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Peterson, each of whom raised the bar on this<br />
format. But there was more than just technical<br />
finesse at issue.<br />
“It’s about freedom of expression,” Guerin<br />
said. “We developed this definite trust in each<br />
other. It’s a big thing, because if you have trust,<br />
that means you’re not trying to just impose<br />
ideas on somebody else. You can trust that they<br />
can have good ideas, and that you can question<br />
your own.”<br />
By 2004, the trio headed into the recording<br />
studio and laid down all the tracks to New<br />
Orleans Meets Harlem, Vol. 1, after which engineer<br />
Stephenson and Roberts readied the final<br />
product for distribution. But two problems existed.<br />
First, as the trio continued to develop, its live<br />
performances outshone the finished recording.<br />
So Roberts killed the record, in effect extending<br />
by several years his time away from the CD<br />
marketplace.<br />
“I tried to figure out what was wrong with<br />
it,” Roberts said. “It sounded good, but it wasn’t<br />
what I wanted. I couldn’t tell you what was<br />
wrong. It wasn’t like it was bad. But, bottom<br />
line, I decided, ‘I’m not going to put this out.’”<br />
“I wasn’t happy with it either,” Stephenson<br />
recalled. “From the time that music was recorded<br />
to the time we were finishing it out, it seemed<br />
like their playing style had taken a quantum leap<br />
[forward].”<br />
The second problem was that even after<br />
Roberts and the trio re-recorded the music, in<br />
2006, the pianist hadn’t yet determined how he<br />
was going to deal with the new media environment<br />
of the 21st century. Though he had worked<br />
for major labels RCA and Sony/Columbia in the<br />
1990s, these and others had dismantled their jazz<br />
departments. Roberts, meanwhile, had grown<br />
disenchanted with the major-label approach to<br />
marketing—and owning—an artist’s work and<br />
decided he didn’t want to return to the old way<br />
of releasing music.<br />
“I thought it would be kind of cool to get<br />
away from the traditional structure, which I do<br />
believe is dying,” Roberts said.<br />
Amidst the on-again, off-again recording<br />
angst, Roberts busily pursued an area of<br />
musical thought rarely broached in jazz:<br />
creating improvised versions of classical works<br />
for piano and orchestra. He had made a considerable<br />
splash with his improvised “Rhapsody In<br />
Blue,” which he released on his 1996 Portraits<br />
In Blue. After performing “Rhapsody” with<br />
Ozawa, the conductor urged him to try the same<br />
approach with the “Concerto In F.”<br />
But the concerto posed a tougher challenge<br />
than the “Rhapsody,” a single movement work<br />
that itself feels spontaneous (Gershwin, in fact,<br />
improvised his solos during the work’s 1924<br />
premiere). The “Concerto In F,” by contrast,<br />
stands as a formal, three-movement structure<br />
that offers fewer obvious places in which a jazz<br />
trio can cut loose.<br />
Nevertheless, at Ozawa’s urging, Roberts<br />
and colleagues spent a year-and-a-half developing<br />
the new–old opus. “I am amazed at the artistic<br />
gift of Marcus Roberts,” Ozawa said. “His<br />
ear, knowledge and feeling toward the music—<br />
the only thing is he’s a jazz player, so we don’t<br />
have a common repertoire, between he and I.<br />
When he told me he could do a jazz arrangement,<br />
or improvised version, of the ‘Concerto In<br />
F,’ like we did first with ‘Rhapsody In Blue,’<br />
that was good. That is a small area where we can<br />
be together, and in this area he is a genius.”<br />
In “Rhapsody” and “Concerto In F,” Roberts<br />
poetically reimagines American masterpieces,<br />
preserving the thematic material of the originals<br />
but giving the works a rhythmic lift and creative<br />
freedom that are unique to jazz. To Roberts, the<br />
concerto experience represents more than just a<br />
fusion of related musical languages. It’s nothing<br />
less than an attempt to nurture new listeners.<br />
“Jazz and classical—each audience is in<br />
jeopardy of getting lost,” said Roberts, referring<br />
to the ongoing marginalization of everything but<br />
the most commercial musical products in<br />
America these days. “If we come together with<br />
respect, we can rebuild both audiences.”<br />
So far, however, that has not been easy—at<br />
least not with the concerto projects, which<br />
38 DOWNBEAT June 2009