San Francisco Classical Voice

Sometimes the oldest can be the newest. Such was certainly the case at the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players concert last night at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater. The title of the concert was "Crossing Over," and while the intermingling of jazz and contemporary classical music is old news, the greatest revelation of the evening was Charles Mingus's grandiose Revelations of 1957. Here the great jazz bassist and composer offers an Octandre-like ensemble of seven winds (in this case flute/piccolo, clarinet, alto/tenor and baritone saxophones, bassoon, horn, trumpet, and trombone) and string bass, graced by the addition of an expanded rhythm section of electric guitar, harp, piano, and no less than three percussionists (on traps, vibraphone, and a triumvirate of t's -- tambourine, timpani, and triangle).

Mingus immediately shows himself a wonderful orchestrator, opening with grim doublings of the instruments, all set against single strokes of triangle and, later, tambourine. This was eventually interrupted by footstomps from two of the percussionists, one of whom, vibraphonist Willy Winant, subsequently shouted "Yes, my Lord!" Structurally the work is a bit labored but very clear, with straight-ahead jazz piano sections ably realized by expert composer-pianist Anthony Davis. The excitement continues in cheesy unisons of flute, trumpet, and electric guitar, and a flighty downward glissando of piccolo and trombone. An alto sax solo below a high piccolo obbligato ushers in a free-jazz mass improvisation, where the best that the capable conductor Donald Palma could do was simply swirl his arms in patented Eugene Ormandy-style circular motions.

Davis was also the featured pianist in his own Dance (1994), which opened the program. This was a fairly straight ahead classical-jazz mix, with touches of minimalism, Bernstein, and Stravinsky in its steady-state textures, mixed-meter insistence, and orchestrational colorations. ( It was a kind of weird Mozart Clarinet Quintet, where the licorice stick was joined by one each of violin, viola, cello, and bass, plus a cool jazz component of trap set and vibraphone).

Lyle Mays's Somewhere in Maine (1988) took up the slack after intermission with violinist Roy Malan and marimbist Daniel Kennedy wired for output and playback in this ghost quartet of live and taped gestures. Kicking and Screaming (1994), by Eric Moe, wrapped things up in a minimum of neurosis and a maximum of gestural interplay. If Elliott Carter (for the contesting textures and meters) and Benjamin Britten (for the interslicing, often solemn motives reminiscent of sections of both the War Requiem and the Sinfonia da Requiem) came to mind more than jazz, an impressive tutti of string quartet, woodwind quintet, and piano against a frantic high-hat confirmed the work's placement on this Crossover Concert. The Africanesque boogie of bassoon, cello, and woodblock/cowbell helped, too. Pianist Julie Steinberg was the impassioned soloist in this anti-concerto of considerable power.

(Mark Alburger is an award-winning ASCAP composer, and the editor-publisher of 20TH-CENTURY MUSIC Monthly Journal.)

©1999 Mark Alburger, all rights reserved