United States Aspen Music Festival 2024 [5]: Harris Concert Hall, Aspen, Colorado. (HS)
The weekday recitals in Harris Hall this past week stretched the boundaries of classical music. If George Gershwin famously dabbled in jazz for his Rhapsody in Blue a century ago, pianist Conrad Tao took it up a few notches, including his new piece inspired by Gershwin’s. The American Brass Quintet introduced music Tuesday that entertained while extending the borders of what trumpets, horns and trombones can do.
But nothing could top Wednesday’s jaw-dropping creativity in As We Speak, in which Zakir Hussain and Rakesh Chaurasia melded their musical roots in India with Béla Fleck and Edgar Meyer (from the American South) and made it utterly glorious. When I heard them play this same music last fall in San Francisco, I found extra depth in the music compared with the recording, which won a Grammy. What we heard in Harris Hall explored possibilities with even greater expanse as their disparate styles melded more coherently. A whole new form of music emerged before our ears.
It helps that these four, whose friendship goes back decades, set the gold standard for their instruments. More than virtuosity, the magic lies in how their individual voices combined go straight to a listener’s heart.
Hussain makes his tablas speak, sing, laugh and cry while setting down rhythms and adding torrents of complex decorations. The other foundation is bassist Meyer, an Aspen regular who wrote many of the tunes. He can match musical wits with jazz masters like Christian McBride, and with bluegrass giants like Fleck, whose banjo can execute a J.S. Bach fugue flawlessly. Here it stands in for a sitar as it meshes with Hussain’s tablas, without losing the instrument’s identity as a bluegrass staple.
Chaurasia floats haunting melodies on his bansuri, a wooden flute, that extends the group’s sonic palette. His countermelodies and harmonies add a unique flavor, whether weaving through the music or taking off on virtuosic solos of his own.
Of the eight selections (from twelve on the album), ‘Pashto’ came together best. Meyer laid down a drone and Chaurasia floated a winding tune over it. Rhythms and sounds of an earlier fusion – Celtic bagpipers and local musicians in Northern India – turned different facets to the light, and the piece gained in depth and complexity over its more than twelve minutes. Another winner was the title tune, in which each musician had a chance to express what their instruments can do, which eventually layered into a new sound.
These are all on the 2023 album, much of which was written and recorded after a pre-pandemic tour. Some, such as ‘Beast’ and ‘Trade Winds’ go back decades. The encore, ‘1980’, was written by Meyer in that year, but took on an Indian tang with this group.
On Monday, Conrad Tao not only explored the intersection of classical music and jazz but barreled down a few side streets in Flung Out, his new composition which absorbs some of today’s dance music. An ad hoc ensemble of students (except for concertmaster Laura Park Chen) got into respectable grooves for both Gershwin’s and Tao’s pieces.
Rhapsody used the original arrangement Gershwin wrote and Ferde Grofé orchestrated for Paul Whiteman’s jazz orchestra, debuting in 1924 on a special ‘Experiment in Modern Music’ concert in New York. Unlike the symphonic versions we usually hear, it is considerably more raucous in the up-tempo parts, and the so-familiar big tune feels less lush. Piotr Wacławik (assistant conductor for the festival) drew out jazzier playing than Whiteman’s original recording.
Tao wielded impressive technique in Gershwin’s glittery cadenzas and decorations, though with more weight and intensity than most pianists do, mixing in ear-catching improvisations. The energy was palpable. The audience responded with a roar when they all got to the familiar finish
If anything, Flung Out was several degrees rowdier. To my ears, one critical difference was that Tao’s rhythmic grooves lasted only a few measures, shorter than Gershwin’s. Another was an embrace of spiky dissonances. In his introduction, Tao said his inspiration was sounds of today’s New York that he heard from his street-level apartment. The twenty-minute excursion rattled and banged incessantly before it settled into a lyrical tune (also a nod to Gershwin).
There was plenty to chew on – the shifting rhythms are especially intriguing – but for me it needed more contrast before a welcome, rollicking finish. Wind up big, and you get applause.
For an encore after the Rhapsody, he chose what he described as his transcription of the great jazz pianist Art Tatum’s 1951 solo recording of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’. He played with more weight but just as much agility, along with his own interpolations, rather like Tatum through the lens of Thelonious Monk.
In their recital on Tuesday, the American Brass Quintet fielded arrangements (by members of the quintet) of music from the early eighteenth century and before, and new works they have commissioned, including a world premiere and two from 2022. The winner was Jennifer Higdon’s Book of Brass, which bracketed two virtuosic and vivacious toccata-like movements around gentler, more legato fare. The writing took advantage of the quintet’s precision of execution and sensitivity to dynamics and tone. Anthony Barfield’s ‘Samsāra’ traced a lovely if bittersweet arc in its eight minutes.
The premiere, A Murder of Crows, described sets of animals in four colorful, restlessly fitful movements that included ‘A Tower of Giraffes’ and ‘Shadow of Jaguars’ (which are chased off by a gang of otters).
All the above outshone a set of pleasant court dances by William Brade, arranged by Raymond Mase (when he played trumpet in the quintet), and two brief madrigals by Carlo Gesualdo arranged by Brandon Ridenour, currently playing trumpet.
Harvey Steiman
15.7.2024, Recital by Conrad Tao (piano): Aspen Festival Ensemble / Piotr Wacławik (conductor)
Milhaud – La création du monde, Op.81
Conrad Tao – Flung Out (Aspen Music Festival co-commission)
Gershwin/Grofé – Rhapsody in Blue (original jazz band version)
16.7.2024, Recital by the American Brass Quintet: Kevin Cobb, Brandon Ridenour (trumpets), Eric Reed (horn), Hillary Simms (trombone), John D. Rojak (bass trombone)
Brade/Raymond Mase – ‘Courtly Dances and Canzons’ (selection)
Anthony Barfield – ‘Samsāra’
David Sampson – A Murder of Crows (world premiere)
Gesualdo/Brandon Ridenour – ‘Due sospira’
Jennifer Higdon – Book of Brass
17.7.2024, As We Speak: Béla Fleck (banjo), Zakir Hussain (tabla), Edgar Meyer (double bass), Rakesh Chaurasia (bansuri).
Fleck, Hussain, Meyer, Chaurasia – ‘Beast in the Garden’, ‘Trade Winds Bengali’, ‘Motion’, ‘Pashto’, ‘Rickety Karma’, ‘Hidden Lake’, ‘As We Speak’, ‘B-tune’. Encore: ‘1980’