Organic Music and Symphronica
November 24 2008

I sometimes joke that I am less a professional jazz musician than a failed classical one.

Like many kids of my era, musical training began with Conservatory classical training- scales, simple Bach, a little theory. I rebelled. But I still learned. By the time I was out of the Conservatory system, and playing jazz. But I was listening mostly to classical.

Now that I am a full-time musician, working in jazz, I listen almost exclusively to classical. Can't listen to jazz. Like Sonny Rollins, who also listens to no jazz, I find it's too much information.

But I don't play classical. Can't. I'd love to. But just can't. I have no ability to adhere to a score. I adore the Bach English Suites. But if I try to play them, they don't stick. I add, subtract, multiply, divide unconsciously. The more I try to stay on Bach's roadmap, the more I veer away.

So I've gone my merry way in jazz lo these many years. I've thrown in classical one-offs. A version of Kreisler's 'Liebesleid' appears on my "Mungle Music" CD. The recording after that one, "Shimmering Rhythm", had strings and two clarinets. And we did a workup of Vaughan Williams' 'Rhosymedre' on it.

But I've never really returned to classical.

Last Friday, I took as much of a step in that direction as I ever will. I've had 12 pieces, mostly mine, arranged for symphony orchestra plus my trio. I'll blog about the project another time. Suffice it to say I'm proud of these arrangements, which are by wonderful composers who have not yet achieved the recognition they deserve. They're not standard arrangements. They're not compositions. Something in between.

Back to last Friday. My friend David Visentin, Associate Dean of the Glenn Gould School at the Conservatory, helped put together an 50-person orchestra of mostly advanced university-aged performance students. He gave us he Rehearsal Hall at the Conservatory (referred to with affection as the Con). My friend and colleague John Morris Russell, masterful conductor of the Windsor Symphony, came into town. And voilà- I was playing with a symphony.

What a feeling. Real people playing on wood and brass, using skill not programmed silicon. It was a united energy, driving to make united beautiful sound. Organic music. No computer-generated chemicals, no pitch-correcting herbicides. Just hard-earned, practise, practise, practise music-making.

What a feeling. To be in that sound, hearing your own music, playing along with 50 people as passionate about music as you. Unbeatable.

I believe that as the millenials age, they will leave clubs and come back to this handmade organic music. The electron-drive thumpa thumpa thumpa, will be replaced by the lung-driven trumpet, trumpet, trumpet. And they will be impressed. Many people have gone to classical from rock. But fre have gone in the opposite direction.

By the way- I was thinking of calling my symphony project Symphronica, but some find it too fromage. Others love it. I'm torn.

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