SNJO and RSNO combine for a landmark celebration
The two orchestras will be performing with pianist Makoto Ozone, writes Jim Gilchrist
Apotent amalgamation of styles and sounds, orchestration and improvisation, will fill Edinburgh’s Usher Hall and Glasgow Royal Concert Hall next month when the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra combine for the first time in a joint performance of George Gershwin’s “jazz age” orchestral classic, Rhapsody in Blue.
Conducted by Bertie Baigent, this collaboration between two major musical entities will see the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra re-united with a long-time collaborator, Japanese pianist Makoto Ozone, whose virtuosity straddles both jazz and classical music. “To be invited to perform in collaboration with the internationally respected RSNO is an honour and a thrill,” says the jazz orchestra’s director, saxophonist Tommy Smith.
Following the Edinburgh and Glasgow concerts, on 3rd and 4th May respectively, the SNJO and Ozone will go on to play Aberdeen Music Hall on 5th May, performing their own setting of the Gershwin, as well as arrangements of music by Chick Corea, Duke Ellington and others.
It was the Gershwin collaboration between the two orchestras, however, which was preoccupying Tommy Smith earlier this month when we spoke. No stranger to orchestral arranging and composition, Smith, who regards the forthcoming collaboration as “a milestone in in the SNJO’S near-30 year career”, previously orchestrated the Gershwin classic for the jazz big band with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and jazz pianist Brian Kellock, resulting in a widely acclaimed recording in 2009.
For the forthcoming venture, he says, he’s condensing that arrangement from 50 minutes to around 30– “so it’s all about deletion in a way.”
He regards as “a tough one” the question of how these two mighty beasts of jazz and classical orchestras, with their improvisatory and composed elements, will inter-relate, suggesting that it’s all about how the two groupings accept the pulse of the music. “I’ve suggested to the RSNO that if we set up the stage in a particular way, we can both play to our strengths.
Smith envisages a stage plan with the jazz orchestra in front of the conductor: “Obviously Makoto will be able to see the conductor, and the RSNO is behind us, so we’re not in the orchestra we’re out front so that we can still play the way we do, without using our eyes, and I’ve written the music with that in mind. It’s all about textures, timbres and balance.”
In an intriguing twist, the jazz orchestra, with its regular pianist Peter Johnstone, will perform a specially commissioned arrangement by Florian Ross of Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story, as well as Duke Ellington’s Black and Tan Fantasy and Billy Strayhorn’s Morning Mood arrangement from Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite. The second half will see the RSNO perform Bernard Hermann’s music from Hitchcock Vertigo and then their own version of West Side Story, but featuring “borrowed” SNJO musicians saxophonist Helena Kay, trumpeter Ryan Quigley and drummer Alyn Cosker.
For the Snjo-only concert in Aberdeen, the jazz orchestra, plus Ozone, will play their own, extended version of the Gershwin as well as big band arrangements of pieces by Chick Corea, Joe Zawinul, Duke Ellington … and Robert Burns.
Makoto Ozone is an old friend of the SNJO and Smith. The Japanese pianist and Scottish saxophonist first met during the 1980s as members of vibraphonist Gary Burton’s quartet. Equally at home in jazz and classical modes, Ozone notably teamed up with the SNJO for their re-invention of classical pieces such as Mozart’s “Jeunehomme” Piano Concerto No 9 and Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf (they’ve performed the latter in Scots, Doric, Norwegian and, on Ozone’s home turf, Japanese).
Ifwesetupina particular way, we can both play to our strengths
The SNJO and RSNO play the Usher Hall, Edinburgh, on 3 May and Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on the 4th. The SNJO plays Aberdeen Music Hall on the 5th, www.snjo.co.uk