Live From Lincoln Center 2010 / PBS

[Man with the Golden Arm]

Happened to catch Marsalis' "Swing Symphony" w/ NY Phil premiere on LFLC last night on PBS. I'll bet most expecting the regular might have been tossed a bit by the long progressive lead-in but the groove got going.

Monster talents up there.

Sherman Irby played beautifully.

[Larry Kart]

Will watch/listen this afternoon and (perhaps) weigh in.

[Free For All]

I thought it was a very interesting piece. I like the way he integrated the orchestral players with the jazz players. Also some nice orchestration, lots of different colors. I thought all the soloists played great (ditto on Sherman Irby!) and the piece had a lot of nice grooves- it didn't feel clunky considering all the players involved. The NY Phil trombonist Joe Alessi is a monster! I really like the way Wynton used the harmon mutes (with stems in) in the brass to create some eerie vocal effects. I started the broadcast not knowing what to expect and have to say I was impressed.

Edited September 23, 2010 by Free For All

[tranemonk]

I caught the last ten minutes online but have it on the DVR... Will watch this weekend.

(I predict within 5 posts this will generate into another Wynton bashing thread.... which gets really tiring... )

[Larry Kart]

I caught the last ten minutes online but have it on the DVR... Will watch this weekend.

(I predict within 5 posts this will generate into another Wynton bashing thread.... which gets really tiring... )

Within only 5 posts? Surely you jest.

Whatever, all I can and will do is say what I actually think, which may turn out to be nothing.

[Lazaro Vega]

That Dizzy Gillespie like suite starting with Things To Come was impressive, though the parts were different than Diz's - the rhythms played in the trumpet unisons were sped up, the line slicked up some, but, man, they played well together. So that was Irby on alto in the Johnny Hodges-like role?

Edited September 23, 2010 by Lazaro Vega

[Larry Kart]

Nothing.

P.S. Did Buddy Bregman ghost the string parts?

[Larry Kart]

Wynton didn't even orchestrate the thing?

"University of Florida music professor James Oliverio spent a whirlwind five weeks this summer working with one of the country's preeminent jazz talents.

"Tonight he will be seated in a plush seat at Lincoln Center in New York City watching the U.S. premiere of "Swing Symphony (Symphony No. 3)," composed by Grammy Award-winning musician Wynton Marsalis and scored by Oliverio.

"Oliverio, director of UF's Digital Worlds Institute, spent four days in a cabin in the North Georgia mountains translating a handwritten piano score into a full orchestral score for Marsalis as part of his work...."

http://www.gainesville.com/article/20100921/ARTICLES/100929912/1109/sports?Title=Lincoln-Center-premiere-scored-by-UF-music-professor

Well, at least the piano score was handwritten.

[Christiern]

I wonder who handwrote it for Wynton.

[Larry Kart]

I wonder who handwrote it for Wynton.

Based on what I heard, I'm pretty sure he did. Either that or (in the first few sections) Ferde Grofe on Quaaludes.

[ghost of miles]

Alex W. Rodriguez' review. Larry, he makes the same point re: Grofe. Not the first time WM has been linked (directly or indirectly) to Paul Whiteman.

[Larry Kart]

Alex W. Rodriguez' review. Larry, he makes the same point re: Grofe. Not the first time WM has been linked (directly or indirectly) to Paul Whiteman.

Yes, I did it in my book. Even so, I was surprised that the old-timey sections of Wynton's piece were so rickety-tick. Whiteman's orchestra may not have swung that overtly, but at its best it certainly glided, and recordings such as "Dardanella," "Changes," and "From Monday On" et al. are handsome, subtle things.

[carnivore]

What a dreary waste of a lot of fine musicians. 'Aaron Copland meets Leroy Anderson' minus any memorable thematic material. A great reliance on effects - brass mutes, growls etc. - some Hodges alto here - a bit for tenor saxes there - some really awkward sounding Latin rhythms - various pastiches of 'great moments from the World of Jazz' each far less interesting than their source and a seeming complete absence of any idea of structure or coherence. The soloists played beautifully for the most part but it was more a matter of how they played rather than what they played. Joe Temperley sounded great but his material didn't move me. Marsalis is in over his head - he has even less idea of how to write for a symphony orchestra than Stan Kenton but maybe about as much as Paul McCartney.

Although I have the concert recorded I feel little desire to listen again.

[Christiern]

What I heard reminded me of those paint-by-the-number horrors of old. There was nothing that my ears found even mildly interesting, just blandness that confirmed what many of us had already heard in "Blood on the Fields": neither the imagination nor the talent is there. If it somehow became worthwhile listening in the second half, I missed it by tuning out from sheer boredom.

Why do they keep pumping money and wasting effort on the likes of Wynton? The real thing is out there...struggling.

