# Jazzy classical music



## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

So I never really liked jazz and I still dont, but Ive recently really started enjoying 'jazzy' classical music. Gershwin, particularly the Porgy & Bess symphonic portrait, and also particularly the symphonic nocturne from Lady in the Dark by Kurt Weill..

Any similar recommendations?


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Some that come to mind:

Milhaud - Le Creation du Monde (Genesis)
Ravel - Piano Concerto in G ; his Violin Sonata also has a movement called 'blues'
Bernstein - Fancy Free ballet ; also bits of (esp. the rag-like cadenza for piano) in his Sym.#2 'Age of Anxiety' ; Three Dance Episodes from On The Town
Stravinsky - Dumbarton Oaks ; Ragtime ; Ebony Concerto (done for Woody Herman)
Copland - Clarinet Concerto (done for Benny Goodman)
Elena Kats-Chernin - Russian Rag (there are several versions at youtube) ; Piano Concerto #2 - here's the whole thing, esp. take note of the slow movement, which was inspired by both Chopin and ragtime. I always found this like a 'modern younger brother' of Ravel's concerto

& also suites by Duke Ellington - eg. Black, brown and beige (an example of a jazz-man coming over to classical, rather than the other way round)
Ditto Artie Shaw - his Concerto for Clarinet

Not the same as those above, but related in some ways:
Elliott Carter - Clarinet Concerto (again, a bit like a more 'highbrow' equivalent of Copland's concerto for the instrument)
Bartok - Contrasts (done for Benny Goodman as well)


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## kitaro (Mar 6, 2012)

Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 32, second mouvement.

(from 6:10)


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

Just saw this today









Who knew.

Shostakovich's Jazz suites are great, not sure if the soviet idea of jazz was very authentic though.

Nikolai Kapustin's piano works are quite jazzy sounding.

This is good if you like vocals.


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## Guest (Nov 2, 2012)

This is a lovely little piece by Enescu that feels like more modern atmospheric jazz:






I think it's great but then I do like jazz. Your mileage may vary.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

i have to mention again alec wilder (i'm starting to be like composer of avantgarde with ligeti or couchie with wagner): his thirty octets first of all are wonderful in my opinion, but a lot of his music borders between classical and jazz.













constant lambert - rio grande





louis gruenberg - four diversions (a very interesting string quartet)

david amram - triple concerto
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSOv-La5lk4[/URL

tibor serly - six dance designs
[URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo0M0nlF4cI"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo0M0nlF4cI

morton gould - derivations for solo clarinet and band





martinu - la revue de cuisine





kapustin - a lot of stuff

karl birger blomdhal - aniara (a space opera with jazzy rhythms, electronic effects and atonal harmony)

hindemith - kammermusik n.1 op.24 





John Alden Carpenter - Skyscrapers





but there are also pieces made by edwin schulhoff, radames gnattali, gunther schuller, teo macero (yes, teo macero), even milton babbitt









and then there's a lot of third stream music made by jazz musicians:
ellington beside black brown and beige mentioned by sid did also pieces like reminiscing in tempo and night creature





johnny richards - annotations of the muses

red norvo - dance of the octopus, a delightful example of third stream ante litteram, and maybe the most harmonically advanced piece of jazz written in the thirties





lyle spud murphy - his album gone with the woodwinds is really good and with a very original harmonic language





dave brubeck - octets





george barnes - octets

charles mingus - a lot of his stuff, from black saint and the sinner lady to let the children hear music to epitath and other things

ralph burns - summer sequence (for the woody herman orchestra)





jimmy giuffre - fugue





cannonball adderley - alabama suite

miles davis - sketches of spain

modern jazz quartet, george russell, ted greene, bill russo, jj johnson, gary mcfarland, gil melle, reginald foresythe, etc


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## Guest (Nov 2, 2012)

Great post Norman! I'll have to work my way through some of your suggestions!


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## Kevin Pearson (Aug 14, 2009)

One artist that comes immediately to my mind that I think you should check out is Claude Bolling. He has done several classical and Jazz crossover compositions. Like his Suite for Violin and Jazz Piano, Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano, Suite for Chamber Orchestra and Jazz Piano etc. A list of his compositions can be gleaned on Wikipedia here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Bolling

Kevin


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I bought the Benny Goodman classical CD a while back. It features Contrasts with Bela Bartok on piano recorded in 1940. The other material is in better quality stereo sound recorded in the 60s. Copland's clarinet concerto, Stravinky's Ebony Concerto, and pieces by Bernstein and others are featured. Good stuff!

I'll second the Claude Bolling. Great music for classical fans who want a taste of jazz.


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## samurai (Apr 22, 2011)

How about _*Bolero*,_ by Maurice Ravel?


