The Classical Tinge Part 6 (i): The French influence DAVE JONES continues his series on the relationship between classical

music and jazz

0 ne of the most obvious links between classical music and jazz is the use of the extended chords, parall el har­

mony and whole tone and pentatonic scales which occur in the early 20th century musi­cal impressionism of French composers such as Debussy and Ravel. Think of the opening phrase of the intra to Ellington's Take The 'A' Train (a who le-tone run down), McCoy Tyner's cascading tight-hand impro­vised patterns (minor pentatonic scales), and the dreamy, extended chord voicing of Evans. Peterson, Hancock and many more: these are just a few examples of the many instances of impressionistic influences in jazz.

ln jazz writing to date, "impressionism" has sometimes been used as a conveniently vague term to generally describe the influ­ence of early 20th century French music, but the contribution of Les Six (a separate group of six French composers including Satic and Milhaud, whose music is generally regarded as a reaction against impressionism) has either been ignored, or regarded as though it is somehow part of impressionism. However, Les Six were at least as signiftcant as the impressionists, and the two musical move­ments, although connected, were not similar.

A good example of the difference between the impressionists and Les Si x, and in par­ticular between Debussy and Satie's use of parallel harmony, is found in Satie 's open­ing to his les Fils Des Etoiles, Prelude, which uses quartal voicing. He assembles chords from an ascending chain of intervals

• of a fourth. So, although the movement from chord to chord might be in parallel motion as per Debussy, the qu artal nature of Satie's chord voicing here is perhaps less frequen tly seen in Debussy who often uses quintal harmony (chords made from inter­vals of ftfths). Much of Debussy's approach to voicing descends from Chopin.

The quanal vo icing that we see in Satie (and in Scriabin before him, with his "mystic chord"), and of course subsequently in the music of Ravel and Banok, was often utilised by Evans, and even more unmistak­ably by McCoy Tyner and Chick Corea, and a lso in the sty les of many other jazz pianists, arrangers and composers to follow. However, it's likely that one of several lesser-known pianists that came before Evans was the ftrst to use quartal harmony in j azz, and I'll be looking at this issue in a future instalment.

Much has been said of the impressionistic influence of Debussy and Ravel on pianist Bill Evans, and yes, we can hea r this in hi s extended chord voicings, and often delicate sound, and in his scale choices for right-

The Satie Project is a beautiful collection of eclectic arrange­ments led mainly by Dan Willis's sublime oboe playing. Willis sounds like the futuristic jazz arranger that Satie didn't have, and Satie would surely have been impressed

hand improvised lines. However, less has been said of the influence that Erik Sa ti e had upon Evans's work. Satie's influence is most obv ious on Eva ns 's own solo piano compo­sition Peace Piece, which bears a strong resemblan ce to Satie's Gyrnnopedies for solo piano with its tranquil "time stood still " mood, and almost stride-like left hand, albeit at a slower tempo, and in a different key. The main differences between the pi eces are that Peace Piece is in a different time signature, Evans uses only two harmonies compared to Satie 's numerous, and he ultimately impro­vises with the right-hand over the top of the chords, but then plays with less sensitivity at times than we a re used to hearing on classi­cal interpretations of Satie's Gymnopedies. As Peace Pit'cc develops, Evans's right-hand soloing becomes more Deb ussy -like in his sel ection of notes in relation to the underly­ing harmony.

For a contemporary jazz interpretat ion of Satie's works, look no furth er than two rem arkable albums by Dan Willis and The Velvet Gentlem en entitled The Satie Project (20 I 0) and The Sa tie Project II (20 12). These two a lbums consist of Willis's arrangements

1 G JAZZ JOURNAL THE CLASSICAL TINGE

for a 9/10 piece band consisting of Western and non-Western woodwind (all of which he pl ays himself), alongside horns, violin, rhythm section and pitched percussion. The end result in both cases is a beautiful col­lecti on of eclectic arrangements led mainly by Willis 's sublime oboe playing. Willis sounds like the futuristic jazz arranger that Satie didn't have, and Satie would surely have been impressed.

lt would be difft cult not to mention another great jazz pianist in terms of impressi onist influence and that's Oscar Peterson. Con­ductor and pianist Andrew Litton, who has recently transcribed much of Oscar's piano work, says of him: "The impressionisti c nature of his jazz - the ninths and elevenths - are straight out of Ravel and Debussy." Peterson's extraordin ary facility on the piano was grounded in rigorous classical training. He was a pupil of Hungarian-born pianist Paul de Marky, whose own teacher studied with Franz Liszt. Litton says that "Peterson developed into th e pianist's pianist" .

Going back to the Real Book I mentioned in some of th e previous instalments , there's an interesting parallel between the approaches of some less experienced jazz performers and some emin ent contemporary classical performers towards written and recorded versions of music. Early, ill egal versions of the Real Book didn't always properly repre­sent the music, and nor does the written classical score. Yet despite the availability now on COs of very early recordings of composers such as Debussy performing their own works, some classical performers are almost indifferen t to t hese interpreta­tions, and instead favour what the score, and to a lesser extent what interpretations by other pianists tell them.

Pianist Steven Osborne says: "Modern views of music [classical] tend to take an almost religious view of the text, and that is often not extended to what the composer actually plays . . . people tend to stick to what was written down. " Noriko Ogawa, a Debussy piano specialist, adds that the Debussy piano rolls "show that he was very flexible in his rhythm, with a lot of room for impro­visation." There's perhaps a lesson here for jazz as it becomes more and more codifted by academia.