music
Conservatory. He has
also written scores
for over one hundred films, mostly French, and he played a big
part in the
revival of traditional jazz music in the 1960s.
But he has also worked with classical musicians such as
Yo-Yo Ma,
Pinchas Zukerman and Maurice Andre.
Two
of Bolling’s discs are especially exciting to me, both of them
on the order of
modern day chamber pieces. One
of them
has the word in its title – Suite for Chamber Orchestra and Jazz
Piano. The other is
entitled simply Suite for Flute
and Jazz Piano, but it fits the mold just as surely. Their content may be modern
and “loose”, but
the form in which they are set is chamber classical. Bolling himself is at the
piano, and you have
never heard any better musicianship on the keyboard than he
renders.
What
is meant by Chamber Music? The
current
definition is: music written for and performed by a small
ensemble of
instruments with just one performer on each separate part in the
score. A chamber piece
ranges on the average
anywhere from two to seven or eight musicians.
Quartets, quintets, trios, duets, sextets, etc.! That is now – the twentieth
and twenty-first
centuries. The term,
however, has
undergone considerable evolutionary change over the last four
hundred
years. During the 1700s
orchestras were
very small compared with the 1800s and 1900s.
They were not much bigger than some of our chamber
ensembles are
today. It was not until
the orchestra
grew to a certain sweeping size that the smaller ensembles took
on the
distinction of being a separate genre of musical construction.
In
the pre-Baroque era there was hardly such a thing as a concert
orchestra. Instrumental
music was generally not played
in large auditoriums, except perhaps to accompany choral
presentations. Apparently
the word “chamber” came to be
attached to the small ensembles as a reference to the restricted
environments
in which they were performed. Sometimes
it
was the court or private chamber of a king or prince; at others
it was the
private residence of a nobleman (so-called).
Sometimes the music was not meant to be given studied
attention but
served as background for social gatherings.
We have all been to parties or social affairs at which
the stereo is
throbbing in the corner somewhere.
The
people present hear it and relax in the ambiance that it creates
but focus on
each other and engage in conversation, the music just barely on
the edge of
consciousness. The
recording only adds a
certain color or mood to the occasion.
The guests rarely ever sit down and listen intently. Somewhat like that it was
on occasion, when
chamber was all that was.
Of
course, most chamber music now – by our definition – is played
on a stage or in
a setting where an audience does give it full consideration. There are no more
“chambers” as such. Quartets
and trios and the like are given the
same respect as orchestral works, even if they do not usually
generate the kind
of sound swell or size of audience or prestige that the larger
works do.
Bolling’s
Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano, 34 minutes in running time,
comprises seven
movements with a solo flute (the flutist being the equally world
renowned
Jean-Pierre Rampal, another study himself) accompanied by piano,
percussion and
string bass. This is a
chamber work not
only in terms of its reduced instrumental size but with regard
to its
suitability as background music at that party or social
gathering. It contains
some of the most arm flapping,
hip gyrating and feet scrambling music you are ever likely to
hear as well as
some of the coolest and sauciest and most torrid. Moods vary greatly, as they
would have to for
this to earn the designation of “suite.”
In the last four minutes we hear something akin to a
foot-pounding
Native American or African tribal dance rhythm, with the flute
providing the
melody in a ceremonial solo fashion. On
the tail end of this, the recording comes to a stomping, wild,
frenzied
finish.
Suite
for Chamber Orchestra and Jazz Piano runs 48 minutes and
consists of five
movements. In this one,
Bolling may use
a so-called “chamber orchestra,” but at the core this too is a
genuine chamber
piece, the extra instrumentation in no way detracting from the
intimate,
small-room setting. The
suite begins
like a formal early 19th century ensemble rendition
and by gradual
sleight of hand deftly transforms itself into something for
which there is no
easy pigeonhole. By the
time he has
pranced and promenaded and swung and swaggered his way through
the three
quarters of an hour, you will appreciate something the famous
Bobby McFerrin
once said. He recalled
what his
mentor/maestro Leonard Bernstein had taught him – “that it’s all
jazz.”
The
contrasts in this suite are phenomenal.
Everything from a crawl to a mad rush, from old style
courtliness to
contemporary hoof beats, from fox trot to ballroom grace can be
savored, and he
moves from one to the other in one breath.
There are no seams. By
the time
it ends, you will not know for sure where the classical has left
off and the
jazz has begun or vice versa. His
left
hand may know what his right hand is doing, but each gives
unfailing respect to
the other. What a
payload! As you listen,
watch your blood pressure and
remember to breathe.
Other
recordings of his in the same jazz/classical vein are: Concerto
for Guitar and
Jazz Piano; Suite for Violin and Jazz Piano; Picnic Suite for
Guitar, Flute and
Jazz Piano; and Suite for Cello and Jazz Piano.
As
a crossover listener I have been into Bolling’s music for years
and have
delighted immensely in everything of his I have heard. I invite you to make his
acquaintance, if you
have not already. He is
a universe unto
himself. Google
him, if you must.
To read other
entries in my
blog, please consult its website:
enspiritus.blogspot.com
I welcome
feedback. Direct it to
bobracine@verizon.net
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