Program #143, April 24 2003: Jazz <--> Classical.

Wanting a counterpoint to last week's electronic program, this week I pulled out an idea I'd had stashed in the rainy-day bag for some time: checking out some music at the crossroads of jazz and "classical".

The first couple of names are a little less familiar -- not enough people know that Milton Babbitt was an able Tin Pan Alley-style songwriter and jazz aficionado, as well as an arch-"East Coast establishment" serialist; and Harold Farberman was the person to whom Louie Bellson turned over his project of constructing a symphonic piece with which he could do jazz-oriented drum solos (Farberman actually ended up constructing a whole new piece, using fragments of Bellson's original work).

The rest of the names are more familiar, even if some of the pieces are less so -- Ellington's Such Sweet Thunder is an inventive review of characters and situations from Shakespeare's oeuvre, rendered through the prism of Ellington's unique approach to jazz composition; and Miles Davis' Aura, composed for him by Palle Mikkelborg, is a splendid collection of artistries from the mid-80s, each inspired by a different color. I'm very partial to the later Miles (seemingly unlike everyone else in the universe, my first Miles album was Agharta), so it was a joy to play this album, as it was to play all the other tracks of the evening.