Suddenly, Symphony Center has begun to swing.
Within the past year or so, a transformation has taken place inside the temple of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. And though the folks who manage the CSO probably aren’t ready to engrave the names of Basie and Duke on the building’s facade (alongside those of the three B’s), there’s no question that the level of jazz activity has achieved a new intensity.
For starters, the first five concerts in this season’s Ameritech Jazz at Symphony Center series have been sold out, an impressive achievement, considering that Symphony Center’s main auditorium — Orchestra Hall — seats approximately 2,500. Better still, some of these concerts have attained a remarkably high artistic level, as in an eloquent 75th birthday homage to Miles Davis and John Coltrane performed by Herbie Hancock, Michael Brecker and Roy Hargrove in October; and a dynamic show by Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra last month.
The Lincoln Center engagement was just part of a three-day residency in which Marsalis and friends conducted jazz workshops and young people’s concerts in Symphony Center and in Chicago-area schools.
And the beat goes on. Come Friday night, the jazz series will present one of the signal events of the season: the Chicago premiere of a new work by the brilliant jazz pianist Marcus Roberts. Commissioned by Chamber Music America and unveiled in Philadelphia last October, Roberts’ suite “From Rags to Rhythm” — written for his jazz trio — explores facets of black music in America.
Three weeks later, the jazz series will offer a rare performance by Wynton Marsalis’ Septet, which has not played Chicago in nearly a decade. More important, the septet will appear in Buntrock Hall, at 300 seats the most intimate listening room in Symphony Center. By featuring a major artist in a clublike setting, complete with muted lighting and bar service, Symphony Center will bring a new dimension to its jazz programming.
Clearly, jazz finally is taking root in a once staid performing arts center.
Taking center stage
“The place is buzzing with jazz — we’ve moved it to the center of the artistic agenda here,” says Matias Tarnopolsky, director of programming for Symphony Center Presents (which covers all concerts outside those of the CSO).
Adds Jim Fahey, Tarnopolsky’s colleague as director of jazz programming: “An event like the Jazz at Lincoln Center residency has gone a long way toward convincing people around here about the importance of jazz to this institution.”
Indeed, the increasing breadth and depth of jazz programming at Symphony Center, which now includes panel discussions and master classes in conjunction with the mainstage events, suggests a fundamental reappraisal of the role of jazz at Chicago’s most prestigious musical address. Considering the well-documented graying and shrinking of the audience for symphonic music, the move comes not a moment too soon, for jazz repeatedly has been shown to attract a younger and more diverse crowd than its European counterpart.
To be sure, Symphony Center has taken a long and circuitous journey to arrive at this point. The less ambitious jazz programming of just a few years ago gave scant hint of the expansion currently under way, while the troublesome acoustics of the refurbished Orchestra Hall rendered many of the earlier jazz concerts unlistenable. But by adding sound-absorbent draperies to the stage area during some concerts, Symphony Center managers have reduced the over-reverberation caused by the remodeling. And though the jury is still out on how well large, amplified ensembles will sound in Orchestra Hall, there’s no question that improvements have been made.
Granted, Symphony Center has a long way to go to match the range and volume of activities at Jazz at Lincoln Center in Manhattan or the year-round programming of SFJAZZ in San Francisco. And despite all the critical and popular acclaim that Symphony Center has achieved with Marsalis and the Lincoln Center band, the organization needs to begin building comparably sweeping programs around other major figures. How about a residency by William Russo’s Chicago Jazz Ensemble, an exploration into New Orleans music with Henry Butler or a West Coast week devoted to bandleaders such as Bill Holman and Gerald Wilson?
Nevertheless, the hall is embracing jazz more ardently than ever. Should the audiences stay large and the programming continue to blossom, Symphony Center could become the most important institution in Chicago for promoting jazz performance and intellectual inquiry.
Pivotal premiere
But nothing on Symphony Center’s jazz lineup this year is as promising as next weekend’s premiere by Roberts.
“That show gives me a chance to play `From Rags to Rhythm’ in a major concert hall in front of a serious audience, which is not always an easy situation to find,” says Roberts, who considers the work one of his most substantial.
“What this piece really deals with is the notion that there are aspects of our music that always will be there,” adds Roberts, pointing to the vintage ragtime rhythms that open the work and were codified most famously by Scott Joplin, more than a century ago.
“What I discovered when I was making my `Joy of Joplin’ album [of 1998] is that Joplin influenced everything that came afterward. There is a universality to Joplin, and his ideas permeate practically everything else in jazz, whether you realize it or not, and that’s one of the starting points of `From Rags to Rhythm.’ “
Getting the spotlight
But perhaps only a concert venue such as Symphony Center enables an artist to explore ideas at this level, if only because noisy jazz clubs are not particularly conducive to extended, sometimes soft-spoken jazz compositions. Moreover, audiences come to Symphony Center realizing that they are expected to listen and concentrate rather than socialize.
Even so, Roberts hastens to add that the first half of the program will not be quite so intense, for it features guest trumpeter Marcus Printup collaborating with Roberts’ trio in classics by Joplin, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, among other jazz masters. By opening the evening with such evocative, familiar works as “West End Blues” and “Black and Tan Fantasy,” Roberts hopes to disarm his listeners, setting the stage for the more expansive work of the second set.
Together, these two segments will represent a great young artist’s perspectives on jazz past and present, unfurled on a stage uniquely suited for such depth of thought.
“Louis Armstrong’s vision and intellect pushed his generation forward, building jazz very quickly into a major art form,” writes Roberts in the concert’s program notes. “Without him — without his playing, his scatting, his singing — we might still be searching for an identifiable original American musical voice.”
Thanks to the new prominence of jazz at Symphony Center, that distinctly American music is beginning to assume its rightful place in the concert hall — or, more specifically, in Chicago’s premier concert hall.
The Marcus Roberts Trio, with guest trumpeter Marcus Printup, performs at 8 p.m. Friday in Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan Ave.; a pre-concert performance featuring emerging young pianists will begin at 6:30 p.m. in Buntrock Hall; 312-294-3000.
