Ever since the rise of jazz in the early 20th century, attempts have been made to combine it with classical music. Many such experimental ventures have joined the canon of that century's music.
Dave Brubeck and Wynton Marsalis performed as soloists in symphony orchestras; Stephane Grappeli made recordings and gave concerts with Yehudi Menuhin. For such innovators, the combination of a classical structure and a jazzy openness always seems an enhancement of the sound and style.
Among the various projects, the transcriptions of classical pieces into jazz are often the most interesting. And it's the work of Polish musicians that seems to lead the pack - maybe because of a Polish hesitation between a central-European orthodoxy and a Bohemian cultural inclination.
Wlodzimierz Nahorny is such a jazz musician and he will bring the creative fusion to the city for one night to create one highlight of the International Spring Music Festival.
"Nahorny keeps himself far away from the noise of show business, but his name is still a strong magnet," enthused a Warsaw newspaper.
The cardinal of jazz - as reviewers have dubbed him - is famous for jazzing up Szymanowski's compositions at music festivals around the world. As distinctive is his compatriot Zbigniew Namyslowski, who leads a jazz quartet and renders Mozart in her alto soprano.
Heading the Nahorny Sextet, Narhony will focus on Chopin's compositions at the forthcoming concert.
The performance, titled "The Polish Fantasy," will have seven sections, each named after a color, mixing original and transcribed versions of Chopin's two fantasies and four preludes. Nahorny will also perform a piece he composed himself.
All these will be set within a milieu of music improvised by the master himself and his band.
"The Polish Fantasy" is a continuation of the musicians' 1997 Nahorny-Szymanowski program presented in philharmonic theaters and jazz clubs in Poland and abroad. Both reviewers and the audience gave an ardent response to the project. An album "The Myths" was also made for the project, and was nominated for the Fryderyk '97 Music Award.
In 1999, as a commemoration of the 150th anniversary of Chopin's death, Nahorny and his guests gave a similar Chopin-jazz concert in the National Philharmonic Hall in Warsaw.
In the local Glos Szczecinski newspaper, critic Anna Podkanska wrote that, "There was a Slavonic melody, some melancholy, striking colors, a lot of artistic fun and - naturally - an excellent technique with a jazz fantasy."
(Eastday.com 04/27/2001)
