Over the years, the folks who run Symphony Center have offered intriguing explanations for why they haven’t created a jazz department on a par with those in New York, Washington D.C. and Los Angeles.
These includes a lack of funds (though Chicago Symphony management coughed up more than $100 million to turn elegant Orchestra Hall into gaudy Symphony Center) and a lack of audience interest (though most of the hall’s jazz concerts are sold out or close to it).
The most creative rationale of all, however, has been Symphony Center’s contention that it’s difficult to come up with a qualified jazz director besides Wynton Marsalis (who runs Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York).
Yet there’s a long list of esteemed musicians who could galvanize jazz programming in Symphony Center, among them William Russo, Bobby McFerrin, Marcus Roberts, Henry Butler and the fellow who played a brilliant performance in Orchestra Hall on Monday night, Chick Corea.
Performing with the Chicago Sinfonietta, Corea reaffirmed his gifts as pianist, composer, improviser and, above all, as an artist who can communicate complex ideas with utter lucidity. Whether he was discussing his musical ideas or making them come alive at the keyboard, Corea proved consistently persuasive.
His stint as the Sinfonietta’s guest soloist was noteworthy because it featured a rare performance of his Piano Concerto. Corea wrote the piece in 1985, played it sporadically and put it away. That’s a pity, for his performance established the piece as an attractive work, felicitously written for piano and orchestra.
Imagine the textural clarity of a piano concerto by Mozart, the digital virtuosity of one by Liszt and the cheeky spirit of another by Poulenc, and you have the essential elements of Corea’s concerto. In addition, Corea provides the rhythmic syncopation and driving energy of American jazz.
This is a piece in which soloist and orchestra constantly interact, more so, in fact, than in most piano concertos of the past two centuries. The continuous trading of gestures between keyboardist and orchestra (augmented by drums and vibes) gives the work much of its bristling wit.
Corea opens the work with a loosely improvised solo that quickly gives way to orchestral passages in the jazz-tinged manner of Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G. Like the opening movement of that superb piece, Corea’s concerto alternates between briskly animated sections and languid, lyrical interludes.
The second movement of Corea’s concerto is striking for its sustained lyric beauty, while the finale races forward with perpetual-motion rhythms.
All of which is to say that Corea ought to be performing this beautifully crafted work more often, as his performance with the Sinfonietta and conductor Paul Freeman attested. The ovations that ensued inspired Corea to play a series of extended, exquisitely detailed solo improvisations of music by Thelonious Monk.
One can only imagine the pleasures of having Corea–or another jazz artist of his stature–in residence at Symphony Center.