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

some more:

george antheil - jazz symphony 





ernest krenek - jonny spielt auf

giorgio gaslini - tempo e relazione (twelve tone music)

andré jolivet - trumpet concertos





william bolcom 









erwin schulhoff - partita





harold farberman - concerto for jazz drummer and orchestra
http://www.allmusic.com/album/farberman-concerto-for-jazz-drummer-shchedrin-carmen-suite-mw0001542716

andré hodeir - jazz et jazz

rolf liebermann - concerto for jazz band





william grant still - levee land (but i have not heard yet this one)


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## appoggiatura (Feb 6, 2012)

Galynin's piano concerto has a lot of great rhythms and reminds me of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.
Or the 'Brasileira' movement from Scaramouche (Milhaud).


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## LordBlackudder (Nov 13, 2010)




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## Schubussy (Nov 2, 2012)

Sid James said:


> & also suites by Duke Ellington - eg. Black, brown and beige (an example of a jazz-man coming over to classical, rather than the other way round)
> Ditto Artie Shaw - his Concerto for Clarinet


Similar idea, Miles Davis's 'Sketches of Spain', especially his version of Joaquin Rodrigo's 'Concierto De Aranjuez' 





Moondog borders jazz and classical too.





Looking forward to going through this thread later.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I like William Grant Still's Afro-American Symphony. 
And I'd second Aaron Copland's Clarinet Concerto. 
Off the beaten track, Converse's Flivver Ten Million is jazzy in a Gershwin-esque way, as is John Alden Carpenter's Skyscrapers.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

BPS said:


> This is a lovely little piece by Enescu that feels like more modern atmospheric jazz:
> 
> I think it's great but then I do like jazz. Your mileage may vary.


Wow, that borders on jazz. Actually, a jazz duo playing this would fool me.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Emiell, this one will probably turn you off. But to those who are into hard-core third-stream jazz, Stan Kenton playing Bob Graettinger's City of Glass is definitely out on the borders. (Graettinger's the only composer of any note to come out of my hometown of Ontario, California, so I'm a little biased toward him  ).


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Kapustin's Preludes in a Jazz Style.

Also, Hamelin has a disk called "In a Jazz Style" which is classical music that sounds like jazz (mostly not actually jazz).


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## drpraetorus (Aug 9, 2012)

The Three Penny Opera is mostly 30's euro jazz. 
Bersteins music for "On the Waterfront" has a bluesy feel. Also several songs from "Westside Story" especially "Cool" and the opening sequence. If your not keen on the vocals, Berstein put together a symphonic suite or dances from West Side Story that is pretty good.


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## mud (May 17, 2012)

I recommend Jean Francaix, he was an eclectic French composer who wrote music into the 1990s for most every instrument, including some famously difficult to play pieces for winds that are equally easy to listen to:











French composers in general have incorporated jazz motifs in their music more often than any other nationality from what I have heard.


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## mud (May 17, 2012)

Imani Winds has recorded a few albums of jazzy classical music (including some of their own compositons and arrangements).


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## Prodromides (Mar 18, 2012)

The recommendations offered here, for whatever they are worth, are compositions from different genres which crossover by incorporating jazzy elements into overall more extended orchestral expressions (or vice versa  ). These listed below do not sound like Gershwin or Weill, per se, but may be of interest to those willing to explore outside formally-labeled classical music.
Also, none of this music has truly improvised instrumental performances as in "pure" jazz - these albums all contain annotated scores to be performed by an orchestra.


*Film Soundtrack* - I'LL CRY TOMORROW (1955) by Alex North.










This is big band style music. While some tracks are jazz standards functioning as source music, the score proper is typical Alex North psychological underpinning. I believe Miles Davis himself once said "Alex North is da Man!"

*Jazz Ballet* - ORIGINAL SIN (1961) by John Lewis.










Jazzer Lewis tried his hand at the classical music sub-category of ballet, and the resultant album is excellent, IMO (though I'm not jazz aficionado myself). The above pictured LP has been re-issued onto a CD album, paired with another Lewis record, and priced low enough for a blind buy excursion.

*Television Soundtrack* - THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE BELL & A STEP OUT OF LINE by Jerry Goldsmith.










A pair of made-for-TV-movie scores on one disc. THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE BELL (1970) is prime-time Goldsmith (in more than one sense  ), for it was written during Goldsmith's most fervent 12-tone period. Words fail to accurately describe this (monaural) listening experience, but imagine, if you will, a main theme reminiscent of solo-cello Bach with serial-atonal harmonic distortions performed by a studio orchestra comprised of jazz soloists (bass fiddle, jazzy flute, drums, etc.). A genre-blender and a mind-bender!
A STEP OUT OF LINE (1971) is also similarly crafted, but its sound world is closer to that of the Italian _giallo_ soundtrack with not much classical music affiliation except for several passages of _col legno_ strings a la early Penderecki.

