WAYNE MARSHALL - Born to Play Gershwin
Avi -Music: 8553007
Wayne Marshall (Conductor & Piano) with the WDR Funkhausorchester and Paquito D’ Rivera (clarinet) Andy Miles (tenor saxophone) Omar Rodriguez Calvo (bass) Rolando Villalὁn (percussion) Daniel Freiberg (piano). Live recordings from 2019 and studio recordings from 2017, Köln, Germany.
Wayne Marshall, BBC Music Magazine’s Artist of the Year in 1998, is a musician who inhabits the worlds of classical, popular and jazz music with seamless and consummate ease. A virtuoso pianist, organist, and accomplished conductor, a cursory examination of his discography will reveal recordings by composers as diverse as Bach, Poulenc, Widor and Leonard Bernstein including orchestral transcriptions of show tunes from Broadway`; in addition, he is a celebrated authority in the interpretation of the music of George Gershwin, whom he acknowledges as a seminal influence.
Leading the WDR Funkhausorchester, an aggregation not dissimilar to our own John Wilson Orchestra, which in recent years has delighted Proms audiences by bringing together classical and jazz musicians in performances of light orchestral repertoire, Marshall, as soloist and conductor, combines his latest reading of that iconic emblem of the jazz age, `Rhapsody in Blue` with other pieces by Gershwin, a tone poem by the clarinettist, Paquito D’ Rivera and a suite of popular Brazilian pieces in which the latter features as a principal soloist.
I imagine most record collections will already contain a copy of Gershwin’s magnum opus given its musicological status and universal popularity but it is a work that is open to some interpretation so there is always room for another. My own personal favourites are Andre Previn’s 1971 recording (he made several) with the London Symphony Orchestra, which like Leonard Bernstein in his performances, is suffused with a grandiloquent `heart on sleeve` romanticism, and Simon Rattle’s 1987 recreation of the 1924 Paul Whiteman concert performance, with the London Sinfonietta and soloist Peter Donohoe cleaving closely to the original tempi and `jazz band` instrumentation. Both of these are still in the catalogue. In contrast Marshall’s performance offers an elegant middle way that will appeal to most tastes and being, like Previn, a jazz pianist he invests his cadenza passages with slick rhythmic nuances and silky harmonics of his own without them sounding anachronistic.
What makes this release particularly appealing is the inclusion of Gershwin’s `Second Rhapsody` of which there are relatively few extant recordings. Unlike `Rhapsody in Blue` which was orchestrated by Whiteman’s arranger Ferde Grofè, this is all Gershwin’s own work and although it has never achieved the status and popularity of its predecessor it offers clear evidence of an advance in the composer’s command of the concerto form. Featuring repetitive hammered rhythms mingled with Latin American brio and culminating in a `big tune` climax, Marshall gives a bravura performance that will surely earn him many plaudits from the classical cognoscenti.
For many people Gershwin’s finest work resides within the string of musical comedies he wrote with brother Ira, created between 1926 and 1931 and Marshall completes the Gershwin selection with the overtures from three of them, namely `Strike up the Band`, Girl Crazy` and `Of Thee I Sing`. Some of their most memorable songs are woven into these ebullient scores – `Embraceable You`, `Soon`, I’ve Got Rhythm`, `But Not for Me`, `I’ve Got a Crush on You` etc. – and Marshall and his forces deliver them with the necessary vim, vigour and heartfelt passion.
Although the Gershwin scores are the main focus of the CD, Marshall also includes two pieces featuring Paquito D’ Rivera; one composed by him, the other a commission. The latter of these is a `Brazilian Fantasy` which comprises tunes by three of, the country’s most famous composers. Beginning with a sumptuous, string laded version of Jobim’s `Corcovado` the suite offers plenty of space for jazz soloing on the part D’Rivera, who plays clarinet, and the Funkorchester’s very able saxophonist Andy Miles who comes across in a suitably Getz like manner. It is the strength of these solo contributions that save the pieces from being dismissed as `light music` and they constitute the most idiomatic jazz element of the disc.
Finally, there is an original piece by D’Rivera, an orchestral tone poem inspired by childhood memories of the circus complete with animal sound effects and birdsong. Initially these pieces seemed and odd accompaniment to the Gershwin but that he clearly admired the vivacity of the Latinesque music is evidenced in own `Cuban Overture` so it could be said that Marshall has done the listener a service by highlighting this affinity through what is a novel and stimulating anthology.
