West Coast Premiere of Marsalis Symphony #3 at LA Phil

Le Salon

Wynton Marsalis is the first jazz artist to win a Pulitzer Prize in music.

By Penny Orloff

Uniting jazz and classical music at the LA Phil.

Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Wynton Marsalis and his Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra play the West Coast premiere of his Symphony No. 3 (“Swing Symphony”) with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, under the baton of guest conductor Leonard Slatkin, on Saturday, February 12 at 8pm and Sunday, February 13 at 2pm, at Disney Hall. Accompanying the “Swing Symphony” on the program are George Gershwin’s “An American in Paris,” and the Shostakovich “Jazz Suite No. 1.”

Marsalis’ third symphonic work traces the long and rich history of jazz. Incorporating eclectic styles such as blues, New Orleans parade marches, Hollywood film music, France’s “Le Jazz Hot,” and Latin Jazz into the six-movement orchestral work, Marsalis pays tribute to the many great American jazz artists and composers of the 20th century, most notably Duke Ellington. Wynton Marsalis was the first jazz composer to have been awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music – a prize denied to Duke Ellington in 1965 – for his jazz oratorio on American slavery, “Blood on the Fields.” 

The idea of uniting jazz and Western classical music is nearly as old as jazz itself. Nearly a century has passed since Paul Whiteman set out to "make a lady" of jazz in 1924. Whiteman commissioned George Gershwin to compose a piece for his orchestra, incorporating the 20th century symphonic colors of Debussy with elements of jazz. The result was "Rhapsody in Blue," which became a repertory staple virtually overnight with symphony orchestras all over the world. A scant decade later Duke Ellington, himself, was experimenting with extended forms of the new music.

Commissioned jointly by the Berliner Philharmoniker Foundation, the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and London’s Barbican Center, the “Swing Symphony” had its world premiere last June when Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra sat in with the Berlin Philharmonic. Marsalis and the JALC next played the work’s U.S. debut in September, as part of the gala opening of the New York Philharmonic’s 2010-2011 season.

Marsalis has written about some of the unique aspects of his score for the “Swing Symphony,” which requires virtuoso playing from the jazz players no less than the symphonic musicians. He calls attention to the final movement, for example, which “features slapping and a groove that we all play together. It has a long melody and a space for everyone to play. And it brings together many different feelings.” Like the music of Aaron Copland, a thread running through is strikingly reminiscent of American sacred music, “…’cause the centerpiece of a lot of Afro-American music is church music.” Of the final, meditative passages, Marsalis says, “And then it breaks down into something that is at the end of your life, and you reflect on everything…that’s why at the end I have us go ‘Huuuh.' It’s like that last breath that you take. Like ‘we did this, and we had a good time.’ That’s what we conclude in jazz, it’s an optimistic music."

Born in New Orleans in 1961, Marsalis began his classical training on trumpet at age 12, entering the Juilliard School at 17. Marsalis has recorded more than 30 jazz and classical recordings, which have won him nine Grammy awards. In 1983, he became the first and only artist to win both classical and jazz Grammy awards in the same year, and repeated this feat in 1984.

Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra hang around for a program of jazz classics by Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and many others, on Tuesday, February 15 at 8pm. Under Marsalis, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra spends over a third of the year on tour. Composed of 15 of today’s finest jazz solists and ensemble players, the big band performs music from a vast catalogue of jazz works, from rare historic compositions to Jazz at Lincoln Center-commissioned pieces. Over the last few years, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra has collaborated with many of the world’s great symphony orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, the Russian National Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Boston, Chicago, and London Symphony Orchestras. For more information on Jazz at Lincoln Center, please visit www.jalc.org.

 

Disney Hall is located at 111 South Grand Avenue, between 1st and 2nd. The venue is accessible via the Red Line Civic Center Metro Stop. Driving directions are available online. For tickets and information, phone (323) 858-2000, or visit www.laphil.com.

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