[carnivore]

It was fascinating, and instructive to see the return of animation and conviction to the players and the conductor in the second half of the concert - the Richard Strauss 'Don Juan' and the Hindemith/Weber. Terrific performance, particularly from the oboe-ist - a youngish chap of Asian ancestry. What a player!

[Mark Stryker]

I haven't heard the piece, so I can't comment specifically on its success or failure. But I am intrigued by a particular angle of the discussion: the suspicions raised by the fact that Wynton did not orchestrate the piece. Assuming I'm not misreading Larry, the view seems to be that this is somehow dishonest, a form of cheating. But is this always the case?

"Let My Children Hear Music," for instance, is for me one of Mingus' greatest masterpieces, but the fact is that Sy Johnson orchestrated nearly all of the record. We rightly think of it as Mingus' music, but there's no question that the brilliance of the orchestration -- which instruments play which notes -- is critical to its success, and the startling flow of texture and color in the music owes a great to deal to Johnson's imagination. I wonder sometimes if Johnson doesn't get enough credit; he didn't write the album, but it wouldn't be as good without him and might not exist. Yet no one would argue that Johnson is Mingus' equal. Part of it, perhaps, are the distinctions between "composer," "arranger" and "orchestrator," and as I recall, there were arguments between Mingus and Johnson in the studio over exactly how credit should be given.

I don't think of Gil Evans as a composer as much as an arranger, but the level of invention of the orchestrations and choices he makes shaping other peoples' music absolutely rises to the level of genius. There's a longstanding prejudice that elevates composers over arrangers, but Evans shows the folly of reductive thinking.

Certainly, a particular gift for orchestration is a healthy part of the genius for some composers (Ellington, Berlioz, Ravel, Horace Silver) and less important for others (Brahms, many of the Basie arrangers, Steve Reich, Wayne Shorter, although Wayne's recent work with the Imani Winds shows he's come a long way since "High Life" and the soupy orchestral writing I heard in a piece he debuted with the Detroit Symphony in 2000. Of course Wayne's thematic material, development, detailing and harmonic color and movement are always stunning.)

Broadway is another interesting case, where the tradition has always been that the roles of composer and orchestrator were separate -- in fact, there may well be a union distinction that reinforced the practice. Maybe somebody with more knowledge of this than I could weigh in. In any case, Stephen Sondheim has never orchestrated his own shows, though he certainly has the chops to do so in a way that some of the classic Broadway tunesmiths did not.

A few years ago I covered the world premiere of an opera called "Cyrano" by David DiChiera, the general director of Michigan Opera Theatre and a true civic hero here in Detroit. He had been trained as a composer and he wrote a lovely work in a conservative idiom, not without issues, but generally successful. He did not orchestrate the piece -- given his duties running a major opera company, he didn't have time. But he gave detailed instructions to the conductor who ended up doing the actual pen-to-paper work -- use an oboe for this melody, a wash of winds or horns for that gesture, etc. Yet the orchestrator still was making a lot of specific decisions on his own.

I guess my point is that it's complicated. And interesting.

Edited September 26, 2010 by Mark Stryker

[Larry Kart]

I haven't heard the piece, so I can't comment specifically on its success or failure. But I am intrigued by a particular angle of the discussion: the suspicions raised by the fact that Wynton did not orchestrate the piece. Assuming I'm not misreading Larry, the view seems to be that this is somehow dishonest, a form of cheating. But is this always the case?

"Let My Children Hear Music," for instance, is for me one of Mingus' greatest masterpieces, but the fact is that Sy Johnson orchestrated nearly all of the record. We rightly think of it as Mingus' music, but there's no question that the brilliance of the orchestration -- which instruments play which notes -- is critical to its success, and the startling flow of texture and color in the music owes a great to deal to Johnson's imagination. I wonder sometimes if Johnson doesn't get enough credit; he didn't write the album, but it wouldn't be as good without him and might not exist. Yet no one would argue that Johnson is Mingus' equal. Part of it, perhaps, are the distinctions between "composer," "arranger" and "orchestrator," and as I recall, there were arguments between Mingus and Johnson in the studio over exactly how credit should be given.

I don't think of Gil Evans as a composer as much as an arranger, but the level of invention of the orchestrations and choices he makes shaping other peoples' music absolutely rises to the level of genius. There's a longstanding prejudice that elevates composers over arrangers, but Evans shows the folly of reductive thinking.

Certainly, a particular gift for orchestration is a healthy part of the genius for some composers (Ellington, Berlioz, Ravel, Horace Silver) and less important for others (Brahms, many of the Basie arrangers, Steve Reich, Wayne Shorter, although Wayne's recent work with the Imani Winds shows he's come a long way since "High Life" and the soupy orchestral writing I heard in a piece he debuted with the Detroit Symphony in 2000. Of course Wayne's thematic material, development, detailing and harmonic color and movement are always stunning.)

