January 16, 2007
Published on Tuesdays
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Mickey Butts
By Jeff Dunn It was Martin Luther King Jr. himself, some say, who foresaw his fate and made it part of a stirring speech in Memphis on April 3, 1968, the day before he was assassinated. That speech and that foreshadowing is integral to Black Suit Blues, by Petaluma composer Nolan Gasser. The piece has its West Coast premiere Friday night at the Paramount Theater, when the Oakland East Bay Symphony, conducted by Music Director Michael Morgan, commemorates Martin Luther King Day. The performance will feature baritone Robert Sims, tenor saxophonist David Henderson, and the Oakland Symphony Chorus. Black Suit Blues is actually part of a four-part oratorio titled American Festivals. The other sections are July Fourth, Memorial Day, and, still in the works, Thanksgiving. Gasser, 42, composed it in collaboration with Robert Trent Jones Jr., who when he isn’t designing golf courses, likes to write poetry. It was, perhaps, only to be expected that a composer with interests as wide-ranging as Gasser’s would combine talents with an equally eclectic librettist.
Nolan Gasser Photo by Classicalmusicarchives.com
Gasser is from La Mirada, Calif. He has a Ph.D. in music from Stanford, where he is an adjunct professor. But he also has to his credits the music for a hit song, Christmas by the Bay. He’s recorded jazz and pop piano with the likes of John Handy, Steve Miller, and Carol Channing. He’s the music director of Lynmar Winery. (No winery should be without one.) He’s helped develop an Internet radio station, www.pandora.com, which matches listeners’ preferences to musical selections. He’s even received a commission to honor the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, set for launch this October by NASA. GLAST-off, his piece for brass quintet, will be played at the Kennedy Center in early 2008.
We spoke at Gasser’s home, where he lives with his wife, Lynn, a superb cook, and two musically inclined children, ages 5 and 11.
Tell me about Black Suit Blues. The piece was premiered originally by the Memphis Symphony under David Loebel in February 2005, for a concert during Black History Month that was cosponsored by the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. I had met Michael [Morgan] some time ago, and because they do a big Martin Luther King tribute every year at the Paramount, he thought this would be a very suitable addition. The text for the piece is by Robert Trent Jones Jr. He’s celebrated as a golf-course architect, but he’s also a very gifted poet—he was an American studies major at Yale. The two of us became friends. I’m a very poor golfer. I like golf, but it wasn’t certainly a great passion of mine when we met. Too many "hole" notes! Right! The goals are much harder than in music. So we basically talked much more about music and poetry, especially poetry. He would show me some of his poems and I would set them casually, for fun, for friends and so forth, mainly for piano and voice. Then he showed me a poem called "Oration on July 4th." Immediately, it struck me as something that was a bit beyond just the casual sentiment, that this really could be a piece of larger scope. And of course as a composer and as a musician generally, you’re always thinking about how you can maximize your opportunities to combine what you love with making a living. What I said to him was that this could really be part of a much larger piece for orchestra, for chorus, and for soloists, and perhaps could even be part of a cycle. This idea grew, to create a cycle of poems on American holidays. Are there words of Martin Luther King in Black Suit Blues? The saxophone is the spirit and voice of Dr. King, who was, of course, assassinated in Memphis. [When] he gave his last sermon at the Masonic Temple, he obviously was in touch with some force beyond an earthly one. The speech is a fabulous one, where he says, "I’ve been to the mountain top and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you, but we as a people will get there. Like everybody, I’d like to live a long life. Longevity has its place, but I’m not worried about that now. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord." The melody of the sax is actually a rendering of those words, in sort of a free way, leading to an actual quotation of "Mine eyes have seen … " from The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Right before the word Lord, there’s a gunshot. The saxophone continues to play, and basically the saxophone [as Martin Luther King] dies. I was completely consumed with [King’s] writings. I identified so strongly with him. It was probably the most painful compositional experience I’ve had, to actually have him die — these last gasps of breath. What happens next in the piece? At that point there’s obviously a transition, and the text comes in and it’s the chorus, which is the community singing a spiritual lament, "We’ve got to burn our black suit, because we’re not going to get into Heaven with our clothes on." [Then] the baritone comes in, playing the role of a young black man. Perhaps he’s just been drafted into Vietnam and he’s just heard this news down in Mississippi, or Alabama, or somewhere in the South. He says, "Don’t want to know my destiny. 