CLICK ON PHOTO TO SEE SLIDE SHOW
See slide show of the Pacific Symphony’s ‘Gershwin and All That Jazz!’ concert
I went to the symphony Thursday night and a jazz concert broke out. That’s right, man.
It was the latest round of the Pacific Symphony’s “Music Unwound” series, which attempts to interact with, stimulate, educate and generally keep audiences, well, awake. The concerts in this series take different forms. This one, called “Gershwin and All That Jazz!” had a cool combo in the lobby playing for patrons as they entered. Also, other combos and activities on the levels above. On level four you could try out a trumpet, a clarinet or a trombone, a musical playground for adults, sanitary mouthpieces provided gratis. A “Late Nite Lounge” awaited listeners after the concert for those who wanted more.
Inside the auditorium, Carl St.Clair, with a little help from his friends, led the orchestra in a little bit of this and that. The programming and the presentation in these “Musical Unwound” concerts become as important as the performances themselves.
I wish the program had been a little more rigorous, a genuine exploration of symphonic jazz, which has a real history in 20th century classical music. This was really more like a pops concert (with two intermissions) and much of the music wasn’t symphonic jazz, per se, but just jazz in symphonic arrangements, if you get the difference (and even if you don’t).
Stravinsky wrote an “Ebony Concerto” (for Woody Herman), George Antheil wrote a “Jazz Symphony,” Joplin and even Ives wrote rags, Milhaud wrote “La Creation du Monde,” Ravel wrote some blues, Shchedrin wrote “Naughty Limericks,” etc., etc., but we heard none of them. We did get three perfectly pleasant, but hardly ground-breaking ditties, including a playful tribute to St.Clair’s son, by Canadian pianist Alain Lefèvre. I would have loved to hear him romp through some Joplin, or Fats Waller.
