Some Like It Hot
Usher Hall, 3/5/24
The Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra, Tommy Smith, Bertie Baigent, Makoto Ozone, piano
A packed Usher Hall was the venue for a terrific evening of jazz-based music on Friday, as the RSNO let its hair down in the company of the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra. It was great to see such a diverse audience of young and old, united in their love of jazz, and this collaboration between two genres was, for me, a most satisfactory one. I remain unconvinced about the combination of symphonic and period bands, but this fusion seemed a more natural fit.
The concert started with a grouping of three pieces played by the SNJO, introduced by Tommy Smith himself, Scotland’s world class sax player. It was a bit like Haydn’s Farewell Symphony in reverse, as, from a simple drum, piano and bass group, instruments were added until we had a full big band blowing us away. Improvised pieces by Duke Ellington and Florian Ross (arranger of Bernstein’s ‘West Side Story’) were brilliantly played with solos from several orchestra members, and Tommy himself.
The RSNO joined in for the second part of the first half, with the jazzers in the front, and they all played Tommy Smith’s reimagining of George Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’. For this both scored and improvised work, the wonderfully named Bertie Baigent took to the podium to introduce a measure of control to the proceedings, and the piano was taken over by the fantastic jazz pianist, Makoto Ozone. This Japanese maestro burst on to the scene in 1983 with his solo recital at the Carnegie Hall in New York, and he has been entertaining countless jazz and classical fans ever since. Tommy Smith’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ goes way further than Gershwin’s classic composition, and for me, it rather overstayed its welcome. I would have preferred a bit more of the original and a bit less of the improvised material, as it extended beyond the 45 minute mark. However, there was no doubt about the brilliance of the playing of everyone on stage, and the great roar of approval at the end demonstrated a satisfied audience!
After the interval, the RSNO had reverted to their normal positions, with members of the jazz orchestra interspersed with them. There were saxes behind the second violins and a drum kit behind the cellos! We began with Bernard Herrmann’s suite from ‘Vertigo’, Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 thriller, starring James Stewart and Kim Novak. This is a superbly atmospheric score, full of telling references to Richard Wagner’s ‘Tristan und Isolde,’ and it was played wonderfully by the orchestra, incisively led by Bertie Baigent, still only in his 20s but already much in demand as a conductor, having won the Grand Prize at the 2022 International Conducting Competition in Rotterdam. I must re-watch ‘Vertigo!’
The final work in the concert was the Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, a piece extracted by Leonard Bernstein from his full score of the musical for a gala concert by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in 1961. ‘West Side Story’, a reworking of Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ set in the Upper West Side of Manhattan in the mid-1950s, was first performed, after try outs in Washington and Philadelphia, at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway in September 1957, with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins. It was immediately a smash hit and has remained supremely popular ever since. Using the topical problems of gang warfare in Manhattan in the 1950s, pitching the Hispanic Puerto Rican community (the Sharks) against the Polish/Irish Catholics (the Jets), its enduring story of love across the divide, ending in inevitable tragedy, resonates to this day, powered by Bernstein’s most inspired score.
The suite is in nine parts, leading us through the whole story from the Prologue, where we see the tensions rise between the two gangs, via Tony and Maria’s meeting and falling in love, through the tragic Rumble where Bernardo and Tony are killed, to the final resolution of the enmity and, hopefully, an end to the violence in the Finale. Bernstein’s brilliantly inventive score follows the highs and lows of the story, with beautiful lyric sections, notably ‘Somewhere’ when the violas get an unexpected lead role, through the sizzling Scherzo and Mambo, when the whole orchestra gets to declaim “mambo” out loud. Gorgeous solos for guest leader Lasma Taimina and horn principal Christopher Gough, along with extra lively work from the whole percussion section, contributed to a stunning performance, much appreciated by the big audience. The nature of the work precludes a dramatic ending, but Bertie Baigent kept the last moments alive and resonant.
This was truly a concert which blew away stuffy genre concepts, and I hope will be the first of many to come.
