Search - Emmanuel Pahud, Jacky Terrasson :: Into the Blue

This has no business working . . .

Jan P. Dennis | Monument, CO USA | 07/04/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

". . . yet it does, and brilliantly. It could only happen with players of a special sensibility, ones who thoroughly understand both jazz and classical music, and ones with the chutzpah to attempt and pull off the impossible.The problem with projects like this is that they tend to be neither fish nor fowl. Instead, what you often get is some grotesque hybrid. Not here. Apparently, a lot of thought, on the part of both the principles, Jacky Terrasson on piano and Emmanuel Pahud on flute, went into this project. The basic problem is how to make classical music swing without so destroying its native sensibility as to render it incomprehensible or irrelevant. To their great credit, I believe Terrasson and Pahud have solved this problem. How? By embuing classical music with genuine jazz sensibilities.What this requires, essentially, is a complete make-over. Each classical tune must be subjected to a rigorous process, one in which its core musical virtues are examined to see if they can be transposed into an authentic jazz mode. In reality, this isn't all that different from what, e.g., Egberto Gismonte did with northern Brazil folk music on Sanfona: entirely digest the aesthetic, contemplate it mightly, and come up with a way to fuse it with jazz, all the while retaining its inherent genius but shifting it into a different key.And that's what Terrasson and Pahud do here, with equally astonishing results. Really, this had all the earmarks of a real clunker. But the genius of this team somehow figured out how to avoid all the pitfalls.The real test for me came not on the Revel, Faure, Debussy, and Saint-Saens pieces but on Vivaldi's Four Seasons. After all, there is probably a natural bridge between high French romantic classical music and jazz, but what about Italian Baroque? What we're talking about here is a process probably not dissimilar to adapting books to the silver screen. If one takes a slavishly literalistic approach, as, e.g., Dune, the results flop, dismally. If one retains the heart but suitably adapts the forms, as with, e.g., Tess or Cry the Beloved Country or The Year of Living Dangerously or The Lord of the Rings, the results can be spectacular. The idea isn't to reproduce the book on the screen. Rather, it's to evoke the deepest sensibilities of the book, transforming and transposing it where necessary, all the while remaining doggedly faithful to its essential insights.And that'w what's been done here. The key with Vivaldi's Four Seasons is that it's kept short and sweet. Indeed, each of the four movements comes in under two minutes. The pieces more naturally attuned to a jazz vibe, such as Ravel's "Pavane" and "Bolero," get lengthier treatment. There's also a good bit of humor here. Who would've thought of Debussy's "Jimbo's Lullaby" as a reggae tune? But it works perfectly, naturally, even magically. Or Mozart's "Marche a la turque" as a tango? But again, it's perfect. And how could you possibly redeem a flogged-to-death tune like Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee"? Once again, by simply stating the famous them, deftly tweaked by the brilliant rhythm section, and getting out.OK. Enough of the highbrow analysis. I just absolutely LOVE this disc and am in total awe of Jacky Terrasson. He's my hero. He's almost singlehandedly rescuing jazz from a bunch of dead ends and applying his monster talent to lead it in profitably new directions. I don't even like jazz flute. I certainly wouldn't have acquired this mondo weirdo disc except for my faith in him. A faith that has been completely, absolutely justified. No matter who you are--alienated teen who gets off on Godspeed You! Black Emperor; classical fuddy-duddy arguing over who does the best Mahler Sixth; new music fan who digs Nono and Xenakis; jazz avant-gardist into William Hooker and John Butcher--I think you'll dig this brilliant coming together of jazz and classical music. Or, maybe not. But I don't think so."