The album opens with the first of three pieces taken from the young Bernstein’s first Broadway show, On the Town (later made into a movie starring Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly). The resulting concert was a blast!” Instead, the project’s five inventive arrangers – Jay Ashby, Darryl Brenzel, Scott Silbert, Mike Tomaro and Steve Williams– find inspiration in the more obscure corners of Bernstein’s output: the symphonic works, spiritual music, operas, lesser-known musical theater pieces and even his sole film score, for the classic On the Waterfront.
SJMO Artist Director and conductor Charlie Young explains, “Re-imagining Leonard Bernstein for this occasion required examining some of his compositions rarely associated with jazz. The Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, 20 plus pieces in all, mines the composer’s vast repertoire for a vibrant, surprising new set of music with music originally commissioned as part of the worldwide celebration of Bernstein’s centennial year in 2018.
This one heads in different directions, however in its generous 70 plus minutes. In 2019 Bobby Sanabria won a Grammy for West Side Story Reimagined. Jazz artists in turn felt the influence of Bernstein’s innovations, with interpretations of his work recorded by such icons as Bill Evans, Dave Brubeck, Oscar Peterson, Wes Montgomery, Wayne Shorter, and countless others. Also, the legendary composer once called jazz “ the ultimate common denominator of the American musical style.” The music made a profound impact on Bernstein’s work, not only in the more explicit “jazziness” of his work in musical theater, but throughout his “serious” orchestral music as well. In fact, Bernstein stated that Ellington wrote symphonic jazz while he wrote jazz symphonies.
Seeing the name Leonard Bernstein, will make most associate this ambitious project with classical music yet it reads more like a Duke Ellington or Gil Evans record.
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