{"id":1327,"date":"2013-04-26T18:50:34","date_gmt":"2013-04-26T22:50:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/?p=1327"},"modified":"2013-04-27T09:24:17","modified_gmt":"2013-04-27T13:24:17","slug":"jazz-composers-the-buffalo-philharmonic-orch-jazzapril-week-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2013\/04\/jazz-composers-the-buffalo-philharmonic-orch-jazzapril-week-4.html","title":{"rendered":"Jazz composers @ the Buffalo Philharmonic Orch – JazzApril week 4"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"4<\/a>

from left: August, Wilson, Mathisen, Brown
* photo credits below<\/p><\/div>\n

Five jazz-associated composers took on the heady task of writing eight-minute works for full symphonic forces, introduced to the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra<\/a> and worked up for performance by conductor Matt Kraemer on Tuesday and Wednesday this past week, thanks to\u00c2\u00a0Earshot \/Jazz Composers Orchestra Initiative<\/a>, organized by American Composers Orchestra.<\/a><\/p>\n

As an “embedded journalist” (along with Frank J. Oteri, founder and editor of NewMusicBox.org<\/a>)\u00c2\u00a0I\u00c2\u00a0observed the whole process closely, privy to private critiques and discussions composers Gregg August, Anita Brown, Joel Harrison, Ole Matheson and Dave Wilson\u00c2\u00a0had with Maestro Kraemer, instrumentalists from the Orchestra and mentoring composers Anthony Davis, Nicole Mitchell and James Newton.\u00c2\u00a0It was one of the most enlightening and intense of intensives I’ve experienced — much more so, I’m sure, for the composers whose ambitious, accomplished works were read.<\/p>\n

\"feedback\"<\/a>

getting feedback: from l., Mathisen, Wilson, August, Brown<\/p><\/div>\n

Each of their pieces had distinct characters and challenges. These composers — August,<\/strong> a bassist in the conductorless Orpheus Chamber Ensemble, the Brooklyn Philharmonic and saxophonist JD Allen’s trio, among others; \u00c2\u00a0Brown<\/strong>, leader of her own Jazz Orchestra, long involved with the BMI Jazz Composers Workshops and with ties to U.S. military music corps; Harrison,\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>an electric guitarist and band leader who chafes at categorization, and has released 14 cds as a leader since 1995; Mathisen<\/strong>, a saxophonist who teaches at Columbia U., has composed for movies, tv and commercials, and — as I know him best — plays in the avant-garde Latin jazz SYOTOS\u00c2\u00a0ensemble; Wilson,<\/strong> a saxophonist in the ethnomusicology program at UCLA who’s worked with rock-pop stars and French gypsy jazzers — embraced\u00c2\u00a0this very rare opportunity of access to an orchestra to create genuinely new and unusual music.<\/p>\n

\"harrison<\/a>

from l., Wilson, Mathisen, August, Brown, Harrison<\/p><\/div>\n

To get their pieces across to the demanding and unjazzlike instrumentalist-interpreters, the composers had notated (most for the first time) in an infinitesimally coded and precise language, like hand-drawn hieroglypics for computer programming, to secure specificities of pitch, timing and tonality that would result in unique moment-after-moment of transformative sound.<\/p>\n

I describe the pieces inadequately, I hope not inaccurately but surely insufficiently — because it’s impossible (for me at least) to completely hear, understand and absorb five such completely personalized projects of this scale on first impressions, quick go-overs of changes and one complete run-through. Though a recording made by the BPO of each culminating performance was made, I don’t have them to refer to; as per BPO\/American Federation of Music union protocols and contracts, each is available only to its composer, and then degraded with spurts of white noise to protect against broadcast and\/or pirate duplication. An un-marred three-minute excerpt will be made available to the composers for limited promotional uses.<\/p>\n