Another blogging day comes to a close with some music. Sometimes people ask me why I like both jazz and baroque music. I tell people that the two styles are much more similar than people can imagine. For one thing, they’re both highly contrapuntal and improvisatory, and based on pattern permutations. But sometimes a “listen” is worth a thousand words. Here’s a little piece by French composer Claude Bolling (whose works I’ve always liked and enjoyed), the first movement of a piece deliberately composed in both styles, and more or less like the first movement of a concerto. In this case, the tutti or orchestral sections play the theme in “pure baroque” style, and the solo piano (with smaller jazz ensemble) plays the concertato sections in jazz style, with each entrance more and more permutations, until the final “jazzy” recapitulation towards the end which blends both styles. It’s a very clever way to organize a piece, and demonstrate how close the two styles are. More importantly, it’s just fun. I apologize if I’ve posted this before, but so what? The piece is good, and fun, and good fun:
, analogies between baroque music and jazz [ and even some well constructed rock]. When I do a formal presentation in this area I will use the neo-baroque/rock song Mr. Crowley with its amazing extended virtuoso guitar cadenza by Randy Rhoads and its counterpart in the extended harpsichord cadenza of the J.S. Bach 5th Brandenburg concerto. JSB must have had a great sense of humor among his other prodigious talents! I could just see him, wig and all, going on and on and on at the keyboard with the audience getting trolled in the way Haydn would do in his own way (cf the finale of the Haydn “Joke” string quartet). Take that, Arnold S.