'Fraid mean old fate is catching up with me." At this point, the chorus comes in and is talking to this young man and saying, "Don’t give in to a sea of despair, pray with me and I’ll be there." The spirit of Dr. King comes there and the saxophone comes back. "And we will overcome. Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, free at last!" And at that point the young man is transformed, I guess in a Wagnerian sense of redemption, and becomes an active member, even a leader, of the community, and sings with them. So then, together with the chorus, he sings, "He lived out our dream. They shot him down," again reminding them of the tragedy and the chaos of it. "But still they could not kill our King." And that’s how it ends. And how was it received in Memphis? It was received extremely well. And happily, it’s getting performances. Who was it — it may have been Bob Commanday — who said, "Don’t talk to me about the premiere; talk to me about the second and third performances." The third step is the second performance at the same venue with the same orchestra. Even John Adams doesn’t get that! It’s the truth. We are in a very strange position as contemporary composers. We obviously all admire the great masters. We tend to forget that they wrote their music for audiences 100, 200, whatever years ago. We’re writing music for our own audiences — at least some of us are. What would you like the audience to go away with when they’ve heard your piece? It’s about Dr. King. I think I’d really want the music to be a positive and useful vehicle to arouse their discussions and contemplation of what Dr. King’s message is and what his purpose is, and how he lives with us today. It really is a tribute to him, and so it’s honoring him. Obviously I want them to enjoy the music and feel the emotional experience of it. And there’s a couple of catchy tunes in there, and hopefully they’ll come out whistling those. I think the larger thing is that this becomes part of the way we can celebrate his legacy. When I interview folks at intermissions, even though they’ve heard years and years of new music they liked, they’re still afraid that if there’s another new piece, it’s going to be bad, something atonal. It’s going to take another generation before composers bring them back to listening. What you seem to be doing is bringing them other kinds of musics to show them that there’s a continuum, not just high art or low art. A lot of composers, myself included, as opposed to those raised in the 1940s and '50s, were raised on rock and roll. And somehow, those aesthetics, sonorities, jazz and pop rhythms are part of our lexicon now. There’s no reason why they can’t somehow be incorporated. You say it may take a generation; I hope it doesn’t take that long. The Oakland East Bay Symphony is one place where people are not afraid of new music. Michael Morgan has done a tremendous service for the community there. Michael is an extraordinary talent. I’m just delighted. I can’t wait in particular to hear what the chorus does. The choral part is very indebted to gospel and spiritual music, and I have the feeling they’ll really be able to handle that well. It’s nice Oakland is so close! (Jeff Dunn is a freelance critic with a B.A. in music and a Ph.D. in geologic education. A composer of piano and vocal music, he is a member of NACUSA and president of Composers Inc.) Have an opinion about what you've read here or elsewhere in SFCV? Sound off with a letter to the editors. ©2007 Jeff Dunn, all rights reserved. SFCV is a nonprofit journal supported by foundation grants and individual contributions. If you enjoy what you find here and want to see our work continue, please consider making a contribution. By virtue of a generous matching grant, it will be doubled. Your contribution (tax-deductible) may be made by credit card
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From September 1, 1998, to Jan. 16, 2007, SFCV has published, in addition to our weekly features, Music News, and Listening Ahead columns, 2,619 reviews of Bay Area performances by: 53 symphony orchestras (542 reviews), dozens of recital presenters (453 reviews), 45 opera companies (364 reviews), 96 chamber groups (314 reviews), 41 new-music ensembles and programs (277 reviews), 54 early-music ensembles (204 reviews), 42 choral groups (171 reviews), 17 music festivals (120 reviews), 24 chamber orchestras (100 reviews), six musical theater groups (17 reviews), as well as numerous world music groups (15 reviews), youth music ensembles (15 reviews), and other organizations (14 reviews).
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