Bluegrass and Jazz Takes on Bach from ABS

Last night in the Concert Hall of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the American Bach Soloists launched a new offering as part of the annual summer Festival & Academy. This is a two-concert miniseries called Bach Explorations; and the first of those two concerts, entitled Bach to Bluegrass & Beyond, was last night’s offering. (The second concert, Bach Re-Imagined will take place tonight.)

Last night’s program was organized as two half-hour sets devoted, respectively, to bluegrass and jazz. The bluegrass section was curated by Daniel Turkos, one of the two bass players in this summer’s instrumental ensemble. The jazz offerings were curated by pianist and violinist Kit Massey, visiting only for the Bach Explorations programs. The second half struck me as the more interesting, since it explicitly reviewed how pass jazz masters incorporated the works of both Johann Sebastian Bach and his son Carl Philipp Emanuel into their music-making. Turkos’ portion of the program, on the other hand, involved folding Sebastian’s themes into bluegrass practices.

Massey’s set featured six jazz composers from different periods, the last of whom was Massey himself. The other five, in order of appearance rather than chronologically, were Jacques Loussier, Charles Delaunay, Paul Desmond, Bud Powell, and Bill Evans. (Delaunay is actually best known for launching the Quintette du Hot Club de France, which featured guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist Stephane Grappelli; but he has been credited as the arranger of last night’s Bach selection.)

Loussier founded a trio in 1959 that recorded an extensive number of albums, most of which had Play Bach in the title. Last night’s set opened with the trio’s take on the “G string” Air movement from the BWV 1068 orchestral suite in D major. Massey led from the piano (as Loussier did), joined by Turkos on bass and Sebastián Quintero on guitar. Gail Hernández Rosa, who would later play violin, added finger cymbal punctuations to the mix.

When I worked at the campus radio station for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, we had Loussier’s recordings in our library. We would occasionally get requests for their tracks. However, among the disk jockeys, his trio never appealed on either the classical or the jazz side. There was a “smooth jazz” approach to his rhetoric that went against the more modern approaches of his day; and that rhetoric was clear in last night’s performance.

That reading contrasted sharply with the Delaunay arrangement of the first movement of the BWV 1043 concerto for two violins in D minor. Grappelli may have drawn a cool sound from his violin; but there was no questioning the “heat” of his phrasing, not to mention the eyebrow-raising intonations coming out of his portamento. As an arranger, Delaunay knew he was working with musicians who knew how to make things hot; and he fashioned the Bach score in a way that gave them every opportunity to do so. Last night’s performance, with both Massey and Rosa on violins, definitely rose to the sorts of heights that Delaunay had in mind.

Desmond was represented by “Nimm fünf,” a mash-up of “Take Five” with the BWV 1048 (third) “Brandenburg” concerto in G major. Massey preceded this with a solo improvisation on the chorale “Our Sins Give Us Grief,” whose Bach source I have not yet managed to identify. Desmond wrote “Take Five” for the Dave Brubeck Quartet; and, while it has some of those smooth edges encountered in Loussier, the eccentricity of the five-beat time signature continues to draw the attention of any serious jazz listener.

The Powell selection was (as might be guessed) “Bud on Bach,” his take on Emanuel’s C minor “Solfeggietto.” This was Powell at his most hard-driving; and Massey had no trouble leading his quartet into that same groove. Evans was represented by one of Claus Ogerman’s arrangements for the album Bill Evans Trio with Symphony Orchestra. The track “Valse” is actually the “Siciliano” movement from the BWV 1031 flute sonata in E-flat major. This was given the sort of moody account that one associates with so many of Evans’ performances.

The set then wrapped up with the “Canone alla Settima” the 21st of the BWV 988 “Goldberg” variations. This was given a choro reading, which sounded as if “Tico-Tico no fubá” kept trying to intrude.That gave BWV 988 a decidedly more raucous rhetoric than is usually associated with that music, bringing the entire program to a delightful conclusion.

The bluegrass on the first half was decidedly less “historical” in nature. This was more about making music in the immediate present. Bach was used more as a launching pad than as subject matter to be viewed through different lenses. This was most effective when the last movement of the BWV 1050 (fifth) “Brandenburg” concerto in D major was given an unmistakeable gigue (jig) treatment with Al Mireault on five-string banjo joining Turkos, Rosa, and Quintero. Equally engaging were the vocals provided by Turkos and Rosa (who happen to be husband and wife). My only quibble came from my own experiences with a bluegrass group for which I played washtub bass when I was working at Schlumberger-Doll Research in Connecticut. I was used to hearing a lot more banjo in our sessions, and I really wish I had heard more from Mireault!