*Jazz Symphony* (1988) by Meyer Kupferman.






Kupferman is/was contemporary classical, and his jazz symphony is perhaps the finest example of Kupferman's career-long crossover between classical and jazz. Kupferman utilized dodecaphonic techniques for both idioms (and even wrote a book entitled _Atonal Jazz_), and had his signature tone row which he used in many of his compositions and called "Infinities".
This symphony requires a female vocalist and saxophone soloist, who have the freedom to indulge in jazz-like improvising.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Manxfeeder said:


> Emiell, this one will probably turn you off. But to those who are into hard-core third-stream jazz, Stan Kenton playing Bob Graettinger's City of Glass is definitely out on the borders.


On the same vein there are some other works, like Gunther Schuller's Jumpin' in the future or those of George Handy for the band of Boyd Raeburn 




http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/pid/1538625/a/Jumpin%27+in+the+Future.htm

Even Teo Macero who is today remembered more for his work as producer for Miles Davis on Bitches brew has made albums on his own like Time plus seven, and the same for Stan Getz who made a dissonant third stream album like Change of scene with Francy Boland. And Bob Brookmeyer did his Make me smile. And Bob Prince did his Avikianis brasileiras.

this collection called "outstanding jazz compositions" 








is an interesting album for those who are into that kind of cerebral third stream.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

I don´t have much to add to member Norman Bates´ impressive lists, except from

Copland: Piano Concerto
Weill: Three-Penny Opera & Suite

My preferred composer in this field is the already mentioned *Nikolai Kapustin* 

- his chamber music in particular, such as the

- saxophone & cello pieces 



- pieces for cello & piano 



 



 etc.
- string quartet


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Prodromides said:


> [*]*Television Soundtrack* - THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE BELL & A STEP OUT OF LINE by Jerry Goldsmith.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


i have listened it on youtube, very interesting soundtrack for sure


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## Ravndal (Jun 8, 2012)

First thing that comes to mind is: Antheil - sonata sauvage and gershwin - rhapsody in blue


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## Rhythm (Nov 2, 2013)

*Classical musicians of color | Imani Winds*

The ensemble Imani Winds is compelling!





^ Their intro.





^ Imani Winds & Boston Brass Tackle Gil Evans & Miles Davis

Thanks for these posts by Lunasong and mud!


Lunasong said:


> I saw the Imani Winds in concert last night. Very eclectic performance; nothing what you might consider typical chamber music or wind ensemble repertoire. They performed works from the two composers in the group (Flute/Horn); also pieces which the group has commissioned. Unfortunately I promptly lost the program, so I don't know the names of all the works! The program was called "West to East" (or similar). They opened with a world premiere performance piece (composed by Jeff Scott), then played a commissioned suite by Jason Moran called _Cane_ that was Cajun in flavor. The next suite was written in honor of Josephine Baker by Valerie Coleman and included elements of St Louis and French jazz, and dance. Then, interval.
> After interval, the group played another original piece by Coleman that contained gypsy elements. They next went totally off program with a quintet version of Stravinsky's _Rite of Spring_. They finished with another off-program piece that was _klezmer_ inspired and really gave the clarinet player a workout!
> I would have loved to seen the scores for these pieces as none except the final piece had any element of regular count. It was a very energetic and intense performance by five individuals with a cohesive performance style.
> 
> ...





mud said:


> Imani Winds has recorded a few albums of jazzy classical music (including some of their own compositons and arrangements).


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## Piwikiwi (Apr 1, 2011)

I come from a jazz background and I dislike most jazzy classical music. I rather have one or the other not a watered down version of both


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Hanns Eisler - esp. the orchestral suites extracted from his film music plus some of his collaborations with Brecht where his style shares much common ground with Weill. H.K. Gruber's disc with the Ensemble Modern (called 'Roaring Eisler') on RCA Red Seal is especially recommended.


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## Rhythm (Nov 2, 2013)

From my listening of Imani, their performances have been and probably still are underpinned with a precision that comes with rigorous classical training on an instrument, and that articulation bound in ensemble performances became appealing to me with regard to their cross-over culture. 

Over time, though, if that articulation or precision disappears from my listening of Imani, then I’ll likely be disappointed. Then, again, maybe there won’t be disappointment, because the uncertainty these days about what’s being created from the classically and jazz oriented artistically creative minds is very much evolving. I just keep on listening .


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

This should include third stream (and I see Norm has got some in there!) and if you don't know what I'm talking about then google it. Also: Gunther Schuller!

How about Donatoni's Hot and Stravinsky's Ebony Concerto too!


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## Guest (Mar 9, 2014)

Don't know if this would be considered an appropriate suggestion...but here goes...

Check out ROVA saxophone quartet. IMO, a brilliant, challenging and creative group of musicians and composers. They've made many albums...


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