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