Outskirts for Jazz Quintet and Orchestra.

Abstract

Outskirts (duration 23’00”) is a two-movement work for orchestra and a quintet of improvising jazz musicians (trumpet, saxophone, piano, bass, and drum set). The work explores the relationship between improvising and interpretive musicians, creating opportunities for the two to interact in musical environments free of stylistic limitations. Outskirts is driven by a belief that previous efforts to blend jazz with concert music, such as those of the “third stream,” do not succeed because of their reliance on cultural signifiers for jazz and classical music alike. Using “swing”, “walking bass”, and other jazz colloquialisms as the basis for the orchestra’s music, these works tend to treat jazz as an exotic element to be showcased against a Euro-classical musical foundation. By contrast, Outskirts avoids cliches of jazz inflection and long, jazz-characteristic “solo sections”. Synthesis of the jazz and classical traditions is instead achieved through the juxtaposition and relationship of improvised musical material to written musical material. Improvised material appears in counterpoint with written material, and the two continuously alternate between dominant and supporting roles. In the absence of traditional solo sections or textures which encourage jazz stylings, the improvising musicians rely on the written music for interaction and conversation. The resulting music is a hybrid of jazz — self-generative, dialogue-centric improvisation — and European classical music — a prescriptive tradition showcasing a great deal of structure and intricacy. Outskirts thus represents a step forward from the “third stream” efforts, which may be considered a postmodernist classical practice and not a true synthesis of jazz and classical music. It also presents compositional strategies for integrating jazz musicians into the orchestra on a structural (rather than superficial) level, and for showcasing individual improvisers’ creative voices in non-traditional jazz contexts.