“Classy
and nostalgic as ever, Michel’s ‘Rhapsody’ has
a new flavor, thanks to the
master pianist’s signature
style—equal parts fiery,
creative abandon and meticulous,
technical precision.”
Keyboard
While the
earliest roots of jazz run
deep in the African American
blues experience, the music
would not be what it is today
if not for the vast wave of
immigrants who grafted their
musical and cultural sensibilities
to the burgeoning art form
during the early decades of
the 20th century.
One of the most important names
in this early chapter of the
jazz story is George Gershwin.
Born to immigrant parents in
Brooklyn, NY, in 1898, Gershwin’s
deep European roots enabled
him to marry the Old World
with the New and redefine American
jazz in a way that no musician
had ever done before.
Fast forward several decades
to the late 1970s, when Michel
Camilo, a young pianist from
the Dominican Republic, arrived
in that same culturally vibrant
New York that welcomed Gershwin’s
parents in the late 1800s.
Camilo’s career-long
love affair with American jazz
in general and Gershwin in
particular is at the heart
of Rhapsody in Blue, a new
Telarc recording set for release
on February 28, 2006. The album
pays homage to Gershwin with
the help of the 95-piece Barcelona
Symphony Orchestra (Orquestra
Simfònica de Barcelona
i Nacional de Catalunya), conducted
by Ernest Martinez Izquierdo.
On the heels of two of his
finest recordings to date—the
Grammy winning Live at the
Blue Note (2003) and the intimate
Solo (2004)˜Camilo’s
newest effort on Telarc seamlessly
merges jazz and symphonic sensibilities
with a unique rendition of
Gershwin’s immortal “Rhapsody
in Blue,” followed by
some of the great American
composer’s lesser known
work—his Concerto in
F, followed by his Prelude
No. 2 for solo piano, with
a touch of improvised blues.
“
I’m a big admirer of
Gershwin. I always have been,” says
Camilo, who has included Gershwin
music in his stage and studio
repertoire since the earliest
days of his career. “The
reason is because he pushed
all the boundaries from one
musical world to another, and
he did it with no fear. I have
been trying to do the same
with my career, going from
jazz to film scores to world
beat experiments to guest solo
performances with symphony
orchestras.”
Fernando Gonzalez, managing
editor of Jazziz magazine and
author of the Rhapsody in Blue
liner notes, takes the comparison
a step further. “Like
George Gershwin before him,
Camilo is an irrepressible
New World romantic,” says
Gonzalez. “Both his music
and his playing are open faced,
generous, and ambitious, full
of energy and brash optimism.”
For Camilo, the project was
all about preserving the freshness
and immediacy of Gershwin’s
music—no small feat with
95 other musicians playing
along. “There’s
a certain spontaneity that
I wanted to capture in this
music. I discussed this with
Ernest and the orchestra, and
we all went after that magic,” says
Camilo. “I didn’t
want it to sound too formal,
but instead a little bit wild…With
music like this, a performer
will often ‘play the
ink,’ which means playing
the notes that Gershwin wrote
for the piano part. But I tried
to make it sound like I was
improvising by taking some
liberties, although I was playing
the ink. That was the spirit
I was trying to capture.”
Would Gershwin approve of a
21st century jazz interpretation
of his work? Gonzalez has little
doubt. Michel Camilo’s
Rhapsody in Blue “is
a streetwise approach to Gershwin’s
work,” he says. “Respectful
but not reverential, exact
but also swinging, classical
in form but jazz in spirit—that
would have done Gershwin proud.”
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