Broadway is another interesting case, where the tradition has always been that the roles of composer and orchestrator were separate -- in fact, there may well be a union distinction that reinforced the practice. Maybe somebody with more knowledge of this than I could weigh in. In any case, Stephen Sondheim has never orchestrated his own shows, though he certainly has the chops to do so in a way that some of the classic Broadway tunesmiths did not.

A few years ago I covered the world premiere of an opera called "Cyrano" by David DiChiera, the general director of Michigan Opera Theatre and a true civic hero here in Detroit. He had been trained as a composer and he wrote a lovely work in a conservative idiom, not without issues, but generally successful. He did not orchestrate the piece -- given his duties running a major opera company, he didn't have time. But he gave detailed instructions to the conductor who ended up doing the actual pen-to-paper work -- use an oboe for this melody, a wash of winds or horns for that gesture, etc. Yet the orchestrator still was making a lot of specific decisions on his own.

I guess my point is that it's complicated. And interesting.

Mark -- If the actual sonic nature of Wynton's writing here were not so dismal (in my view, as well as that of Carnivore and some others who have heard the work and posted here), then the fact that Wynton himself did not orchestrate the piece might not seem potentially notable. At least two possibly inter-related things are at issue here: the quality of Wynton's inspiration when he has pen in hand (also horn in hand, for my tastes, especially in recent years) and his craft knowledge/competence as a composer. If I may quote anonymously from a veteran jazz composer/arranger's recent personal communication to me (not to settle this issue but to at least indicate how many such people in the field feel):

"Wynton is totally untrained as a composer. His charts for "Blood on the Fields" were his first-ever big-band charts; I have a copy of one of his score pages, and it looks like a 16-year-old's first chart--and sounded like it.

"Never in jazz (and perhaps in Western music) history has an artist received so many major opportunities and produced so little of value.

"'Swing Symphony,' my ass. Wynton ... epitomizes what Miles Davis once termed 'hip cornball.'"

As for the question of classical, jazz, and Broadway composers whose works have been orchestrated by others, I've recently gone onto this extensively in the aftermath of the Swing Symphony on the Jazz West Coast list. It doesn't seem that complicated a question, just a matter of various circumstances. Borodin was cited by one poster there, Delius by another, but both those men were orchestrators of great talent, even genius in Delius's case. Some of Borodin's works (e.g. "Prince Igor") were orchestrated by Glauzanov and Rimsky-Korsakov because Borodin left them in an incomplete and chaotic state; in other cases, they made suggestions as to scoring (e.g. giving the main tune in the first symphony to cellos rather than English horn) that are now commonly regarded as inferior to Borodin's orginal inspiration. Much of Delius's late work was dictated to and orchestrated by Eric Fenby (in the Delius manner, insofar as that was possible) because Delius was suffering from terminal syphilis. As far as I know, Wynton is in good health.

In the world of Broadway and film scoring, composers often expect others to orchestrate their work because of time pressure and the rapidly shifting demands of stage and film production. Some theater and film composers (say, Irving Berlin) couldn't have produced an effective orchestral score if they had all the time in the world; many certainly could but don't (say, John Williams) for the reasons cited above.

As for Mingus (and you also could have mentioned the likelihood that Bob Hammer played a major role in orchestrating and formally shaping "The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady"); in Mingus's case I think it was not so much lack of orchestral knowledge and imagination (the latter he had in abundance) but actual scoring experience; Jimmy Knepper is on record as saying that some of Mingus's trombone parts were impossible to play as written. A further key factor was Mingus' temperament; on many occasions when deadlines drew near, he was in such a state of emotional turmoil that there just wasn't time for him to do the necessary work of orchestration, even if he had been up to it otherwise.

BTW, the idea that orchestration was not a matter of importance for Brahms, or that he even lacked competence in that realm, is an old one but quite mistaken IMO. The "colors" of Brahms's music were not those of, say, Berlioz or Ravel or Richard Strauss, but they were in virtually every case the only colors imaginable and were carefully weighed by the composer.

[Mark Stryker]

Larry:

Thanks for clarifying your views. "Complicated" probably wasn't the best word choice since I really didn't mean "tough to understand" as much as "there's a myriad of circumstances that can change the equation" -- which is your more cleanly stated point. I do find the topic interesting.

Re: Brahms. I don't dispute that orchestration may have been important to him and I would never say he was not competent at it. I would say, despite your point that he was very specific about his choices and that his colors were his colors, that orchestration is still not his greatest gift or critical to the success or significance of his music as it is with other composers. But perhaps this is matter of taste; the fact that I find the symphonic-and-concerto Brahms overly dense and gray (Symphony No. 2 excepted) is certainly my issue not Brahms' or, perhaps, yours. Potato, Potahto and all that. Having said that, I adore the chamber music, the late piano music and the Requiem, partly because they breathe easier and offer a more prismatic palette to my ears.

Edited September 26, 2010 by Mark Stryker