GG: Jazz, Bill Evans, etc.

[John Hill <jphill@home.com>]

Bradley P Lehman wrote:

> Nope, but the way he plays the first movement of the Bach D-major concerto
> (the one that started life as the E-major violin concerto) sure sounds
> jazzy, though.  I had to go look to be sure he wasn't just making it all
> up, it was so fresh-sounding and joyful.  But it's (mostly) what Bach
> wrote, and GG's performance makes it sound as if it's all being improvised
> at a high level of inspiration.

Yep.  Another example is the second fugue from Art of the Fugue.  I seem to remember
seeing a video clip of GG performing this piece a while back and the interpretation
was very jazz-infused.  The continuous dotted eighth/sixteenth rhythm had been
transformed into a triplet swing figure and GG appeared to be "throwing
caution to the
wind" in his interpretation.  I've heard other versions of this same piece by
GG that were
much more cautious and restrained.

Wish I could remember where I saw this;  it could be on one of the Sony
laserdisc compilations.

> As Silvio pointed out a few years ago, GG enthusiastically endorsed the
> Bill Evans/Claus Ogerman jazz album "Symbiosis."

GG seems to have had nice things to say about Bill Evans in general.  He
referred to "Symbiosis" as "my kind of jazz".  CD318 was actually used by Evans
in some of his recordings during the early 60s (Conversations, etc.).

jh