Reviewed by Euan Dixon
Avi -Music: 8553007
Wayne Marshall (Conductor & Piano) with the WDR Funkhausorchester and Paquito D’ Rivera (clarinet) Andy Miles (tenor saxophone) Omar Rodriguez Calvo (bass) Rolando Villalὁn (percussion) Daniel Freiberg (piano). Live recordings from 2019 and studio recordings from 2017, Köln, Germany.
Wayne Marshall, BBC Music Magazine’s Artist of the Year in 1998, is a musician who inhabits the worlds of classical, popular and jazz music with seamless and consummate ease. A virtuoso pianist, organist, and accomplished conductor, a cursory examination of his discography will reveal recordings by composers as diverse as Bach, Poulenc, Widor and Leonard Bernstein including orchestral transcriptions of show tunes from Broadway`; in addition, he is a celebrated authority in the interpretation of the music of George Gershwin, whom he acknowledges as a seminal influence.
Leading the WDR Funkhausorchester, an aggregation not dissimilar to our own John Wilson Orchestra, which in recent years has delighted Proms audiences by bringing together classical and jazz musicians in performances of light orchestral repertoire, Marshall, as soloist and conductor, combines his latest reading of that iconic emblem of the jazz age, `Rhapsody in Blue` with other pieces by Gershwin, a tone poem by the clarinettist, Paquito D’ Rivera and a suite of popular Brazilian pieces in which the latter features as a principal soloist.
I imagine most record collections will already contain a copy of Gershwin’s magnum opus given its musicological status and universal popularity but it is a work that is open to some interpretation so there is always room for another. My own personal favourites are Andre Previn’s 1971 recording (he made several) with the London Symphony Orchestra, which like Leonard Bernstein in his performances, is suffused with a grandiloquent `heart on sleeve` romanticism, and Simon Rattle’s 1987 recreation of the 1924 Paul Whiteman concert performance, with the London Sinfonietta and soloist Peter Donohoe cleaving closely to the original tempi and `jazz band` instrumentation. Both of these are still in the catalogue. In contrast Marshall’s performance offers an elegant middle way that will appeal to most tastes and being, like Previn, a jazz pianist he invests his cadenza passages with slick rhythmic nuances and silky harmonics of his own without them sounding anachronistic.
What makes this release particularly appealing is the inclusion of Gershwin’s `Second Rhapsody` of which there are relatively few extant recordings. Unlike `Rhapsody in Blue` which was orchestrated by Whiteman’s arranger Ferde Grofè, this is all Gershwin’s own work and although it has never achieved the status and popularity of its predecessor it offers clear evidence of an advance in the composer’s command of the concerto form. Featuring repetitive hammered rhythms mingled with Latin American brio and culminating in a `big tune` climax, Marshall gives a bravura performance that will surely earn him many plaudits from the classical cognoscenti.
For many people Gershwin’s finest work resides within the string of musical comedies he wrote with brother Ira, created between 1926 and 1931 and Marshall completes the Gershwin selection with the overtures from three of them, namely `Strike up the Band`, Girl Crazy` and `Of Thee I Sing`. Some of their most memorable songs are woven into these ebullient scores – `Embraceable You`, `Soon`, I’ve Got Rhythm`, `But Not for Me`, `I’ve Got a Crush on You` etc. – and Marshall and his forces deliver them with the necessary vim, vigour and heartfelt passion.
Although the Gershwin scores are the main focus of the CD, Marshall also includes two pieces featuring Paquito D’ Rivera; one composed by him, the other a commission. The latter of these is a `Brazilian Fantasy` which comprises tunes by three of, the country’s most famous composers. Beginning with a sumptuous, string laded version of Jobim’s `Corcovado` the suite offers plenty of space for jazz soloing on the part D’Rivera, who plays clarinet, and the Funkorchester’s very able saxophonist Andy Miles who comes across in a suitably Getz like manner. It is the strength of these solo contributions that save the pieces from being dismissed as `light music` and they constitute the most idiomatic jazz element of the disc.
Finally, there is an original piece by D’Rivera, an orchestral tone poem inspired by childhood memories of the circus complete with animal sound effects and birdsong. Initially these pieces seemed and odd accompaniment to the Gershwin but that he clearly admired the vivacity of the Latinesque music is evidenced in own `Cuban Overture` so it could be said that Marshall has done the listener a service by highlighting this affinity through what is a novel and stimulating anthology.
Reviewed by Euan Dixon
