Symphonic Jazz Pretty Much Rocks
(before i get started today, a hello to all the new visitors to the site that are coming in via the links on the Via Chicago forums as well as Kwaya Na Kisser (an excellent blog if i do say so myself)... have a look around, take in some music, bookmark us- it's good to have you stop by)
So I was fortunate enough to see Dave Brubeck perform at that other university this weekend, as he was the subject of their University Musical Society Honors Program this year. It was pretty fantastic to say the least, thanks in no small part to the fact that Brubeck was backed by not only his own fantastic quartet but also the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra. Basically, if you think Blue Rondo a la Turk is amazing as is, just imagine it backed by strings (I don’t think a recording could even do it justice, to be honest).
The performance only furthered my feeling that symphonic jazz is some of the most amazing music ever, a feeling that started earlier this year with the release of Elvis Costello’s My Flame Burns Blue, which featured him live in concert backed by the Metropole Orkest, one of the world’s leading jazz orchestras. Costello retools some of his own material for this disc, but perhaps even more remarkably, arranges and adds lyrics to preexisting jazz compositions. Perhaps the best example is the album’s opener, a rendition of Charles Mingus’ “Hora Decubitus” with lyrics penned by Costello incidentally right around September 11, 2001. The result is something along the lines of the search for peace in the midst of chaos embodied by “(What’s So Funny Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?” with a darker and more urgent edge to it, and as usual, it's brillant.
Elvis Costello (with the Metropole Orkest)- Hora Decubitus
So I was fortunate enough to see Dave Brubeck perform at that other university this weekend, as he was the subject of their University Musical Society Honors Program this year. It was pretty fantastic to say the least, thanks in no small part to the fact that Brubeck was backed by not only his own fantastic quartet but also the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra. Basically, if you think Blue Rondo a la Turk is amazing as is, just imagine it backed by strings (I don’t think a recording could even do it justice, to be honest).
The performance only furthered my feeling that symphonic jazz is some of the most amazing music ever, a feeling that started earlier this year with the release of Elvis Costello’s My Flame Burns Blue, which featured him live in concert backed by the Metropole Orkest, one of the world’s leading jazz orchestras. Costello retools some of his own material for this disc, but perhaps even more remarkably, arranges and adds lyrics to preexisting jazz compositions. Perhaps the best example is the album’s opener, a rendition of Charles Mingus’ “Hora Decubitus” with lyrics penned by Costello incidentally right around September 11, 2001. The result is something along the lines of the search for peace in the midst of chaos embodied by “(What’s So Funny Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?” with a darker and more urgent edge to it, and as usual, it's brillant.
Elvis Costello (with the Metropole Orkest)- Hora Decubitus
posted by Jeff Lakin at 11:03 AM
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