BIG BAND AND BEETHOVEN: N E W Y E A R ’ S C E L E B R AT I O N Program Notes PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY/ DUKE ELLINGTON/ BILLY STRAYHORN/JEFF TYZIK 1840–93/1899–1974/1915–67/b.1951
Selections from The Nutcracker Suite composed: 1960 most recent oregon symphony performance: November 11, 2011; Gregory Vajda, conductor instrumentation: 2 flutes, oboe, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, alto saxophone, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, tuba, percussion, jazz bass, and strings estimated duration: 30 minutes By 1960, Duke Ellington had nothing left to prove. He was America’s foremost big band composer, a formidable pianist, and the creator of an elegant style of jazz and swing that became an indelible part of the American sound. He had crisscrossed the country with his band dozens of times since the 1930s and had stretched the boundaries of jazz harmony and structures with compositions like “Mood Indigo” and Black, Brown, and Beige.
SW 6th between Oak & Pine hours MON–FRI 11:30am–11:00pm SAT & SUN 5:00pm–11:00pm
reservation 503.688.5952 littlebirdbistro.com 215 SW 6TH AVE. PORTLAND, OR 97204
36 artslandia.com
When Ellington teamed up with composer, lyricist, and arranger Billy Strayhorn in 1939, the two men formed a unique partnership that lasted until Strayhorn’s untimely death in 1967. Strayhorn wrote his share of jazz hits – he is best known for “Take the A Train” and “Lush Life” – but he also brought a deep knowledge of classical music to his work with Ellington. It is significant that the first time Strayhorn’s name appeared alongside Ellington’s on a record is their 1960 Columbia album of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, which Strayhorn arranged.
Strayhorn and Ellington transformed more than the music; the familiar movement titles also underwent what Ellington called “reorchestration.” Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy changes its character entirely, shifting from a delicate interlude featuring celeste to a down-and-dirty striptease known as Sugar Rum Cherry, while with added syncopation, the March becomes the Peanut Brittle Brigade. In adapting The Nutcracker for big band, Strayhorn wrote for particular members of Ellington’s orchestra. The gorgeous trumpet solo in the Overture was made for Ray Nance, and no one but “Booty” Wood could make his trombone with plunger mute growl in quite the same way. Ellington’s biographer John Edward Hasse suggests that in creating this adaptation, Ellington and, to a lesser extent, Strayhorn were “putting one over” on the public. Hasse asks, rhetorically, “Why did Ellington and Strayhorn adapt the Tchaikovsky and Grieg suites? [The duo also made jazz versions of Grieg’s suites from Peer Gynt] As part of the time-honored traditions of ragging or jazzing the classics, to make Tchaikovsky and Grieg hip, to make them swing?… Was it at least partly to put people on?” Perhaps. Ellington, caught in an unguarded moment on tape, once described himself as “not a bank robber, but a sneak-thief.” Whatever their motivations, Ellington and Strayhorn’s version of The Nutcracker lends this beloved music a wholly unique sensibility – in the words of one reviewer, “transformed into jazz with affection, skill, and humor.”