The Great Jazz-Bach Fusion fiasco, part II

behind the scenes at the dsso

Markand Thakar

Trust me, your first rehearsal with the New York Philharmonic as a young conductor is a stressful thing. It’s one of the greatest orchestras in history, with attitude. So your highest priority at the moment is to just not look like a fool. My first rehearsal for a series of summer concerts began with Tchaikovsky’s fifth symphony, and it went swimmingly! I knew the piece well, the musicians could play it in their sleep, and fortunately many of them were actually awake. One piece down. Exhale. Next up was the Bach concerto with a jazz-rendered solo part, and the orchestra playing Bach’s original accompaniment.

Picture the scene: the piano is wheeled in front of the orchestra, and a rotund jazzer sidles up to the keyboard and gives it a trial riff or two. This is far from customary for the Philharmonic musicians, and they look up with some amusement. The first movement begins, and the soloist is pretty much hors de combat. “Gee…how about if we start again.” Surely this will get better… and… no such luck. I step off the podium and speak quietly to the soloist in my most erudite, classical music voice, “That’s cool, bro, but can you dig a more up-tempo groove?”

Then things got really bad. In the first movement our jazzer friend was trying out a chord here and a riff there, and not much at all was happening. The second movement is slow, and here he actually was a bit more comfortable. Unfortunately a glorious, profound Bach Adagio with some added jazz seventh chords and some swung rhythms sounds dubiously like a Lawrence Welk arrangement. It’s remarkable how quickly a group of highly competent, top-of-their-field musicians can transition from amused to unhappy to for-this-schlock-I-went-to-Juilliard?

Personally I handled my responsibilities well enough, however, and I returned to the hotel in a buoyant mood. After about an hour of intermittent hurricane-path watching on TV (please, please don’t rain out my New York Philharmonic concert in Central Park!) the phone rings. “Markand, Maestro Masur and the musicians’ Artistic Committee would like to see you in his office.” Um, sure.

The musicians were up in arms; they felt the pianist was unprepared and they didn’t want to go on with him. In fairness to him, we were facing a culture clash: jazzers try a little of this and a little of that, and gradually find their voice. But for the Philharmonic musicians, you come prepared to play or you don’t come at all. After much discussion (do we give him another chance at the rehearsal...what happens if that doesn’t go well either?) we decided to can the Great Jazz-Bach Fusion experiment, and asked him to substitute a set with his trio. And just in case he got mad and declined to show up we rehearsed a couple other orchestra-only pieces the next day.

Would the rain stop so the concert could go on? Would I still get my fee so I could pay for those new couches? And would the cheesed-off jazzer show up with his trio? This was a happy ending all around: yes, yes, and late, but yes. Well, OK, an almost happy ending, because after many years those couches are still ugly!

Markand Thakar is Charles A. & Carolyn M. Russell Music Director, Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra; music director, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra; principal conductor, Duluth Festival Opera and co-director of the graduate conducting program, Peabody Conservatory.