[Dixielandjazz] Chopin Jazz

[Stephen G Barbone]

CAVEAT - Not particularly OKOM, except for the misinformation in the  
4th paragraph from the end. As Rodney Dangerfield would say, "Poor  
ODJB, they just don't get no respect."

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband

A Night of Jazz for Chopin’s 200th Birthday

By Neil Tesser - NY Times - July 24, 2010


Concerts worldwide are celebrating the bicentennial of the birth of  
the Polish composer Frédéric Chopin, but until this weekend none have  
involved an American jazz vocalist, a Polish accordionist and an  
international trombone choir, spiced with harmonica and oud. That is  
the lineup for Chopin 200, a program conceived by Grazyna Auguscik,  
the Polish-born jazz singer based in Chicago, which she will perform  
at 6:30 p.m. Sunday in Millennium Park.

The program is made up entirely of Chopin’s works in unexpected  
arrangements that omit piano, the instrument for which the composer  
wrote almost exclusively. (The program does include a pianist, Andrzej  
Jagodzinski, who will play a jazz interpretation of the Sonata in B- 
flat Minor.)

One inspiration for the project was a 1971 recording by the Novi  
Singers, a Polish vocal jazz ensemble, with a capella treatments of  
Chopin’s music that captivated Ms. Auguscik. Another was a concert of  
Christmas music that she performed a few years ago with the Chicago  
International Trombone Ensemble.

“It was my first experience working with trombones and with an only- 
classical group — they don’t improvise,” she said. “But we blend so  
well, the trombones and voice.”

Recalling the Novi Singers’ performance, Ms. Auguscik (pronounced ow- 
GOOS-chik) decided she would sing jazz versions of Chopin’s works but  
replace the other vocalists with harmonious trombones. (Many musicians  
consider the slide trombone the instrument closest to the human voice,  
because of its range and its ability to create glissando, or a  
continuous glide in pitch.)

She began to add other elements to her vision, including Paulinho  
Garcia, a Chicago bossa nova guitarist and vocalist; Howard Levy, the  
innovative jazz harmonica player; and Jarek Bester, the Polish  
accordion virtuoso.

Bringing all these artists together is not cheap, and no money was  
available from the Department of Cultural Affairs, which administers  
the programs at Millennium Park.

“We can offer the venue and our services in producing and marketing,”  
said Mike Orlove, the senior program director at the agency. “But we  
have virtually no money in our budget for evening programming at  
Millennium. When an outside group produces an event, they have to  
cover those costs.”

Mr. Orlove was impressed with Ms. Auguscik’s proposal, but taken aback  
when he saw the price tag of $30,000 — and even more so when he saw  
that figure in Ms. Auguscik’s fund-raising campaign on Facebook.  
Usually, such efforts occur in the corporate world and under the radar.

“But it’s all worked out fine,” Mr. Orlove said. “She could have  
chosen a smaller venue and charged admission. The fact that she’s  
doing it on this scale, in a public venue, is extraordinary.”

The Polish Consulate supplied most of the money, but the rest of the  
burden still rests on Ms. Auguscik. She said she had agreed to the  
arrangement because she thought it was important to share the music of  
her native land with the people of her adopted city, with the support  
of Chicago’s huge Polish population.

“But I have to do some fund-raising still,” she said last week. “I  
thought it would be easier, but these days a lot of musicians are  
raising funds for their own projects. It’s time-consuming.”

Ms. Auguscik is no stranger to ambitious artistic fusions. Since  
moving here in 1994, she has recorded a dozen albums under her own  
name that show an increasing appetite for musical adventurism. She  
started with stark re-examinations of jazz standards, then recorded  
the first of three bossa nova albums with Mr. Garcia. In this decade,  
she has worked to embrace her cultural heritage without being  
smothered by it, steadily accruing new collaborators for her cool,  
unsentimental approach to singing and improvisation. She has written  
audacious pieces that borrow from folk melodies of Eastern Europe;  
explored different idioms, like Polish klezmer music; and made use of  
electronics and digital effects.

The arrangements can roam far afield of the usual “classical-with- 
jazz” hybrid. As if the instrumentation itself were not radical  
enough, Ms. Auguscik makes considerable use of the iconoclastic  
timbres available to jazz vocalists and instrumentalists. Chopin’s  
pieces remain recognizable, but often as catalysts for other musical  
interactions.

Chopin’s music, with its romantic sweep and indelible melodies, had  
already found its way into pop culture. Barry Manilow’s 1973 hit,  
“Could It Be Magic,” was based on the Prelude No. 20; Antônio Carlos  
Jobim used the Prelude No. 4 as the basis for his enduring bossa nova  
classic “Insensatez” (“How Insensitive”). And the “Funeral March,” a  
movement from Chopin’s Piano Sonata No. 2, became long ago a symbol of  
doom and gloom in animated cartoons.

Chopin died in 1849, leaving a legacy of delicate, moody piano pieces.  
Jazz did not arrive until 75 years later, represented by the first  
great and raucous recordings of Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong.  
Finding six — or even 60 — degrees of separation between the two isn’t  
easy.

Few American jazz artists have tried to bridge that gap, although Ms.  
Auguscik said it was not unusual in Poland.

“Jazz musicians bring a lot of interesting perspectives to Chopin in  
Poland,” Ms. Auguscik said. “It’s like an explosion, especially this  
year, of Chopin projects. Some are very bad; some are beautiful.”

She has gone to great lengths — artistic, financial, and logistical —  
to bring one of those “interesting perspectives” to Chopin in Chicago.