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Mar. 6--Experiments in merging jazz and classical music often prove injurious to both, but not this time.
With 50-plus musicians on stage, several inspired soloists as featured guests and a protean conductor-trumpeter at the podium, the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic shattered conventional thinking on the nature of genre-bending concerts. Moreover, the sonic beauty and technical finesse of the endeavor shed light on why such artistic adventures often fare poorly.
So-called Third Stream ensembles generally run into trouble when they bounce from one idiom to the other within the course of a single composition, producing jarring shifts from four-square rhythm to gently swinging backbeats.
The CJP, however, almost totally avoided this problem Saturday night at the Auditorium Theatre. In part, this was because the band played repertoire that elegantly intertwined classical and jazz languages. Furthermore, most of the repertoire was penned by CJP conductor-founder Orbert Davis, who rehearsed the musicians in how to perform his scores.
Perhaps only a visionary as fearless as Davis would dare to dream of a venture as bold as the CJP, which may have no counterpart in the United States. Because Davis writes as deftly for classical strings and winds as he does for jazz horns and rhythm players, he has achieved with his CJP a glorious merger of seemingly disparate traditions.
Davis opened the program boldly, his "Introductions" merging brashly dissonant chords evoking Leonard Bernstein's symphonic work with fluid, jazz-based solos by Davis and tenor saxophonist Ari Brown. Listeners who may have expected light-and-easy fare were immediately put on notice: This was not going to be an evening at the pops.
Built on themes of Stravinsky's "Firebird" Suite, Davis' "An Afternoon with Mr. Bowie" proved that urban blues are so universal that they even can be mined deep in the pages of a Russian masterpiece. Saxophonist Brown underscored the point, his solos so persuasive that the neophyte listener might have guessed that Stravinsky had come of age on Chicago's South Side.
To honor Chicago's emergence as a town in 1833 (though it became a city in 1837), Davis offered the world premiere of his suite "Chicago @ 173." Each section had a great deal to say, from its misty opening, which recalled the city's origin as a swamp, to its buoyant finale, a tribute to Michael Jordan.
Yet for all its appeal, the piece seemed a bit brief, considering the heft of Davis' themes. Surely this tone poem merits expansion, so that the composer can develop the material further.
By any measure, though, this performance by the CJP exceeded expectations. The ensemble clearly deserves to play a full season's worth of concerts, either at the Auditorium or any other worthy venue savvy enough to book it.
hreich@tribune.com
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