[Dixielandjazz] Jammin at the Philharmonic

[Stephen G Barbone]

Not OKOM, but an interesting look at a rock guitarist and his  
performance with the NY Philharmonic.  Hey, why don't we do that?

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

September 14, 2009 - NY TIMES - By Steve Smith

A Lesson in Jamming for the Philharmonic

If there was a single moment that best illustrated the difference  
between a routine concert by the New York Philharmonic and the one it  
presented at Carnegie Hall on Saturday night, that moment came when  
Sheryl Staples, the concertmaster for the evening, returned to the  
stage after intermission. Ms. Staples was greeted with warm applause,  
as tradition mandates. Just before it faded, a coyotelike howl of  
approval sounded from a balcony. Ms. Staples gamely acknowledged her  
admirer with a smile that was surely as incredulous as it was  
appreciative.

The occasion was a concert with Trey Anastasio, the singer and  
guitarist for the rock band Phish, benefiting a foundation named for  
his sister, Kristine Anastasio Manning, an environmentalist and author  
who died of cancer in April. Mr. Anastasio enjoys a rabidly devoted  
following among jam-band devotees. But curiosity seekers anticipating  
a blissed-out legion in henna and hemp would have been disappointed by  
an uncommonly diverse, entirely well-behaved throng of listeners, some  
of whom could be overheard marveling at their first sight of Carnegie  
Hall.

Playing with an orchestra is nothing new for Mr. Anastasio, who  
studied composition and arranging in college and has made several  
recordings with classical players. The most recent, “Time Turns  
Elastic” (Rubber Jungle), features a 29-minute work of the same name  
that Mr. Anastasio wrote with Don Hart, a commercial arranger and  
orchestrator who is also the composer in residence for Orchestra  
Nashville.

A shortened “Time Turns Elastic” has found a place in Phish’s live  
sets and appears on the group’s new album, “Joy” (JEMP). Heard in its  
original form at Carnegie, the piece was both an electric-guitar  
concerto and a song cycle, its three movements broken into nine  
sections, in which the languorous eloquence of Mr. Anastasio’s guitar  
playing alternated with his gentle, plain-spoken singing. (The  
dreamily impressionistic lyrics were Mr. Anastasio’s as well.)

Mr. Hart’s appealing orchestration touched on cinematic lushness and  
musical-theater dazzle, with episodes of Disneyesque twinkle and  
“Classical Gas”-style kitsch. In that context the brief fugue that  
opened “Splinters of Hail” (the second part of the last movement) felt  
almost jarring, like a plea to be taken seriously.

No such pleading was necessary: what Mr. Anastasio and Mr. Hart have  
created is that rarest of rarities, a classical-rock hybrid that might  
please partisans from both constituencies. Set amid a generous group  
of popular Phish songs — gentle, string-cushioned ballads like “Brian  
and Robert” and “Let Me Lie,” as well as the audacious, intricate  
instrumentals “Guyute Orchestral” and “You Enjoy Myself” — the new  
piece could hardly have gone wrong.

The orchestra, conducted by Asher Fisch, played brilliantly throughout  
the evening, with the trombones dipping into deep reserves of  
raucousness for “You Enjoy Myself.” The concert was liberally  
punctuated with whoops and cheers; the final ovation for the orchestra  
before the encore — another Phish song, “If I Could” — was the  
loudest, wildest response I have ever heard for anything at Carnegie.  
That so many of the players could remain stone-faced during the tumult  
is a phenomenon beyond my comprehension.